Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/357



remedy to conform to the apparently abstract diagnosis put forward has been asked for and tendered. It is tentative, as far as actual figures are concerned, owing to our present statistical chaos; but it is assured and precise when it deals with census-area-order units, the logical measure of value under democracy. While it may appear abstract, this is only because of the shadows of tradition which still fall across the reader’s mind. To speak bluntly, it will appear abstract in proportion to the reader’s willingness to ignore the absurdities and cruelties of our present maladjustment which is continually defrauding the helpless, and baffling those normal citizens whose instinct is toward creation and production, while it enriches a few others who, without effort and without consciousness of shame, live richly because of our retarded activities.

If such steps as have been suggested could be taken to ensure order and freedom, and guard against the unjust depredations of secondary taxation, the sharp fluctuations, and the ultimate dilution of our pledge of “value,” which takes place before our bewildered eyes, we would then, for the first time in human history, within organized society, be face to face with the possibility of actual individual liberty.

Our vaunted democracy is no more than the raising of the standard of Freedom over a region of economic disorder. The exterior manipulation and the gross interior maladjustment from which we suffer are both largely unrealized, and consequently all the more difficult to deal with.

With maladjustment corrected and manipulation barred, the economic circuit would at last be thrown open and we could commence an era of unrestricted flow, of valid calculation and of accelerating production. It is even possible that in the