nditions of production. While, therefore, it is the
best standard yet devised and put into actual practice, it is very
imperfect. A standard better than a single metal, more stable than a
single commodity, is desirable if it can be found.

Sec. 14. #Various ideal standards suggested.# It may, perhaps, be agreed
that the ideal standard of deferred payments is one that would insure
justice between borrower and lender. Yet different views may be and
have been taken as to what constitutes justice in this matter. The
suggestion is attractive that repayment should involve the return of
enjoyment equal to that which could be purchased with the sum at the
time of the loan. Such a standard is impossible of perfect realization
in any general way, for men's circumstances are constantly changing.
To insure even to the average man the same amount of enjoyment is only
roughly possible. The same goods do not afford the same enjoyment
when conditions, either subjective or objective, have changed. Another
suggestion is that the goods returned should represent the same
sacrifice as those loaned. Here again the difficulty is in the lack of
a standard applicable to all men. Whose sacrifice? That of the lender,
who may be rich, or that of the borrower, who may be poor? Some have
supposed that the condition of equal sacrifices was met by the labor
standard, according to which the sum returned should purchase the same
number of days of labor as when borrowed. But what kind of labor is to
be taken, that of the lender or that of the borrower or that of some
one else? Labor is of many different qualities, which can be exactly
compared only through their objective value in terms of some one
good.[20]

It must be recognized that any possible concrete standard of deferred
payments will sometimes work hardship in individual cases. The best
average results for justice and social welfare will be secured by
measuring debts in some standard that will change least often, and
least rapidly, in relation to the great majority of people of all
classes in the community.

Sec. 15. #The tabular standard.# Apart from the difficulties of its
practical operation, a standard better than a single metal and
more stable than a single commodity would be a _tabular standard_,
consisting of a number of leading commodities in fixed proportions,
such as is used in calculating index numbers expressing the general
scale of prices. Such a standard averages the fluctuations