Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/253

 series of efforts toward order which make up the supply of order.

The sobering thought, in the last analysis, is that we are dealing with desires and efforts, which are almost impossible to quicken and very easy to thwart.

In discussing detail we are promptly involved in idiosyncrasies of desire and effort beyond enumeration; but our two sets of series, as a whole, may be stated in terms of their means, with the saving of much mental wear and tear, since these two conceptions of the supply and demand of freedom (flow), and the supply and demand of order (conductivity), may be expressed by the common dimensions of population-density, area and time.

We may leave the scrupulous mathematical economist to parade his series of desires, efforts, risks and intelligences, like a drill-sergeant, who makes ready for annual maneuvers with a desire that the reviewer’s eye shall not be offended by the knowledge that Alpha, Lambda and Omega are in reality “buddies”—the economic equivalents of Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd—who as soon as the wearisome parade is over will turn with zest to their own absorbing economic activities.

But we have now got them all in the parade-ground. What we desire is not a discussion of their idiosyncrasies but a rational conception of the “value in action” of this ill-assorted squad in a given area. We bid them charge across the area allotted to them, in open order, and scale the many obstructions which the General Staff, with its early 19th Century abhorrence of undecorated spaces, has been planting for so long a period in the name of reform. We find that the value of this squad is directly proportional to its joint enthusiasm and inversely proportional to the resistance offered by the box-hedges and other aimless decorations.

As economists we contemplate this phenomenon and interpret it in terms of “diminishing returns” and “marginal utility.” As mathematicians we use our stop-watches and make a formal report in terms of average individual effectiveness. But as engineers we would promptly detail half the squad to clear away the obstructions, and would not be sur-