Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/264

 on the assumption of a quick turnover, is hazardous enough, using a so-called “gold” dollar as a unit of value; but, for a long time past production has been suicidal. This is why we shake our heads wisely at our young men who want to go farming, mining or manufacturing, and find them a respectable job in a store, a bond-house, a bank, or a state-bureau.

It is only necessary to discuss this matter with any intermediary in trade, if you are still on speaking terms with him. He is regarded, by producer and consumer alike, as a robber because to protect himself against a fluctuating unit of value, he underpays the producer and overcharges the consumer, striving, in the only safe way he can see, to make enough to feed his family—and he overcharges without hesitation when he is smarting under some loss due to a sudden shift in the incidence of taxation, or some unaccountable change in the unit of “value.” Yet if you could get at the heart of these men you would find that all their dreams are of production; they make furniture at night in the basement; they spend their spare moments of daylight in the garden: they know of “prospects” in the mountains, or a little ranch in the valley—these are their dreams. But they have brothers or cousins or school-day friends who drift in with shame for a small loan or a meal—the foredamned who did the normal thing, and, under our present vicious system, tried to produce, and were broken. These venturers, our best citizens, have not in many cases the means to bring into the world children who might inherit their normal desire, so that by breeding we are fast becoming a nation of money-lenders, traders, bond-brokers and dependents. We can see it in our limited region of contact with the world—in our own block. We can see it in the drift from the country to the towns. We sigh with relief when our boys decide to do something “safe.” And if we have the patience to digest an interminable record, we see it in the ingenious legislation which is framed to mitigate the consequences of a primitive conception of value, and the more shameful legislation now incorporated in our codes to protect us from those perverted producers who have taken to trading because our corruptible unit of value has prostituted their instincts. As pointed out previously “products were sold at a sacrifice” to save our vicious standard!

(g)&ensp;Taxation on the Basis of Effort and Need.&emsp;“Industry,” the name which we give to highly organized effort: in-