Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/63

 former, inequity, like rain, falls alike on the just and the unjust.

If land-area is held in few hands without adequate responsibility, the balance of the community faces the prospect of giving labor on the basis of sheer need, which is not a very happy outlook. As may be observed in such crowded centres as Pittsburgh or New York, this basis results in a maximum production of material wealth with a minimum of individual happiness. On the other hand, if land passes entirely to the state, the only compulsion left for unwilling labor is force of arms, which is the end of freedom and will divide society into two camps: official coercers and officially coerced, since inertia will be one of the most important modifying factors to be reckoned with when need and reward have both been eliminated by the reformer.

Avoiding these alternate dangers of permitting land-area to be controlled by a few, or consenting that it be held jointly by the community, if the foregoing argument is sound, the middle course is to encourage the maximum production of those who are not averse to work by automatic reward, the value of which cannot be impaired (“If the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted”), and the maximum production of those who are averse to work by the logical pressure of necessity.

This is roughly the present condition of our tortuously moving stream of human energy, with all the dead water due to legislative debris and the friction arising from bad economic engineering. Our superficial palliatives designed to temper need and our genius for impairing reward, exemplified by our extravagant relief work on one hand, and our taxation and currency on the other, tend to cut down this flow. At every point we permit friction or introduce it, and the stagnant pools, even though they may take the fading colors of sunset, are breeding places of despair. Within these areas lie two of the most dangerous groups in democracy:

(a)&ensp;Those who are reluctant to exercise effort, but, owing to our bad management, receive remuneration and avoid responsibility.

(b)&ensp;Those who are eager to exercise effort, but fail at