Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/328

 Again assuming a mean population of 100 million, this gives us roughly a weighted per capita income in terms of the “1913” dollar of $371.50 per annum.

We get, then, the following:

It is perhaps safer not to dwell too long on these figures, since from a scientific standpoint the resultant of any calculation made in dollars is purely farcical, and has as little value as the quantitative analysis of a chemist whose children have mixed his gram and grain riders.

We solemnly charter accountants to deal with unchartered units. It would be funny if it were not for the tragedy involved. We could see the absurdity of licensing surveyors and giving them elastic tapes or granting certificates to public analysts and permitting them to use evaporating weights. We have left our economic unit of value too long to our economic betters; for it involves much more than acreage or acidity: it involves the destiny of simple human beings who have worked and deprived themselves in vain for the misguided hope of security in their old age.

For the sake of sanity let us move on—looking for the necessary amendments to the findings of the two Government Departments that are paid to do the work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has already submitted figures showing the monthly disintegration of the “gold” dollar; and the Bureau of the Census will shortly furnish us with estimates of our average gain in “gold” dollar wealth since 1912. In the meantime let us reconvert our annual savings per capita into terms of the “1918” dollar, and proceed.

On this basis let us estimate the effective current value of a 1918 dollar: