Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/223

 tion, an increasing percentage of the yield of extra-effort, private enterprises proving to be failures must one by one be taken over by the state. In classic order ensue sterile rigidity, autocratic control of labor, and chaos—followed by a new cycle of government. But if we wish to exercise our political opportunity and employ remedies less severe than death and resurrection, we have two alternatives: to wait if possible until education has caught up with democracy, or to set ourselves firmly against any change unless the proper functions of a democratic government are defined. If we can limit these to the maintenance of order and the creation of general facilities, it may be safe to move forward; but if, as now, the functions of government are to include anything from the sale of fish to the operation of coal mines, we had better be content to struggle along, harassed by taxation on need and activity, tricked and defrauded by our currency, burdened with the cost of palliatives, such as unemployment insurance, and trampled by the ruthless and profitless competition of government bureaus as in shipping. At least we may have the satisfaction of having given the bureaucrat no sign of surrender.

And yet it is possible to parley with the bureaucrat even though he has come to feel that all he is capable of is a seat in the Custom-House, or a position as inspector of inspectors of tax-returns—occupations in which the hours are light and the pay regular: there is this hope for him—the proper functions of government under democracy—the maintenance of order and the creation of general facilities—include education, sanitation, the improvement of roadways, waterways and harbors, and, on the public domain, until it is divided as quickly as may be for private development, reclamation and forestry. These are more noble tasks than proposing taxes on ice-cream or examining tourists’ trunks and widows’ bank-books. And they are such ample tasks that they would absorb at fair remuneration all the idle population that our foolish sentimentalists now propose to endow from the public funds, through unemployment insurance. If the government can be compelled to devote itself to the maintenance of order and the creation of common