Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/26

 and use of economic value; but no exploration of the sources can solve our immediate problem of liberating this value and then measuring it in tangible terms, so as to make our tokens incapable of debasement with relation to the whole. The historian may retrace the sequence of the swelling stream of value; but he cannot interpret the present in terms of the past; for this stream has undergone two vital changes: it has experienced the breaking-up of the medieval ice-jams; and it now flows within the definite walls of national area.

The period of snow and ice came logically to an end with the advent of representative government. Democracy is now our new channel for human effort,—a channel which can unquestionably be swept clear of obstructions, so as to meet the passionate human desire for individual freedom.

To the economist falls the simple yet exacting task of that unimpeachable measurement of the value of effective human effort by its dominating limits which is the only sound basis for future operations, if economic freedom is to be made possible within the well-defined confines of democracy.

The main theory—the continuous thread which runs through the following essays—should not be difficult to trace. The bare sequence may be stated as follows:

Democracy, in the uncolored terms of science, is the result of a steadily growing conviction, within certain limited areas, that maximum value can only be developed where there is minimum friction—that is, where the free functioning of the individual is subject to least interference. Quite apart from academic considerations, therefore, democracy is interested in the scientific measurement of value for the purpose of devising an unimpairable pledge or token of value that will serve as an inducement of effort, since coercion has been eliminated. The only certain inducement of effort is a guarantee that it will command at any time and at any place, within a given area, at least equal effort. Such a guarantee we would be justified in calling a measure of value.

Value may therefore be regarded as the equivalent of effective effort; and, following scientific procedure, is directly proportional to initial effort and inversely proportional to the re-