MONEY FALLACIES. 
367 
If instead of more money, which has really added nothing, 
there had been a well diffused increase of the productive 
unencumbered capital, there would have been increased 
production, increased consumption, and a higher scale of liv¬ 
ing without any drawbacks. And this improved condition 
might have been permanent. People then would have been 
prospering by the use of accumulated savings from the past 
fully realized; but with more money and with consequent 
expansion of debits and credits there is a momentary spasm 
of seeming prosperity, for which the future is expected to 
pay but cannot. Sooner or later there must be a reckoning, 
and when the future arrives it is sure that debts overrun 
available assets. Credit must be contracted again, and with 
it production and consumption and all below the original 
scale. So, too, must the scale of living be reduced. But an 
increased scale of living is the easiest thing in the world 
for people to accept, while a decreased scale of living is the 
hardest. The increased scale they accepted almost un¬ 
consciously and with little or no thanks, as if it were their 
rightful due from the bounty of nature. The decreased 
scale is yielded to from hard necessity, with repining and 
sullen discontent, and with a vague notion that something 
is wrong somewhere, and that somebody is robbing every¬ 
body. Today men have their revel with wine and dance 
and song; to-morrow brings the racking headache, the 
soured temper, and the depleted pocket-book. 
But there is another fallacy lurking in this call for more 
money. It is suggested by the following inquiry: How 
happens it that it always arises when times are hard, when 
trade is stagnant and exchanges diminished—in fact, when 
the real demand for money to effect exchanges is apparently 
smallest ? And how happens it that in brisk tjmes, when 
trade is active and exchanges are greatly increased, the cry 
is suddenly hushed and nobody seems to have the least idea 
that any more money is needed in the circulation ? Is it 
because there is less money in the country in hard times than 
in brisk times? Not at all. There is in every civilized 
, 46—Bull. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 11. 
