Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/230



is largely reiteration for the sake of emphasis; and is an extended index of the foregoing arguments. It is designed to amplify the contention that economics must primarily be a study of basic control, maximum development, and just measurement of human effort, and not, as the ritualists appear to take for granted, an appraisal in arbitrary terms of certain results of that effort no matter how grossly impeded.

Long after the strongholds of theocracy and autocracy have been razed to the ground, it would seem as though the science of economics, less fortunate than her sister-sciences, has been discovered still shackled in an underground dungeon; and that since this partial liberation the political-economists have spent their ingenuity in classifying various lurching and illogical motions which are due to the shackles.

To take up, one by one, the disablements and show that they are not functional, even though they may be predicted with some skill, and to contest, step by step, fine-spun disputation as to the consequences of free motion plus a ball and chain under varying conditions, is to bury the reader in an avalanche of words.

What we must realize is that, as far as democracy is concerned, the study of economics is fundamentally the study of the value of liberated human effort; and we must then determine, first, the basic limits of this value, so that it may be measured; and, second, we must keep a close watch for friction, so that there may be no wasteful political interference.

The first duty of the scientific economist, then, should be an honest attempt to provide a means of measuring the values available within any definite political boundaries which encircle a zone of freedom.