Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/242

 for interposing difficulties. Our lavish and sentimental recourse to alleviations of the annoying symptoms of economic disorder says much for our heart and little for our head. Within our borders we preach (and practice as consistently as may be) the doctrine that all citizens are politically free and equal. Here is our hope of healing. Since political power has been apportioned as fairly as possible, we have no real grievance, as any necessary adjustment is within our effective scope. We have, however, experienced many costly reinfections from the old régime, for the trouble is there was no economic quarantine between autocracy and democracy, and we have made little intelligent effort to locate and isolate dangerous carriers of tyranny who, though loudly democratic in speech, at heart are autocratic and delight in interposing barriers between class and class and between effort and inducement—all in the name of reform.

With need and inducement unimpaired, human effort will very effectually develop itself, each individual striving for the sake of personal freedom, and each intelligent individual striving further for the sake of an ampler freedom, if it can be guaranteed against impairment. We need bother very little about the development of human effort if we leave it wisely alone, and concern ourselves very cautiously with its limits.

And as far as distribution is concerned, a contemplation of the vital stream of human effort, which flows so searchingly in the direction of value, suggests that all we need do is to maintain order and eliminate friction. Freedom of movement and freedom of exchange—these are like a quickening of circulation in an unconscious patient. As far as democracy is concerned we have not yet “come out of the anæsthetic” of the operation of revolution.

Freedom of movement and freedom of exchange—these make it necessary to emphasize one vital consideration involved in a dynamic interpretation of economic value. Democracy was primarily concerned with freedom and open ways: that “freeing of the feet” which was known as “expedience” until some prohibitionist mutilated the word. To interpret economics in terms of dynamics, internal fluidity, or free flow, must be