Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/289

3, E] D. "We could not interest other countries." The force of this objection has been greatly weakened by the war which has created world-wide interest in the problem of reconstructing monetary standards. No country can fail to be interested in all proposals toward that end. Furthermore, as has been shown in Appendix I, § 8, the adoption of stabilization in one country, especially if that country be the United States, would probably lead to its general adoption elsewhere.

E. "The evils are unreal." So far as this objection is definite it has been answered in Chapter III which shows how real the evils are. One ingenious objector seriously suggests that the increase in gold may be due to " some as yet unknown social law which brings out this increased supply to meet or to stimulate the growing and changing needs of industry." It is difficult to answer this objection specifically, until the "as yet unknown social law" is discovered. As yet no one has been able to discover such a law. Surely the quest for gold is instigated by private gain and not by any desire to "meet or stimulate industrial needs" nor is the gain which the gold prospector receives or hopes for proportionate to the occult public service suggested. His success can surely have no quantitative relation to social needs. On the contrary, the discoveries of gold are fortuitous and conform to no "law" of social benefit, known or unknown. This objection is clearly born of the discredited tradition of laissez faire with its fallacious dogma that the public interest is always served by allowing rampant individualism. Under this idea we used to have unplanned streets without standard building lines, unsanitary and fire-trap tenements, wildcat banking, railway rate discrimination, unsound insurance, chaotic and fraudulent weights and measures, private coinage. Our present difficulties as to monetary standards are due precisely to this rampant individualism. We have intrusted the