Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/199

 whelmed by the reverberations of ritual. To gain something more than pity it seems advisable to be rude.

''Our present logic has no better claim upon scientific sanction than it would if we regarded economic value as the milk from an ill-fed cow—a three component value consisting of butter fat, casein and water. What we do now is to allow the urban landowner a share of the whole milk; the international owner of massed gold the right to raid the cream-pans at periodic intervals; while effort, thrift, and self-denial are left to provide the fodder and fight for a definite number of ounces of skim-milk,—of casein and water in varying proportions. This is what now goes on, and the record shows that the politician, or his delegate, who handles the pump, is contributing a larger flow of liquid than the cow!''

Just as long as we use gold or goods as a national basis of value we shall have a see-saw:—strike and lock-out, boom and depression, activity and panic, overproduction and underproduction, inflation and deflation,—all the symptoms of a one-cylinder engine with no fly-wheel.

Our present certified unit of economic value is an arbitrary and unrepresentative mixture, made up partly of gold which owing to alien demand may be suddenly withdrawn from the country unless prevented by fiat, and partly of credit, strictly limited by fiat as to its nature, and further limited by bureaucratic discretion. We have made up in one package Gresham’s “good” and “bad” money; and consequently find ourselves, willy-nilly, driven toward imperialism by the “good” element and toward bureaucracy by the “bad” element. We flout Gresham’s law by tying up these two antagonistic elements with red tape.

In dealing with the economic consequences of the use of gold, when we have an awkward surplus, as at present, the administration has to fight off very fervid and specious requests to guarantee private loans of gold to weak alien borrowers by an assurance of the use of the Navy as a collection agent if necessary. In case of the other painful alternative a shortage of gold—we place an embargo on export. Little