Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/368

 It is further proposed that a plan be put into effect by which advantage is taken of all surplus effort now unutilized, just as we use waste steam for preheating in a power plant.

It is urged finally that we accelerate our flow still further by inducement, making every provision for stimulating demand, in view of a potential supply (of egoistic motive force—not of goods) beyond any calculations we have been able to make.

It is contended that under these modifications there is a reasonable prospect of ensuring a very much enhanced flow of value, since C still equals $E⁄R$&thinsp; even as it did in the days of Dr. Ohm.

As stated at the outset, it is not contended that there is any possibility of changing human nature. Need, effort, emulation, competition, lust of power, and, above all, that love of freedom which includes self-preservation, self-expression, individuality and our now perilously-thwarted desire to produce and create,—these cannot be prevented from making their contributions to the vital stream of value; but if we realize that the velocity of this stream may be diminished by interference, or finally checked by disorder, we may be prepared to consider whether the basic insurance of value, through order, and its subsequent measurement, may not be provided for by methods which are scientific and impersonal and for lack of which democracy has been a curious muddle of idealism and malpractice.

Our whole judgment is so embittered by ancient injuries and basic maladjustment that the first reaction to any scientific proposal is to put forward belligerently such cases as that of a rich mine in the desert or a fertile piece of bottom-land in denuded foothills, and ask why the owners of these should pay as little for order as their neighbors. If such a mine is rich enough, or the river bottom extensive enough, population will measure their value much more justly than a popularly-elected assessor keeps pace with the advance of city rents. And, in any event, with the first transfer of title to the mine or field the richness of the one or the fertility of the other has been paid for by capital, our most flexible economic tool, which sprang