Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/218

 the constant of land-area, a valid currency may be designed so as to be redeemable in the freedom insured by order—the essence of dynamic value. This means that if the supply of currency is limited in quantity, by the certified fact of census-area, and made positive in value by the pre-deduction of the cost of order, we can then insure redeemability since these certificates become indispensable to freedom of motion, just as hydraulic value (potentiality less friction) is redeemable in effective flow. Passports, evidences of registration and tax receipts are not redeemable in gold, but they have value of a sort because they are redeemable in freedom.

A “normally redeemable” gold note does not represent facts, and for this reason, as well as the subsequent incidence of incalculable taxation, it does not, when most needed, guarantee freedom of action. Certificates of net census-area have only to be made the sole basis of legal tender, in payment of taxes, labor and all other obligations, to be indispensable. The payment of just taxes is the basic insurance of freedom. The bare wages of unskilled labor are also a means of freedom, being an eagerly desired reprieve from the bondage of cold and hunger; while any fuller remuneration (because it insures a choice of the goods or services of others in whatever form they may appear) is always in keen demand, for the fundamental reason that it ensures a still ampler freedom.

Such considerations as these, however novel they may appear from the standpoint of our present conventions, have greater scientific validity than the double delusion that our present currency is a measure of value because it is redeemable in gold—an assumption which today has no more justification than a statement that cast-iron has a high food value because it is digestible.

Our present currency is a second-mortgage on certain chattels which may be moved out of legal reach by a private or alien owner. It should be a first-mortgage on land-area, which cannot be moved and which can be scientifically appraised by the flow of free population.

A scientific currency to be redeemable in value must obviously be fully representative of all value, whether the posi-