Page:Stabilizing the dollar, Fisher, 1920.djvu/291

3, F] has his own set of objections. In fact, as the objections show, they are often mutually contradictory. It is "too simple" and "too complicated"; "too slow" and "too sudden"; it is wrong " because it is fiat money "and "because it is not fiat money"; "it is simpler to make extraneous adjustments by index numbers" and "adjustments are unnecessary anyhow"; "gold is stable enough as it is" and "the adjustment would not be sufficiently accurate"; "it ties us up to the quantity theory" and "it is inconsistent with that theory"; "it would not permit cycles of credit "and "it would produce crises "; "it fails to be ideal" and "it is too idealistic"; "a national stabilization would isolate us too much" and "an international stabilization would entangle us too much"; "it would offer the government a dangerous chance to secure profit "and" it would cost the government unduly"; "it is too radical" and "it is mere temporizing with evils requiring the total abolition of money or capital"; "it would not permit needed inflation in war time" and "it would be totally destroyed by war," and so on.

After careful examination, I think every fair-minded man who has any serious wish to see the world in which he lives improved will agree that all the objections brought against the plan are, without exception, either fallacious or trivial. Long experience with pubhc propaganda has taught me how intensely stubborn is the temperamental resistance to change, and perhaps quite as much so among the intelligent as the ignorant, especially as the intelligent have the advantage of being more fertile in inventing objections.

Gold has become a sort of fetish of business men, almost worshiped with superstitious awe. Our fathers had told us that "nothing is so solid as gold." Only recently are people awakening to the fact that the fetish is erratic and tricky. The argument that we ought not to try to improve our monetary unit