DISCUSSION OF SECOND APPROXIMATION

tack could not exist, except at par. There could be nopremium or discount in such exchange.

Nor (to turn to the subjective side) could there be anyrate of preference for present over future hard-tack. Thesailors would so adjust the time shape of their respectiveincome streams that any possible rate of preference fora present over a future allowance of hard-tack would dis-appear, and a pound of this year’s hard-tack and a poundof next year’s hard-tack would be equally balanced inpresent estimation. For, should a man prefer one ratherthan the other, he would transfer some of it from the un-preferred time to the preferred time, and this processwould be continued, pound by pound, until his want fora pound of immediate hard-tack and his want for apound of future hard-tack were brought into equilibrium.Thus, if through insufficient self-control, he prefers, how-ever foolishly, to use up much of his store in the presentand so to cut down his reserve for the future to a mini-mum, the very scantiness of the provision for the futurewill enhance his appreciation of its claims, and the veryabundance of his provision for the present will diminishthe urgency of his desire to indulge so freely in thepresent.

Provided each individual is free to apportion his shareof the total stock of hard-tack between present use andfuture use as he pleases, and provided there is some hard-tack available for both uses, the present desire for apound of each will necessarily be the same.

(Failure of such equilibrium of want could only occurwhen, as in starvation, the want for the present use was sointense as to outweigh the want for even the very lastpound for future use, in which case there would be nonewhatever reserved for the future.)

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