The Ailment of Democracy
15
factors of internal value, underlying goods and their fluctuations, which are not subject to moth and rust and not subject to disastrous depletion, substitution or projection into space. The key to the problem seems to be that we must uncover the basic measurable factors of total economic value, so that our negotiable tokens may bear some definite relation to the whole. It is not scientific to limit our currency to a varying percentage of an unknown quantity. It is not even sensible.
The obligations already enumerated would comprise, then, our duties to our fellow-citizens, if we occupied a self-supporting island in space, and might complete the full list of our responsibilities; but, fortunately for our advancement, we do not occupy an island in space. Now, if we are too cautious to share control of our country with peoples of different training and motives for the sake of internationalism, nevertheless, we should meet these peoples in as neighborly a spirit as possible, for it is to our advantage to trade our
surplus commodities for theirs,
if, after a careful investigation, we are sure we cannot use the energy that went into that surplus to better advantage at home. We have here at the outset one amazing folly to acknowledge, which is probably a direct consequence of changing politically from allopathy to homeopathy every four years, in the hope of curing our ailments. In dealing with our neighbor, whether our motives are good or bad, wise or foolish, having erected barriers against his goods without any very careful inquiry as to the beneficiary, under one régime, we have embarked, under a totally antagonistic régime, upon a magnificent career as a merchant and have enacted legislation such as the Webb-Pomerene law, permitting practices that we have regarded as immoral at home, to enable us to place our surplus products on sale in foreign countries, where such immorality is assumed to pass unnoticed. How are we going to be paid? Our customers by now have little gold, and (as triumphant Republicans) we cry a plague on their goods. With their goods barred by tariff, and lacking money, they offer
