and its unyielding boundary of time, is like some gigantic gas tank, such as we see in every city, capable of rising inch by inch as the effective effort increases.
Curiously enough, it is Jevons, the mathematician, who quotes with approval Bastiat’s description of the economic circle as being expressed by Wants, Efforts, Satisfaction.[1]
This, however, is only a partial truth—a misleading detail in the cycle. What we require for comprehension under democracy, or a zone of self-imposed order, is a general phrase as follows:
Effort—Value—Freedom.[2]
“Wants, Efforts, Satisfaction” is a closed circle of no further economic value, since it involves satiety—a sensation which, whether we like to think so or not, has little place in democracy.
Economics, as pictured by the phrase, “Wants, Efforts, Satisfaction,” gives too sharply the picture of an animal searching for food and, having exerted that effort, lying down fully gorged. It is most interesting that this image should have proved satisfactory to a school of political-economists who were deeply concerned with capital as a prime factor. “Wants, efforts, satisfaction” provides no capital: everything is consumed, unless there is an invisible figure in the picture blessing the God-given “wants,” minimizing the “satisfaction” and discreetly storing up a little capital with each daily round of the “economic man” who exerts the vital “effort.” Possibly their failure to paint in the central figure is due simply to the fact that political-economists are not scientists, but in the nature of the case are rather humble loyalists who have not ventured into the middle of the picture.
What we much more nearly have is a situation which may be better pictured by a snow-fed stream, perpetually renewed
- ↑ “Theory of Political Economy,” W. S. Jevons. 4th edition, page 41. Macmillan and Co., London.
- ↑ With the essential proviso of self-imposed order, this philosophical statement of the case has a familiar sound to the student of dynamics. Effort modified by its medium, in any given area, equals value, or in more familiar setting, value is directly proportionate to the effort exerted in a given area, and inversely proportionate to the resistance of that area, or V=ER, or Value=EffortResistance=Freedom.
