Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/202

 instead of checking it as we do now for the sake of belated equity or the avoidance of revolt.

The tragedy of the whole business is that we think bitterly in terms of misappropriation instead of coldly in terms of maladjustment. The stream of value is ample if we can provide inducement and facilities. All we need is scientific measurement. To hand men in exchange for their effort a certificate of value which represents a partial and unrelated portion of value, and to leave them subject to the further depredations of arbitrary taxation, is to guarantee that maximum effort will not be exerted. We have accepted an economic system which results in retardation instead of flow. The law of diminishing returns is perhaps the most valid “law” the political-economists have put forward in their so-called “science of political economy.” What else can we look for but diminishing returns if we employ a unit of diminishing value?

It is, perhaps, only fair to the reader to attempt to reconcentrate this general examination of economic value.

The political-economists have concerned themselves chiefly with supply, disregarding both demand and the medium of contact. They have devoted their attention to material products instead of the effective effort which can be induced by the possible gratification of our growing desire for ampler freedom. Because of their preoccupation they make only cloudy distinctions between effort, facilities and value. The followers of Marx speak of effort as though it were value. The followers of Henry George speak of facilities as though they were value. And yet overlapping, colliding and disputing, as they do, they have covered the truth between them. Some of them have properly described effort, or labor, as the “source of value,” others have described facilities as “use-value,” or “site-value,” and most of them have defined value itself as “exchange-value,” or “marginal utility.” “Marginal utility” is an interesting recognition of the dividing line between value and facilities. When a man has two gallons of water for sale in a drought, this water commands effective effort and therefore has economic value. When he and others have 10,000 gallons between them, this water commands less