Page:Earle, Does Price Fixing Destroy Liberty, 1920, 030.jpg

30 is the "risk taker"; and, as Adam Smith correctly points out, the universal rule is that hope triumphs over fear, and that this vital element of risk is nearly always underestimated. It will be remembered that the Supreme Court has already decided that requiring compensation for the consequences of this risk is not profit at all. Again, it must be borne in mind that the function of money in trade, misunderstood until the time of Adam Smith, merely consists in aiding in the circulation of commodities, and is not the substance of the matter at all. That its real utility is not in changing commodities for money, but in facilitating the change of commodities for commodities. "The fact is, that all trade in the last analysis is simply what it is in its primitive form of barter, the exchange of commodities for commodities.  The carrying on of trade by the use of money does not change its essential character, but merely permits the various exchanges, of which trade is made up, to be divided into parts or steps, and thus more easily effected.  When commodities are exchanged for money, but half a full exchange is completed.  When a man sells a thing for money, it is to use the money in buying some other thing—and it is only as money has this power that anyone wants or will take it."  Beyond that, a most lurking danger is in the ignorant assumption that money has a stable value, whilst other things fluctuate. And this misconception constantly ruins a large part of the community; whilst an equally large part is lured to dangerous extravagance by the illusion that its wealth has been enormously increased when nothing has changed except a depreciation of the mere counters that thus merely revolve trade. It has been said Professor Fisher pointed out that money, before the war, had nearly three hundred per cent. of its