Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/28

 basic cost of overcoming resistance before any attempt is made to discuss value, or put forward a measure of value.

There is no assumption in the following pages that human nature can be changed or that it need be changed. It is suggested, however, that if we can boldly retrace our steps from the economic bypaths into which we were ignominiously driven during the dark days of bondage, we may find that the basic human impulse—our love of individual freedom—has much more to do with economic value than we dreamed. All that is proposed is to give this impulse the greatest possible play within the widest possible limits—but to frankly recognize the limits, since these, without question, are the only things by which we can measure if we care to be guided by scientific precedent.