In the treatment of these subjects in the general sense in which they
become important to all the people the range is very much extended
beyond that commonly compassed by those whose interest compels them to
temporary considerations for the promoting of immediate interests under
the systems in vogue. All such kind of treatment deals with effects, and
would never remedy an existing want, nor correct illegitimate practices.
If there are wants in existing systems, and if there are illegitimate
practices which are possible under them, there is but one way to supply
the one or to correct the other, and that is to go to the root of the
matter where the causes exist which make these possible.
In this series of articles it has been the endeavor to point out some of
the most prominent evidences that our financial system was unsound, and
also to show, by as strict an analysis as was possible in the space
allotted, what the true basis for a sound financial system was, and
where it was to be found, and, having done this, such methods of
administration were hinted at as would reduce the system, when put into
operation, to a permanent and fixed measure of all values, which it was
argued was equally as necessary when value is to be measured as the same
fixedness is when any other quantity is to be measured.
It has been suggested by some that, in presenting our statements in the
terse, undiluted manner we have, that those who have not been habitual
thinkers upon this subject might fail to catch the full application of
the propositions, and by so failing consider the system impracticable.
To obviate such objections we shall, by further treatment of obscure
points, attempt to make them plain to all who can understand the English
language.
First, a brief re-statement and condensation of the entire outline:
Money, being an invention to facilitate the exchanges of the products of
labor, it should be formulated with direct reference to the conditions
which made the invention necessary, out of which it should naturally
grow; and also with direct regard as to how the invention should best
meet the required case—that is, the invention should be adapted to the
conditions, instead of making an invention without regard to the
conditions, and then attempting to force the conditions to comply with
the capacity of the invention.
This is a point which should be thoroughly comprehended, for in it lies
the whole fault of making gold a measure of value, and we therefore
shall attempt to offer a common illustration directly in point.
Let it be supposed that there is a stream which, to accommodate travel,
requires to be bridged, and that the bridge has to be constructed and
moved to the stream. The first procedure would be to determine just how
long the bridge must be to span the stream. It would then be constructed
and moved to the stream, which it of course would span. But suppose
persons knowing there was a stream to be crossed, but not knowing its
breadth, had gone to work and constructed the bridge and then had
attempted to compel it, when too short, to extend across the stream.
This would have been a case of attempting to compel the conditions for
which the invention was made to accommodate themselves to the invention.
And this has been just what the world has been all this time doing in
attempting to compel the conditions for which money was invented to
accommodate themselves to the possibilities of gold, which was invented
as money without any reference being had to the functions it was to
perform, or to the conditions it was required to meet.
It would be just as reasonable and just as sensible to attempt to compel
a house to perform the functions of a bridge as it is to attempt to
compel gold to perform the functions of money, for gold is not nor
cannot ever be made to meet the requirements for which money is
demanded; whereas, money should be of such character as to fully meet
the requirements for which it is used, but should not be possessed of
_any qualities that would render it useful for any other purpose
whatever_, so that there could be no possibility of its ever being used
for any other purposes, which impossibility would forever make
speculation impossible.
It is believed that we have made clear the purposes for which money is
required and also clear that it is utterly futile to attempt to compel
any invention to meet those requirements where it is not formulated for
the express purpose. We have heretofore shown that gold is a purely
arbitrary standard which has no scientific relations whatever to the
product of labor which it is required to measure, but that it is itself
a product, and as such requires to be measured. A gallon of molasses
would never be thought of as a measure of distance, but it would be just
as reasonable to expect it to measure it as it is to expect a certain
quantity of gold to measure the value of a horse. A horse may be
exchanged for a certain amount of gold. So, too, may a horse be
exchanged for a certain amount of wheat, but that process does not make
either the horse or the wheat money. Money is that which can equally
represent the wheat, the horse and the gold; and anything that cannot do
this is not money.
Hence it is seen that every step we take in examining the true bearings
of the money question brings us nearer and clearer to the proposition
already made—that the capacity for production is the true basis of
value.