Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/191

 plicity we have ensured endless confusion. As a matter of fact both the simple-minded citizen and the economist spend most of their time and effort in politely getting out of the way of the drunken lurching of our crowned delusion.

The total value of a business cannot be arrived at by counting either the money in the till or the goods on the shelves. Scope, clientele, insurance, good-will and continuity are not represented; neither are the wages due at the end of the month, or the taxes at the end of the year.

If we can get away from the idea of a commodity unit of value, whether gold or ham and eggs—simple notions which are barriers to all hope of precision—and can think of economic value as the normal effort of a measurable population within a given area, as modified by the scope of order, we must realize that this total bears no calculable relationship to its visible products which would justify us in using any one, or all of them, for that matter, as a measure of value, any more than we could use a fifty horse-power, two ton truck running round a race-track as a measure of the volume, density and rotation of the earth. These latter are a valid gauge of effort for the essential reason that they are not in any way prejudiced by being the product of that effort.

We should realize, further, that the equilibrium we propose to use as a gauge of all specific economic values, is made up, not only of the visible surplus realized, but also of what is purely anticipatory and of what is consumed. If a protest should arise because it is asserted that we must include what is anticipatory or consumed as part of our basic value, it may be pointed out that economic value, like other values involving effort, is something far more than visible yield. It is the product of much “lost work,” of much unmarketable dreaming, and of the many forgings in some vital sequence which waits the final link. This is even more obvious in the realm of physics. We may have one horse-power in a willing horse, but it is not realized if he cannot move the wagon to which he is hitched. If we grease the axles of the wagon this value becomes evident.