Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/64

 critical times to find an opportunity, owing to the same bad management which permits the former group to avoid responsibility.

It is in these backwaters that the silt tends to gather, impeding still further the flow of energy, but they can surely be dealt with by the community without adding again to the disastrous stagnation.

As already stated, the definite function of land-ownership is not obvious, being obscured by our conception of land-value, since this value is vitiated by incalculable taxation and by its subsequent expression in terms of the dollar, a unit based, not upon measurable value, but upon a single commodity—gold—which is still the effective lever of men without a country. It should be emphasized again that the profitable domination of value through land-ownership, while fully apparent in our cities, is not apparent in the country, owing to our erratic taxation, mentioned above.

The surplus products of labor lodge ultimately upon land and inure to the benefit of the holder by attracting population. This land, therefore, must be made the basis of all tokens of value and should, directly or indirectly, be the chief inducement and irrevocable reward of extra-effort, provided it carries with it the responsibility of power. This hope of reward, together with the guaranty of its validity, are the greatest factors of stability devisable. Our present economic discomforts are due to a partial application of this principle vitiated by whimsical taxation and the lack of any scientific means of measurement. We have abandoned economic power to the individual without attempting to measure the corresponding responsibility, and have granted the full right of bequest of this unbalanced power, a custom which has nothing to do with democracy. There is good reason to believe that bequest was originally concerned with the passing on of responsibility, and, in the days of the patriarchs, power was bequeathed to support this responsibility.