Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/164

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It is not pretended that to stabilize the purchasing power of the dollar would banish all complaint in the financial, business, and industrial world, much less serve as a substitute for progressive economies. A stable monetary unit would be no more a substitute for the fertility of the soil than a stable bushel basket. Yet a reliable bushel will indirectly help even the tilling of the soil; and a reliable dollar would remove a heavy handicap now put on our productive energy and so indirectly help all production. Dependable weights, measures, and standards eliminate those enormous wastes which come from uncertainty, and, of all the possible wastes from uncertain units used in commerce, those from an uncertain dollar are by far the greatest and the gravest.

Nor do I mean to imply that a stable dollar will insure a just distribution of wealth. It will, however, help toward that end not only by preventing a species of subtle pocket-picking (described in Chapter III), but also by clarifying the whole distribution situation. It will make sun-clear that the goods that come out of the annual wealth production of the nation are really growing or shrinking, and not merely being tossed about on the stream of money. It will give each man a sound basis for an opinion whether, when his fortunes change, they change relatively with the fortunes of others. It will go far to rid us of the conflict of opinion and assertion which now holds us back from effective action and uses up our energies in discussions and investigations of the most elementary facts. Current economic discussion is underlaid by conflicting assertions,—that the