CHAPTER I: THE POSTULATES OF PROTECTION - Yves Guyot, The Comedy of Protection [1906]
Edition used:
The Comedy of Protection, trans. M.A. Hamilton (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1906).
About Liberty Fund:
Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.
Copyright information:
The text is in the public domain.
Fair use statement:
This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.
CHAPTER I
THE POSTULATES OF PROTECTION
I propose to examine, in the course of the following work, the method of estimating the incidence of Customs duties levied on certain industries for the advantage of others. The theory of State interference in international exchange rests on three postulates: (1) to protect national production against foreign competition; (2) to abolish conflicting internal interests; (3) to defend the interests of the majority in a nation whose government reposes on a wide electoral basis, by ensuring employment to labour. I am going to examine if the reality corresponds with the end aimed at, and whether the means employed do not lead to the precisely contrary result.
Every one consumes in order to produce; the greatest producer is also the greatest consumer; directly, in virtue of the plant he has to supply himself with and the raw material which he purchases, indirectly in virtue of the wages which he pays. If I can prove that under the French Protectionist system the great majority of producers, employed as masters or wage-earners in the majority of industries, have to pay tribute to a few protected industries—no one can say that in denouncing such oppression, I am neglecting the interests of producers, and thinking only of a few officials and people of independent means who consume without producing. I shall not imitate Le Play in going into great detail, but draw my general conclusions from the Blue Books of the French Government. In 1897 the Board of Trade published four volumes of an “Inquiry into Wages and Hours of Employment.” Since the Census of Industries and Professions has not yet been published in its complete form, for lack of adequate information as to budgets, I shall only use the edition of 1896, while indicating in passing any important modifications which are already known.
Titles (by Subject) 