Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/364

 of our arbitrary and fluctuating “gold-dollar” unit of so-called value into a scientific and stable census-area-order unit of value. The methods that have been suggested are necessarily tentative, and should be passed upon by the most representative body of experts we can assemble, if it is clearly understood that their task is a final one. We do not want government by experts or engineers any more than we want government by military dictatorship.

So vicious is our present system of measuring value that, even if a stationary unit of value can be devised, two out of three main groups of innocent citizens are going to be affected contrary to their desires—unless, as is probable, the establishment of order is capable of compensating all of us. There are some, living upon savings, who are hoping against hope that our unit will increase in value; others, involved in extended contracts, are praying that it will remain stationary, and the remainder, now producing at a loss, are hoping it will decrease in value, The significant thing is that each of these interests is an innocent and worthy one. The absence of a real villain must be very disappointing, but this is a treatise on economics, not on sociology. We are concerned now with maladjustment—not with misappropriation, Even the international bullion dealers to whom allusion Has been made, and the crowned and uncrowned autocrats with whom they hob-nob, are innocent: they could not play shuttlecock with our datum if it were basic, national and measurable: it is we that make a national datum of their shuttlecock.

To outline a remedy was not the desire of the writer at the present time. The task of maintaining the challenge involved in the diagnosis is an ample one. But because of the domination of ritual and tradition, and the consequent difficulty of viewing things as a whole, the formulation of a concreateconcrete [sic] remedy has been very diffidently attempted, as a nucleus for constructive amendment.

The whole civilized world, including the United States, is conscious of present economic confusion; but it is not sufficiently aware of the cause. If we butchered every so-called capitalist in Christendom we should be very much worse off.