Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/34

 labored in the past under the joint-guarantees of democracy, and, for the sake of production, to see that these guarantees are kept adequate and respected.

Our duty toward our international neighbors depends very much upon circumstances. In the classic instance on the road to Jericho there was never any question of turning over the unfortunate victim who fell among thieves to a Board of Charities and Correction, the cold comforts of a Mandate, or a Supreme Council of any kind; nor was there any question of including the thieves among the neighbors.

Our duty toward posterity is very plain. We must keep our lamps trimmed and burning, and refuse to share the oil with our foolish virgins in the vain hope that dawn will be hastened by our generosity.

For the sake of the low and smoky flame of democracy, which is now all too feeble for the dark hours before us, let us guard the light we have. If we have failed to keep our lamps trimmed, we should be grateful that they are still burning.

We have failed in our duty to our fellow-citizens chiefly through the partial repudiation of the security held out as an inducement to honest effort in the past, by vicious taxation, fluctuating currency and state competition, and are now rather peevishly making this situation worse by offering very few guaranteed inducements for the future.

In these days of frenzied reform, much of our confusion is due to the things we have done (all in the name of righteousness) that we ought not to have done; but our most costly error has been one of omission, having failed to recognize that basic power, which was formerly political, when all power was vested in one head, has now become largely economic. While our fathers dispersed concentrated political power and apportioned it as justly as they could, we have permitted economic power to concentrate until it comes very near domination. Our exasperated efforts to correct the consequences of this have led in some cases to apparent dispersion: in others to the taking over