Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/331

 indeed we are fortunate to have any net yield to discuss; for we have apparently accumulated much of it by defrauding the housewives who would probably have spent it on things that the Bureau of the Census might overlook; and,

Third.&emsp;On the other hand, we must realize that much of the actual value created is either invisible or has apparently been consumed, and its ultimate fruition postponed. Highways, sanitation, education, esthetic enjoyment and other gratifications, which are the fruit of freedom and the instigation of new effort, are also economic value per hour, but are not reckoned as wealth by the Bureau of the Census.

The interesting question that still remains is the actual net hourly value of liberated effort under the type of order we prefer. This question, owing to our age-long statistical debauch, is impossible to answer at the moment. Such value, however, under what has been called “self-determination,” should be as calculable as the number of second-feet of water flowing through a suitable conductor from a measurable reservoir; and this relative integrity is all we need to stimulate effort and validate freedom. The actual net value of freedom will gradually be disclosed by the rate of interest per hour, which is bid for a scientific token of net value; and this rate, in turn, will be determined by the true law of supply and demand, where potential supply is known and is coupled, by measurable facilities of known cost, with a demand in proportion to population. With the cost of order taken into our reckoning: with arbitrary friction eliminated and effort unobstructed: with the exchangers of effort no longer the victims of an erratic contraction in our present futile measure of value which we call inflation, or an erratic expansion which we call deflation—we shall undoubtedly find that the current value, which we call interest, offered for a scientific token of value will be apparently enhanced. Let us assume, purely for the sake of illustration, that equilibrium is presently established at six per cent per annum. Then the net current value measured by our