Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/289

 resultants, no matter how carefully calculated, are unsatisfactory, because at some vital point our method has been completely unsound—as unsound as the attempt to hatch eggs in boiling water! The unanswerable criticism of our present economic method is that we are pretending to measure justly with a variable unit of measurement. The faultiness of the unit is admitted, either tacitly or openly, by every intelligent economic observer, most of whom take for granted that it cannot be bettered. It is now definitely contended, however, that this surrender to sheer confusion is not justified, since the essential components of a scientific unit of economic measurement became immediately available with the institution of that system of self-government which we call democracy, and, though never utilized, have been available ever since.

It has been very fully contended in the foregoing essays that Land-area, Population and Time, under orderly self-government, are the basic factors of economic value; and that the fundamental importance of these dimensions rests upon two elementary qualifications: first, they are comprehensive and ultimate; second, they are measureable. These two vital considerations establish, from a scientific standpoint, their validity for the purposes of measuring total basic national value and consequently all fractional values in terms of this total.

If it is conceded that freedom, maintained by self-imposed order, is the logical goal of democracy, then the basic economic value of any comprehensive area under such conditions depends upon the total population within that area: the basic value of any definite subdivision or fraction of that total area depends upon the proportion of the whole population which moves into that subdivision; and, consequently, the true economic value of any service or any commodity within the total area may be measured scientifically by the area of land, as enriched by population, and made representative of net value by the payment of taxes, which the legal owner is willing to place in jeopardy for such service or commodity. Such a measurement of the value of goods or services in terms of total basic value is far more logical than a promise to pay for them in gold, which may not be anywhere procurable when de-