47 Félix Coudroy (1801-74) was the son of a doctor from Mugron and was a boyhood friend and eventually a neighbour of Bastiat's in Mugron. He studied law in Toulouse and Paris but a long illness prevented him from practicing. Coudroy and Bastiat were both members of a local discussion group in Mugron, "The Academy," where they pursued their intellectual interests for over 20 years.

48 Charles Dunoyer (1786-1862) was a journalist; an academic (a professor of political economy); a politician; the author of numerous works on politics, political economy, and history; a founding member of the PES (1842) of which he was the permanent president; and a key figure in the French classical liberal movement of the first half of the nineteenth century.

49 Félix Coudroy, "De l'influence de l'esprit et des procédés de la Ligue sur les progrès de la civilisation," JDE, T. 12, N° 48, Novembre 1845, pp. 349-368.

Since you permit me to write to you, I will reply to your kind letter dated 12th December last. I have been discussing the printing of the translation I told you about with M. Guillaumin, a bookseller in Paris.

The book is entitled Cobden and the League, or the Campaign in England in Favor of Free Trade. I have taken the liberty of using your name for the following reasons: I could not entitle this work The Anti-Corn Law League. Apart from the fact that this would have a barbarous sound for French ears, it would have brought to mind just a limited conception of the project. It would have presented the question as purely English, whereas it is a humanitarian one, the most notably so of all those which have brought campaigning to our century. A simpler title, The League, would have been too vague and would have made people think of an episode in our national history. I therefore felt it necessary to make it clear by preceding it with the name of the person acknowledged to be the “driving force of this campaigning.” You have yourself recognized that individual names were sometimes needed “to give point, to direct attention” and I am using this as my justification.

Fashion—individual names, acknowledged reputations—has so much influence here that I felt it necessary to make a further effort to bring it over to our side. I have written a letter to M. de Lamartine in the économistes (the February 1845 issue).72 This illustrious writer, yielding to the tyrant fashion, had assailed economists in the most unjust and thoughtless manner, since, in the same text, he adopted their principles. I have reason to believe, from the reply he was good enough to send me, that he is not far from joining our ranks, and that would perhaps be enough to cause an unexpected swing in public opinion to us. Doubtless, such a swing would be fragile, but finally we would have, at least temporarily, an audience, and that is what we lack. For my part, I ask for one thing only, and that is that people do not deliberately cover their ears.

Permit me to recommend that you peruse the letter to which I refer, if you have the opportunity.

At last I have the pleasure of presenting you with a copy of the translation about which I have spoken to you on several occasions. In carrying out this work, I was convinced that I was rendering a genuine service to my country, both by popularizing sane economic doctrines and unmasking the guilty men who concentrate on maintaining disastrous national restrictions. I was not mistaken in my expectations. I distributed about a hundred copies in Paris and they have had the best possible reception. Men who, through their position and the subject of their study, ought to know what is happening in your country were surprised on reading it. They could not believe their eyes. The truth is that everyone in France is unaware of the importance of the campaign in your country, and people still suspect that a few manufacturers are seeking to propagate ideas of freedom abroad through pure British Machiavellianism. If I had confronted this prejudice directly, I would not have vanquished it. By leaving the free traders to act and allowing them to speak, in a word, by translating you, I hope that I have dealt it a blow from which it will not recover, provided that the book is read. That is the question.91

I hope, sir, that you will be good enough to grant me the honor of having a short discussion with you and expressing my gratitude, fellow feeling, and profound admiration to you personally.

The most kind letter that you have been good enough to write to me has revived in me old projects and hopes, which cost me a great deal to abandon. Long before I knew of the existence of the English League, I had conceived [77] the idea of forming an association against protectionism, this absurd system which, apart from the direct harm it causes, causes so many ancillary calamities, national hatreds, wars, standing armies, navies, taxes, restrictions, plunderings, etc. As I needed a fulcrum to set up my lever, I thought of our wine-producing population, which seemed to me to be the most likely to embrace the cause of free trade. I tried to form it into an organization, as you will see from the brochure which it is my pleasure to enclose with this letter. My mistake was to address this call to a single class only, and the class that is probably the least political, the most dispersed, and the most difficult to organize. I ought to have called together all the consumers and in addition all the producers who felt they were sufficiently strong and honest to reject all forms of protection and taxes, for however you look at them, protectionist duties are none other than the taxes we raise from one another.

This frustrated idea was just dormant in my mind, and you can doubtless guess with what joy and enthusiasm I welcomed the arrival of the English League, which pursues the same aim with an energy, a spirit of togetherness, a line of conduct and the talents, resources, and opportunities that I lacked.

I have now been happy to learn from your letter of the existence in Paris of elements which, when they are properly put into operation, may serve as the basis for a similar association to the League. The men who have devoted themselves to the setting up of what is known as “The Articles of Paris”105 are certainly the most appropriate people to lay the foundations for this institution. At the heart of enlightened opinion, close to one another, and in a position to exert an influence on the press, on our political representatives, and on public opinion; more disposed than most to make well-judged sacrifices and more able to supervise the use made of them, they certainly have to offer quite different resources from the wine-producing population. Besides, these people would have only to glimpse this center of action to join it in full sympathy. I believe that we will soon also obtain the support of men in the government, as they receive fixed salaries that bear the weight of the protectionist regime without any possible compensation. I would say the same thing about bankers, traders, merchants, lawyers, doctors, and all the countless sectors of artisans whose work by its very nature is not likely to be protected by customs duties.

I see from your letter that “The Articles of Paris” has already formed a general association divided into sections, one of the most important of which is under your chairmanship. If you consider, sir, that it is possible to find the seed of an energetic league in this institution, and if you think that my efforts and devotion can help in this great work, please write to me and you will find me ready to join you and your colleagues. I have already sounded out a few key figures, for in France they are necessary if one is to succeed in anything, and I know some who would be only too ready to welcome the honor of the initiative. For my part, I will join the combat at whatever level I am placed, for apart from the fact that I put our noble cause a thousand times higher than our little individual ideas, I have learned from Mr. Cobden, the one man in the world in whom I have the fullest confidence, that individual self-sacrifice is the soul and cement of any voluntary association. Let us, therefore, make ourselves small and give free rein to the conceit of others, and use this quotation from Danton as a commentary: “Let our memory perish and may freedom triumph.”

As for a demonstration to the League, I do not see where this would lead. What would be genuinely and immediately useful would be for “The Articles of Paris” to have a representative in London while Parliament is sitting. In the midst of this collapse of duties which is taking place in England, a man who had the confidence of the members of the League who have great influence in these matters might perhaps obtain considerable advantages for “The Articles of Paris,” especially since England is no longer asking for reciprocity or what are called concessions. We do have an ambassador, but it is not possible to deal with things like this officially, and this you will readily understand. . . . As Great Britain is accomplishing this reform without asking anything from foreigners, she cannot accept foreigners’ attempts to influence her resolutions.

When I was in London and enjoying quite close relations with officers in the Board of Trade and members of the League, I sought to convince them that they would be acting shrewdly by encouraging the introduction of our wine into their country. The spirit of my lectures on this subject is set out in the brochures I am enclosing, and I had the pleasure of receiving letters from Cobden and other members of Parliament telling me that they were working hard to make my ideas succeed; what I said to them with regard to wine might equally apply to Parisian goods. England feels that if she opened her market to Parisian goods without France lowering her duties, Parisians would have trouble effecting purchases from England in return, and this [79] would soon open their eyes to the inconsistency of our policy and foment in us the spirit of free trade. I do not doubt that she is aiming her reforms in this direction. For my part, sir (and I hope that you will not find this confidence out of place), I must say that I deeply regret that my financial situation does not allow me to spend time in London at this time. Something tells me that I could do some good there.

Allow me, sir, in ending this overlong letter, to thank you for your kind words both in your own name and that of your sons and colleagues.

My dear M. Fonteyraud, I will not reply today to your letter, a letter that is so charming, so honest and interesting in terms of the subjects it discusses with me and the way it deals with them. This is just a simple acknowledgment, [82] which I am entrusting to a person who is leaving in a few hours for Paris.

I received news of you through the journal of the League, from M. Guillaumin and Mr. Cobden, who speaks of you in terms that I will not repeat to you for fear of wounding your modesty. . . . However, I am changing my mind. Mr. Cobden will one day be sufficiently famous for you to be very happy to know the opinion he has uttered of you. Moreover, this judgment includes a piece of advice, and I have no right to stop it on its way, especially since you persist in giving me the title of Master. I will fulfill the functions of this role once, if not by giving you advice, at least by passing on to you that emanating from an authority regarded as very impressive by the disciples of free trade.

These then are the words of Mr. Cobden:

As the rest concerns only your amour propre, permit me to omit it.

It is sweet and consoling to go through life supported by such a testimonial. There is really something deep in our heart which tells us of our own merit, but when we see the blindness of all men to this, how can we ever have the certainty that the awareness of our strengths is its true measure? In your case, you have been judged and consecrated; you have been dedicated to the cause of humanity. Learn and disseminate should be your motto; such is your destiny.

Oh! How my heart beat when I read your description of the great meeting in Manchester! Like you, I felt enthusiasm penetrate my every pore. Has anything like this, whatever Solomon said, been seen under the sun? We have seen major gatherings of men grow passionate for a conquest, a victory, an interest, or the triumph of brute force, but has anyone ever seen ten thousand [83] men unite to ensure the triumph of a major principle of universal justice by peaceful means, through speech and sacrifice? Even if free trade were an error or an illusion, the League would be no less glorious, for it has given the world the most powerful and moral of all instruments of civilization. How can we not see that this concerns not merely the liberation of trade but in turn all the reforms and acts of justice and reparation that humanity might carry out by means of these massive and vibrant organizations!

For this reason, with what happiness, I might almost say, with what outbursts of joy did I welcome the news you gave me at the end of your letter! France also will have her League! France will grow out of her eternal adolescence, blush at the shameful puerility in which she is vegetating, and become an adult! Oh! Let this day come and I will salute it as the finest in my life. Will we never cease to attribute glory to the development of physical force, to wish to settle all matters by the sword and glorify only that courage shown on the battlefield, whatever its motives and works? Will we finally understand that, since public opinion is the monarch of the world, it is public opinion that we have to work on and to which we have to communicate the enlightenment which shows it the right direction together with the energy to take it?

But after enthusiasm comes reflection. I tremble lest some disastrous germ infiltrate the beginnings of our League, for example a spirit of compromise, gradualness, procrastination, or caution. Everything will be lost if the League does not espouse or stick closely to an absolute principle. How could members of the League themselves agree if the League tolerated variable principles in varying degrees? And if they did not agree among themselves, what influence could they have outside?

Even if we should be only twenty, ten, or five, let that twenty, ten, or five have the same goal, the same determination, and the same faith. You have witnessed the campaign in England, I have myself studied it closely, and I know (and this I ask you to convey clearly to our friends) that if the League had made the slightest concession at any time in its existence, the aristocracy would have made short work of it a long time ago.

Therefore, let an association be formed in France. Let it undertake to free trade and industry from any monopoly. Let it devote itself to ensuring the triumph of the principle and you may count on my support. By word, pen, and purse, I will be its man. If it means legal proceedings, suffering persecution, or braving ridicule, I will be its man. Whatever role I am given, whatever rank I am allocated, on the hustings or in cabinet, I will be its man. In [84] enterprises of this kind, in France more than elsewhere, what is to be feared are rivalries based on amour propre; amour propre is the first sacrifice that we have to make on the altar of public good. I am mistaken; perhaps indifference and apathy are greater dangers. Since this project has been set up do not let it fail. Oh! Why am I not with you?

I was going to end my letter without thanking you in advance for what you will be saying about my publication in La Revue britannique. A simple translation cannot be worth such fulsome praise. Be that as it may, praise and criticism are welcome when they are sincere.

Yesterday evening a manifesto was discussed and adopted. The discussion was serious, interesting, and profound, and that in itself is a very good thing, since many people who undertake to enlighten others enlighten themselves. All executive powers were entrusted to a commission made up of MM Harcourt, Say, Dunoyer, Renouard, Blanqui, Léon Faucher, Anisson-Duperron, and me. On the other hand, this commission will be transmitting to me, at least in practice, the authority it has received and will limit itself to a controlling function; in these circumstances, could I possibly abandon a role that might fall into other hands and compromise the entire cause? I am unhappy at leaving Mugron and my accustomed ways, whimsical work, and our conversations. This is a desperate wrench, but have I any right to step back?

And my trembling knees are buckling beneath me.

Come from the dusk or the dawn.

. . . I am sending you the latest issue of the journal. You will see that I have taken the plunge with regard to the school of law. The breach has been made. If my health stands up to it I will certainly continue and, from next November, I will be giving a course to these young people, not on pure political economy but on social economics, using this phrase in the meaning we have given it, the “Harmony of Social Laws.” Something tells me that this course, intended for young people who have logical minds and warmth in their souls, will not be totally without use. I think that I will generate conviction, and following this I will at least indicate the correct sources to them. [132] Finally, if God will allow me only one more year of strength, my time spent on earth will not have been in vain. Is it not better to have managed a journal and given a course to the young people in schools than to be a deputy?

In English in the original.

An English newspaper. See “Anglomania, Anglophobia,” p. 333.

For what became Cobden and the League.

Bastiat means those students of economic science who favor free markets (Les Économistes).

See this letter, note 59.

Dunoyer, “Du système de l’equilibre des puissances européennes.”

Comte, “Considérations sur l’état moral de la nation française”; and Comte, “De l’organisation sociale.”

In the hiatus between the forced closure of Le Censeur by the censors in 1815 and its reopening in 1817 under the name Le Censeur européen, Comte and Dunoyer discovered the work of Jean-Baptiste Say, which transformed their view of how societies functioned and the future course of their progress under the impulse of “industrialism.” Bastiat was to adopt much of their social and economic theory as his own.

Bastiat uses the expression l’école économiste to refer to adherents of the free market, or the laissez-faire, school of economic thought (Les Économistes). It is worth noting that, in Bastiat’s time, economist was systematically understood as “liberal economist.”

Cobden and the League.

This letter was written in November 1844. The next article by Bastiat to appear in Le Journal des économistes was titled “Letter from an Economist to M. de Lamartine, on the Occasion of His Article Entitled ‘The Right to Work.’ ” (OC, vol. 1, p. 406, “Un Économiste à M. de Lamartine.”)

Institut de France.

Dunoyer, De la liberté du travail.

Probably a reference to the first two articles Bastiat had published in Le Journal des économistes on British and French tariffs and on Lamartine. (OC, vol. 1, p. 331, “De l’influence des tariffs français et anglais sur l’avenir des deux peuples” and “Un Économiste à M. de Lamartine.”)

(Paillottet’s note) The letter to which Bastiat is replying had been sent to him in connection with the article in Le Journal des économistes entitled “From an Economist to M. de Lamartine.” [OC, vol. 1, p. 406, “Un Économiste à M. de Lamartine.”]

Le Journal des économistes. (OC, vol. 1, p. 406, “Un Économiste à M. de Lamartine.”)

Newspapers from, respectively, the Landes, Bayonne, and the Pyrenees, which published articles by Bastiat. For the latter, see the glossary of subjects: Le Mémorial bordelais.

Economic Sophisms.

Le Journal des débats. Bastiat is referring to a review he wrote in that journal, “Sur l’ouvrage de M. Dunoyer. De la liberté du travail.” (OC, vol. 1, p. 428, “Sur un livre de M. Dunoyer.”)

The attorney general, Charles Dupin, modified the French legislation concerning dueling in order to reduce the number of fatalities. The law was in effect from 1837 to 1839. See also “Reflection on the Question of Dueling,” note 3, pp. 309-10.

Cobden and the League.

Ibid.

The sheets (“feuilles” in French) are printer’s sheets, which cover several pages.

Bastiat is referring to the introduction of Cobden and the League.

No book with such a title was published by Bastiat. The title was later changed to Economic Harmonies (see note 189, p. 131, and note 336, p. 251).

Cobden and the League.

No month given.

Antoine Destutt de Tracy.

Ireland had 5.2 million inhabitants in 1801, 8.2 million in 1841—an increase of 58 percent in forty years, in spite of two million emigrants. The misery was due not to an excessive population increase but to the fact that an Ireland living mainly on potatoes found one-third of the harvest destroyed by blight in 1845 and the entire harvest destroyed in 1846.

Comte, Traité de législation.

Comte, Traité de la propriété.

Economic Sophisms.

Apart from conferences and private education, political economy was taught only in the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, by Auguste Blanqui, and at the Collège de France, by Michel Chevalier.

Conservatoire national des arts et métiers.

In English in the original.

See “Anglomania, Anglophobia,” p. 320.

In English in the original.

Hyppolite Passy.

The German Zollverein (or customs union) was created in 1833 and based on the low Prussian tariff.

A Spanish translation of Cobden and the League appeared quickly: Cobden y la Liga: La agitación inglesa en favor de la libertad de comercio, translated by Elias Bautista y Muñoz (Madrid: Grabado de Don Baltasar González, 1847).

(Paillottet’s note) I think that I should have no scruple in revealing the name of M. de Langsdorf publicly now. What criticism could he encounter now for secret sympathies expressed in favor of free trade nineteen years ago?

Fonteyraud and Garnier, Mélanges d’économie politique.

Bastiat refers to two Wilsons in his correspondence. Here, Bastiat is most likely referring to George Wilson.

Marie Gustave Larnac. See “On Parliamentary Reform,” p. 367.

OC, vol. 1, p. 387, “De l’avenir du commerce des vins entre la France et la Grande-Bretagne.”

The tariff of 1842 was heavier than that of 1832. It was reduced in 1846.

Les Économistes.

The only Potonié that the editor could find is D. Potonié, who wrote Note sur l’organisation facultative des débouchés de l’industrie parisienne.

“The Articles of Paris” industry covered a wide range of luxury items, from leather goods to jewelry and fashion. They exported quite well.

(Paillottet’s note) The death of a relative.

John Benjamin Smith.

In English in the original.

The parts of this paragraph in quotation marks are in English in the original.

Vice president of the Board of Trade.

Justice of the peace in the county of Mugron.

At the 13 December 1838 meeting, the president of the chamber of commerce, Mr. Wood, criticized the Corn Laws but wanted to let the Whig government of John Russell modify them. Instead, Cobden was in favor of a total and immediate repeal.

Discussion of the Corn Bill in the Commons.

OC, vol. 7, p. 30, “Projet de ligue anti-protectioniste” and the following two essays.

Cobden’s address (to a banquet held in his honor) can be found in Annales de la Société, vol. 1, 1846-53.

See Letter 47, note 105.

Cobden and the League.

The sale price of Cobden and the League was 7.5 francs; Economic Sophisms was 4 francs.

In 1818, under the “Indivision Treaty,” in Oregon, British and American citizens had the same hunting, fishing, navigation, and circulation rights. The treaty was renewed in 1827 and canceled in 1846.

Martin Duffour-Dubergier.

It raised fifty-six thousand francs.

Articles published in Le Mémorial bordelais of 8, 9, 10, and 11 February.

Eugène de Monclar.

Le Mémorial bordelais.

Institut de France.

In English in the original.

Le Mémorial bordelais.

To Cobden and the League.

Bastiat is referring affectionately to the Chalosse region of the Landes.

Institut de France.

An extra tax levied on goods imported into France on foreign ships.

Free-trade associations were effectively established in Marseilles (17 September 1846), Lyons (13 October 1846), and Le Havre (28 November 1846).

Socrates (469-399 b.c.e.).

Bastiat is referring to Cobden’s articles “Lettre à la Société des économistes de Paris,” vol. 14, 1846; and “Discours au banquet de cette société,” vol. 15, 1846.

In English in the original.

Le Journal des débats.

Jean-Pierre Lacave-Laplagne.

“From scratch.”

No association of more than twenty persons could be formed without prior authorization from the government.

Le Mémorial bordelais.

Economic Sophisms.

The first English translation was Popular Fallacies Regarding General Interests. Being a Translation of the Sophismes économiques, by M. Frédéric Bastiat, with notes by G. R. Porter (London: J. Murray, 1846). Also appearing was an American edition: Sophisms of the Protective Policy, translated from the second French edition by Mrs. D. J. McCord, with an introductory letter by Dr. Francis Lieber (New York: Geo. P. Putnam; Charleston, S.C., 1848). An Italian edition also quickly appeared: Sofismi economici, translated by Antonio Contrucci (Florence: C. P. Onesti, 1847).

Opera buffa, or comic opera.

In English in the original.

Laws restricting liberties promulgated in September 1835, following an attempted assassination of Louis-Philippe.

“Opposites are balanced by opposites.”

Cobden had severe financial difficulties in 1845 that continued into 1846, the result of his increased activities with the Anti-Corn Law League and subsequent neglect of his family business. His friends and colleagues organized a public fund-raising campaign, which enabled him to pay off most of his debts. Most likely Bastiat is here referring to this campaign.

See Letter 67.

The letter to M. Duchâtel, minister of the interior, was published on 30 June 1846 by Le Mémorial bordelais. The authorization was granted in July.

Le Mémorial bordelais.

See “To the Electors of the District of Saint-Sever,” p. 352.

Town in the département of Lot et Garonne.

In English in the original.

In English in the original.

Before the postal reform of 1848, the price of mail depended on distance and was paid by the recipient. The surety was a deposit that the editor of a periodical had to make to provide for any future fine.

After the dissolution of the League, Cobden undertook a tour around Europe, traveling to France, Spain, Italy, Prussia, and Russia. From Bordeaux, he went to Spain through the Landes and the Pyrenees.

All these areas, which produced wines and spirits, were handicapped by difficult communications with Bayonne and tariffs.

Louis Léonard de Loménie, writer and professor of literature.

“The grumbling tribe.”

OC, vol. 2, p. 238, “Second discours, à Paris.”

“There is no cure.”

The second public meeting of the Association pour la liberté des échanges.

Bastiat wrote three letters in Le Havre which were published in Le Mémorial bordelais. (OC, vol. 7, p. 131, “Aux négociants du Havre.”)

Marriage of the young queen of Spain, Isabella II. Palmerston pushed for a candidate favored by the English, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg; and Guizot, for a son of Louis-Philippe. But the queen preferred her cousin Francisco.

Le Courrier français.

Bastiat’s journal, on the verge of publication.

In English in the original.

In English in the original.

Opera buffa, or comic opera.

Opera seria, or serious opera.

William Pitt the Younger.

At the fourth meeting of the Association pour la liberté des échanges.

This speech was never made.

In English in the original.

In English in the original.

After the Vienna Congress of 1815, Krakow had been a free town under the joint protection of Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Following an upheaval in 1846, Krakow was invaded by troops of the three countries and annexed to the Austrian empire. France and England protested in the name of the 1815 treaty.

“O countryside! When shall I look upon you!”

Famous cemetery in Paris.

Le Libre échange.

“Our native country is friendly but truth is more friendly.”

In English in the original.

In English in the original.

This is the first explicit reference to the disease that eventually killed Bastiat. His coughing up of blood suggests that he was suffering from tuberculosis or consumption. In his last letters he also mentions a painful larynx, which might have been a symptom of throat cancer.

In the absence of an income tax, state revenue in the nineteenth century largely depended on indirect taxes and import duties. Revenue-raising duties would be a low rate of tax applied to all goods. Protectionist duties would be much higher and applied only to those goods that would protect domestic vested interests.

Pius IX.

Bastiat is referring to the fifty-volume collection Economisti classici italiani, which contained works by many authors, including Cesare Beccaria, 1738-94; Gaetano Filangieri, 1752-88; Ferdinando Galiani, 1728-87; and Pietro Verri, 1728-97.

Socialism became an organized intellectual and political movement during the 1840s in France. It had a number of different schools of thought: the Fourrierists, the followers of the anarchist Proudhon, and the Saint-Simonians. They were a major target for the classical liberals, especially given their influence in the 1848 revolutions. See the long article, with accompanying bibliography, Reybaudin, “Socialistes, socialisme,” in vol. 2 of Dictionnaire de l’économie politique, pp. 629-41.

Bastiat was aware that he did not have long to live and worried that he would not finish his book Economic Harmonies (he did not). He had in fact another two years and five months to live when he wrote this letter.

The final structure of the book (unfinished after his death but edited by Paillottet) contained twenty-five chapters. A first volume was published during Bastiat’s lifetime, and it contained only ten chapters.

The Navigation Act was repealed in 1849 by the cabinet of John Russell.

Of course, this prediction did not come true. A couple of years after his death the Crimean War broke out (1854-56), and by the end of the century Britain had the largest navy and the most extensive empire in the world.

Louis Charles Decazes.

Le Journal des économistes lists many speeches and letters by Cobden in the general table of contents for the years 1841-65.

In English in the original.

Two series of the Sophisms were published (as Economic Sophisms), but a third never appeared.

The notes Bastiat refers to have not survived, but his address “To the Youth of France” (OC, vol. 6, p. 1, “À la jeunesse française”), which prefaces Economic Harmonies, might give some idea of what he said to the students in his course.

Le Mémorial bordelais.

Bastiat himself wrote an essay called “Anglomania, Anglophobia.” See p. 320.

(Paillottet’s note) This refers to the second series of Economic Sophisms.

Le libre échange.

297 Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) was a poet and statesman and as an immensely popular romantic poet, he used his talent to promote liberal ideas. During the campaign for free trade organised by the French Free Trade Association between 1846 and 1847 Lamartine often spoke at their large public meetings and was a big draw card. He was a member of the Provisional Government in February 1848 and offered Bastiat a position in the government, which he declined.

298 See the glossary entry on "The Fortifications of Paris."

299 Gustave de Molinari, Biographie politique de M. A. de Lamartine. Extraits de la Revue générale biographique, politique et littéraire, publié sous la direction de M. E. Pascallet. Deuxième Edition (Paris: Lacombe, 1843).

300 For example, they shared the stage at a Free Trade meeting in Marseille on 24 August 1847 and Lamartine's speech was published as a separate pamphlet, Discours de M. de Lamartine, dans l'Assemblée marseillaise du Libre échange, le 24 août 1847 (Lyon: Léon Boitel, 1847).

301 See his recollections in "Political Manifestos of April 1849," in CW1, pp. 390-91. Also Dean Russell, Frédéric Bastiat , p. 82.

302 Letter 94 to Coudroy (Paris, 29 February, 1848), CW1, p. 144.

303 Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–65) was a political theorist whom many people consider to be the father of anarchism. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1848 representing La Seine. He is best known for his book Qu'est-ce que la propriété? (What is Property?) (1841), the answer to which he thought was "property is theft." Proudhon and Bastiat engaged in a several month long debate on the morality of property, interest, and rent in late 1849. See, "Free Credit", below, pp. 000.

304 Victor Prosper Considerant (1808-93) was a follower of the socialist Charles Fourier and edited the most successful Fourierist magazine La Démocratie pacifiste (1843-1851). He was elected Deputy to represent Loiret in April 1848 and Paris in May 1849. The Fourierists advocated a utopian, communistic system for the reorganization of society. He was also an advocate of the "right to work" (the right to a job), an idea which Bastiat opposed.

305 Louis Blanc (1811-1882) was a journalist and historian who was active in the socialist movement. Blanc founded the journal Revue du progès and published therein articles that later became the influential pamphlet L'Organisation du travail (1839). During the 1848 revolution he became a member of the provisional government and promoted the National Workshops.

306 An extract of "Théorie du droit de propriété" can be found in Victor Considerant, Contre M. Arago: réclamation adressée à la Chambre des députés par les rédacteurs du feuilleton de la Phalange : suivi de la théorie du droit de propriété (Paris: Au bureau de la Phalange, 1840), pp. 49-64. It was republished in July 1848 at the height of the debate about right to work legislation which was taking place in the National Assembly: Victor Considerant, Droit de propriété et du droit au travail (Paris: Librairie phalanstérienne, 1848).

307 Louis Blanc, Organisation du travail. Association universelle. Ouvriers. - Chefs d'ateliers. - Hommes de lettres . (Paris: Administration de librairie, 1841. First edition 1839).

308 Lamartine, "Du droit au travail et de l'organisation du travail" in La Politique de Lamartine (1878), vol. 2, p. 151.

309 See the glossary on "The Right to Work."

310 Reprinted in Louis Blanc, Organisation du travail (5ème édition), revue, corrigée et augmentée d'une polémique entre M. Michel Chevalier et l'auteur, ainsi que d'un appendice indiquant ce qui pourrait être tenté dès à présent (Paris: au bureau de la Société de l'industrie fraternelle, 1847). "Réponses à diverses objections." Chevalier's article, pp. 121-35; and Blanc's response from 17 Feb. 1845, pp. 135-48. Chevalier quote from pp. 125-26. See also, Michel Chevalier, Lettres sur l'Organisation du travail, ou études sur les principales causes de la misère et sur les moyens proposées pour y remédier (Paris: Capelle, 1848) and Question des travailleurs : l'amélioration du sort des ouvriers, les salaires, l'organisation du travail (Paris: Hachette, 1848).

311 Dunoyer, Charles. De la liberté du travail, ou simple exposé des conditions dans lesquelles les force humaines s'exercent avec le plus de puissance. 3 vols. Paris: Guillaumin, 1845.

312 Alphonse de Lamartine, "Du droit au travail et de l'organisation du travail," Le Bien Public , déc. 1844. Later published as a pamphlet: Du droit au travail et de l'organisation du travail (Mâcon: Chassipollet, 1845). See also, La Politique , vol. 2, XXIX, pp. 145-65.

313 T.19 [1844.10.15] "On the Influence of French and English Tariffs on the Future of the Two People" (De l'influence des tarifs français et anglais sur l'avenir des deux peuples), JDE , T. IX, Oct. 1844, pp. 244-71 [OC1, pp. 334-86] [CW6].

314 Lamartine, "De la crise des subsistances" (1 Oct. 1846), Le Bien public , which provoked Bastiat's reply T.60 [1846.10.15] "Second Letter to M. de Lamartine" (Seconde lettre à Monsieur de Lamartine), JDE , 15 October 1846, T. 15, No. 49, pp. 265-70. [OC1.13, pp. 452-60]. See below, pp. 000.

315 See Bastiat's article on "Natural and Artificial Organisations" (JDE, January 1848) where he explores this idea further, below pp. 000.

316 See below, p. 000.

317 See Glossary entries on "Malthus" and "Malthusianism and French Political Economy."

318 T.17 [1844.??] "On the Division of the Land Tax in the Department of Les Landes" (De la répartition de la contribution foncière dans le Département des Landes) [OC1, pp. 283-333] [See above, pp. 000.

319 T.66 [1846.05.19] "On the Railway between Bordeaux and Bayonne. A Letter addressed to a Commission of the Chamber of Deputies" (Du chemin de fer de Bordeaux à Bayonne. Lettre adressée à une commission de la Chambre des députés), Le Mémorial bordelais , 19 May 1846 [OC7.22, pp. 103-8] [CW1, p. 312-16]

320 T.47 [1846.02.15] "Thoughts on Sharecropping" (Considérations sur le métayage), JDE , T.13, no. 51, Feb. 1846, pp. 225-239. [Not in OC] [CW4, pp. 000]; and T.81 [1846.10.15] "On Population" (De la population), JDE , 15 Octobre 1846, T. XV, no. 59, pp. 217-234. A revised version of this article appeared as chap. 16 in the 2nd, posthumous edition of Economic Harmonies (1851), with explanatory notes by Fontenay. Not in the OC.

321 EH2, chap. 16, "On Population," CW5 (forthcoming).

322 Pope Pius IX put the DEP on the Index of Banned Books on 12 June 1856 for "religious reasons," presumably for the article on "Malthus" written by Joseph Garnier which advocated various forms of birth control. See, Molinari's comments on this, L'Économiste belge , Supplément to the edition of 20 November, 1856, p. 5; and the "Beacon for Freedom of Expression" database of banned books and the entry for the DEP <http://search.beaconforfreedom.org/search/censored_publications/publication.html?id=9709582>. Joseph Garnier, "Malthus," DEP, vol. 2, pp. 126-29.

323 See the glossary on "The Social Mechanism" and "Natural and Artificial Organisation," JDE, 15 January, 1848, below pp. 000.

324 See the glossary on "Harmony and Disharmony."

325 See the glossary on "Disturbing and Restorative Factors."

326 See the glossary entry on "Service for Service."

327 See below, pp. 000.

328 Bastiat, Cobden et la ligue, ou l'Agitation anglaise pour la liberté du commerce (Paris: Guillaumin, 1845). Introduction, pp. i-xcvi.

329 These speeches by Bastiat will be included in CW6.

330 Henri Saint-Simon (1760-1825) was an aristocrat and soldier who, after the French Revolution, became a writer and influential social reformer. he was an early theorist of the idea of "industrialism," that the old regime of war, privilege, and monopoly would gradually be replaced by peace and a new elite of creators, producers, and industrialists. The movement split into a socialist branch, the Saint-Simonian school led by Auguste Comte and Olinde Rodrigues, and a classical liberal school led by Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer. The Saint-Simonians advocated rule by a technocratic elite, state-supported "industry," and the "organisation" of labour by bureaucratic planners.

331 Charles Fourier (1772-1837) was a socialist and founder of the phalansterian school, also known as "Fourierism", which advocated a utopian, communistic system for the reorganization of society. The population was to be grouped in "phalansteries"of about 1,800 persons, who would live together as one family and hold property and work in common.

332 This statement is somewhat ironic as this charge of going against the masters of economic thought (Malthus and Ricardo) would be leveled against Bastiat himself by his economist friends in response to several of his innovations in economic theory presented in several essays in the JDE and in the Economic Harmonies (1850), notably his theory of value, rent, and population growth.

333 In their theoretical work both Bastiat and Molinari made the importance of economic laws central to their understanding of economic theory, Bastiat in Economic Harmonies (1850) and Molinari in Les Soirées de la rue Saint-Lazare (Evening on Saint Lazarus Street) (1849) the subtitle of which was "Discussions on Economic Laws and the Defence of Property".

334 A contemporary of Bastiat, Joseph Garnier, in the entry for "laissez faire, laissez passer"in the DEP (1853) explained "laissez-faire" to mean "laissez travailler" (leave us free to work as we wish) and "laissez passer"to mean "laissez échanger" (leave us free to trade as we wish). See glossary on "Laissez-faire."

335 The English lawyer and social theorist Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) wrote the class book on utopia which he called Utopia (meaning "no-place" or "good-place") in 1516. Among many other things, on the island there was no private property, widespread use of slaves, and an internal passport required for travel.

336 James Harrington (1611-77) was an English republican political theorist who wrote an account of an ideal republican society in The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656). His views on voting by ballot and the rotation of office were considered radical in his day.

337 François Fénelon (1651-1715) was a French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer. He was appointed the tutor to the King's family. Today is remembered as the author of The Adventures of Telemachus (1699) which was thinly veiled critique of the doctrine of the divine right of kings, for example when the hero Telemachus visits Idomeneus, King of Salente and asks him very pointed questions about the nature of good rulership.

338 Robert Owen (1771-1858) was a successful English manufacturer, philanthropist, and socialist theoretician. He made his fortune with a cotton mill in New Lanark in Manchester. The reforms he introduced in his factory became the model for creating "villages of cooperation," which culminated in the establishment of a model community, New Harmony, in Indiana, in 1824.

339 Bastiat provides a similar list of socialist utopian writers in the article "Economic Harmonies: I., II., and III. The Needs of Man" in JDE, 1 September, 1848. See below, pp. 000.

340 The following were political economists: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Robert Malthus, James Mill, Jeremy Bentham, Nassau Senior, Desttut de Tracy, Jean-Baptiste Say, Charles Comte, Charles Dunoyer, Joseph Droz. The following were politicians who introduced liberal economic reforms: Thomas Jefferson, Richard Cobden, Thomas Peronnet Thompson, William Huskisson, and Robert Peel.

341 Bastiat called these men "mechanics" who wanted to build and run society like a machine. See "Natural and Artificial Organisation" (JDE, 15 January 1848), below, pp. 000.

342 ( Bastiat's Note .) In saying that people ought to enjoy the free exercise of their faculties, it of course remains a fact that I do not in the least intend to deny the government the right and duty of repressing the abuse that can result from this. On the contrary, economists consider that this is its principal and almost sole mission.

343 The long quote comes from La Politique de Lamartine , vol. 2, pp. 148-49; and then 149-50.

344 After the fall of the monarchy in August 1792 the Legislative Assembly called for an election based upon universal manhood suffrage to create a Constituent Assembly (also known as the National Convention) which would draw up a new constitution for the republic. It remained in power between September 1792 and October 1795. After the fall of Robespierre in July 1795 the Convention was replaced by a new constitutions and a new government called the Directory.

345 Bastiat uses the phrase "précisément l'harmonie du monde social dans la liberté de leur action" (the harmony of the social world precisely in the freedom of their action). This is his earliest uses of the term "harmony" used in this way.

346 Prosper Enfantin (1796-1864) was a banker and manager of the Paris-Lyon railroad who became interested in the ideas of Saint-Simon who believed that industrial society should be managed by an elite of scientists and engineers. Enfantin was regarded as one of Saint-Simonism's "high priests."

347 Lamartine, La politique , vol. 2, p. 159.

348 This criticism by Lamartine of the "coldness" of economics might have been one of the spurs to Bastiat writing his engaging, amusing, and clever "economic sophisms" over the coming year, beginning in April, shortly after this was written. These were collected and published in January 1846 as the first series of Economic Sophisms . He explicitly noted that he wanted to overcome the accusation made against political economy that it suffered from "de sécheresse et de prosaïsme" (dry and dull or prosaic) and that economists were "secs et froids" (dry and cold). See, ES2.2 "Two Moral Philosophies," ES2 2 in CW3, pp. 131-38. Quote on p. 135.

349 Alphonso the Wise (Alfonso X) (1221-1284) was king of Leon and Castile from 1252-1284 and was reputed to have said that if he had been present at the creation of the world he would have had a few words of advice for the Creator on how better to order the universe. During his reign he attempted to reorganize the Castillian sheep industry, raised money by debasing the currency, and imposed high tariffs in order to prevent the inevitable price rises which resulted. Bastiat liked this story about Alfonso so much that he referred to it several times in his work.

350 The purpose of what would later become Bastiat's Economic Sophisms was to refute the economic errors (sophisms) which were deliberately spread by the protectionists in order to deceive "the dupes", the ignorant and gullible general public.

351 Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (1749-1827) was an astronomer and mathematician who was appointed Minister of the Interior under Napoleon in 1799 and a Peer in the Restoration. He contributed to the restructuring of the French high school system under Napoléon by ensuring that mathematics was a crucial part of the curriculum. His major work was the multi-volume Mécanique céleste (Celestial Mechanics) (1799-1805). He used his new mathematical models to explain the perturbations in the orbits of Saturn, Jupiter, and the moon and discovered that they were oscillations which repeated themselves over time within precise limits.

352 François Arago (1786-1853).

353 See Arago's biography of "Laplace" in Œvres complètes de François Arago, secrétaire perpétuel de l'Académie des sciences. Publiées d'après son ordre sous la direction de M. Jean Augustin Barral (Paris: Gide et J. Baudry, 1855), vol. 3, p. 478.

354 This could a reference to either the Idéologues, like Destutt de Tracy, or the Economists, like Jean-Baptiste Say. In Lucien Bonaparte's Memoirs he tells us that his brother Napoléon boasted that he invented the term "ideologue" to ridicule the liberal reformers around Destutt de Tracy who dared to tell him how to run the government. He also called them "metaphysicians" and "chercheurs d'idées" (idea hunters) and "les bavards" (chatter boxes). See, Théodore Iung, Lucien Bonaparte et ses mémoires: 1775 - 1840 d'après les papiers déposés aux archives étrangères et d'autre documents inédits . 3 vols. (Paris: Charpentier, 1882). vol. 2, p. 243. Napoléon's most extended rant against the economists can be found in one of the conversations recorded by Count de Las Cases in 23 June 1816 while Napoléon was incarcerated on Sainte-Hélène. He was quoted as saying that "The Emperor fought against the Economists whose principles could be true in principle (leur annoncé) but became harmful (vicieux) in their application." (p. 332). See, Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, ou, Journal où se trouve consigné, jour par jour, ce qu'a dit et fait Napoléon durant dix-huit mois, par le comte de Las Cases (Paris: L'Auteur, tous les libraires de France et de l'etranger, 1823). vol. 4, pp. 331-38. In turn, Jean-Baptiste Say wrote a lengthy critique of Napoleon's economic ideas in "Erreurs où peuvent tomber les bons auteurs qui ne savent pas l'économie politique," Mélanges et correspondance d'économie politique: ouvrage posthume de J.-B. Say; publié par Charles Comte, son gendre (Paris: Chamerot, 1833), pp. 380-405.

355 La Politique de Lamartine , vol. 2, p. 164

356 La Politique de Lamartine , vol. 2, p. 165.

357 See his article "On Competition," JDE May 1846, below pp. 000.

358 Bastiat refers several times to humans as "un être actif" (an acting or active being) and to "l'action humaine" (human action). Here he refers to "des agents intelligents et libres" (fee and intelligent agents or actors). See the glossary on "Human Action."

359 Bastiat says "stérilité" which might be childlessness, or the use of contraception.

360 This is an idea which Bastiat took up again in his famous essay on "The State" which first appeared in his revolutionary street magazine Jacques Bonhomme in June 1848 and then in a revised and longer version in the upmarket Journal des Débats in Sept. 1848. See, T.212 [1848.06.11] "The State" (L'État), Jacques Bonhomme , no. 1, 11-15 June 1848, p. 2 [OC7.59, pp. 238-40] [CW2, pp. 105-6]; and T.222 [1848.09.25] "The State" (L'État), Journal des Débats , 25 Sept. 1848, pp. 1-2; also published as a pamphlet: L'État. Maudit argent! (The State. Damned Money) (Paris: Guillaumin, 1849). [OC4, pp. 327-41] [CW2, pp. 93-104]

361 Bastiat uses the phrase "comme élément harmonique dans le jeu des lois sociales" which is only the second time he used the word "harmonique".

362 Charles Comte, Traité de Législation , 1826 ed, vol. 1, Livre II, Chap. XI. De l'action des lois de la morale, et des obstacles que cette action rencontre quelquefois dans celle des gouvernemens, dans des institutions publiques, ou dans des erreurs populaires," p. 507-8. Similar arguments were made by Herbert Spencer against compulsory or government charity (but not voluntary charity) as early as 1842 in "The Proper Sphere of Government". See, Herbert Spencer, The Man versus the State, with Six Essays on Government, Society and Freedom , ed. Eric Mack, introduction by Albert Jay Nock (Indianapolis: LibertyClassics, 1981). < /titles/330#lf0020_head_018 >.

363 Bastiat says "une communauté de droit" (a community of entitlements).

364 Bastiat is giving here the standard Malthusian response of the Economists of his day. He was later to repudiate much of this orthodoxy in an article and in Economic Harmonies much to the regret of his colleagues. See, Bastiat, "De la population" (On Population), JDE , Octobre 1846, below, pp. 000; and EH, Chap. 16 "Population" See also the glossary on "Malthusianism."

365 La Politique de Lamartine , vol. 2, p. 151.

366 "For the sake of living" - "propter vitam vivendi perdere causas" (to destroy the reasons for living for the sake of life) which comes from Juvenal, Satyricon VIII, verses 83–84.

367 Bastiat uses the older 18th century expression "la police" which meant state and bureaucratic regulation of the economy.

368 Here Bastiat uses the term "l'économie sociale" (social economy) which is one he often used in his writing. By this he meant something broader than the more limited sphere of "pure political economy" which encompassed the traditional economic matters of production, trade, and the buying and selling goods and services. "Social economy" included all aspects of human activity in the social realm, namely any human activity which was voluntary and involved groups of individuals coming together for social purposes. In other words, what we would today call sociology. In late 1847 Bastiat had an opportunity to give some lectures at the School of Law on social economy, or what he called in a letter to his friend Félix Coudroy the "Harmonie des lois sociales" (the Harmony of Social laws). These lectures were later to become part of his book Economic Harmonies . See, Letter 81. Paris, Aug. 1847. To Félix Coudroy (OC1, p. 78), CW1 , pp. ???

369 Bastiat's view of the proper and legitimate functions of the state was that it should do less than the standard "limited government" envisaged by Adam Smith and his followers, namely police, defence, courts, some public goods like roads, possibly some education, and the provision of money. Bastiat believed in "ultra-minimal government" since he believed that many roads, all education, and even money could be provided privately. He also thought the national standing army should be demobilised and replaced by local militias, and that only in grave emergencies should the government provide some temporary and limited relief to the poor during emergencies (such as crop failures). These minimal state activities would be funded by a 5% tariff on both imports and exports until they could be replaced by single flat income tax. All other taxes would be abolished. Although he did not go as far as his younger friend and colleague Gustave de Molinari did in wanting to see the private provision of "security," he was much more radical than most of his colleagues in the Political Economy Society. See the debates in the Society on "The Limit of the Functions of the State" which were held in October 1849, January and February 1850, below, pp. 000, pp. 000. and pp. 000.

370 La Politique de Lamartine , vol. 2, p. 164.

371 The same quotation was used by Bastiat on the title page of his first series of Economic Sophisms (1846). It comes from Bentham's Théorie des peines et des récompenses (1811) in a passage at the end of chapter XIV on "Abolition du taux fixe de l'intérêt de l'argent dans les entreprises commerciales". It seems to be an insertion by the editor (Bowring) from Bentham's Manual of Political Economy . The quotation makes sense when one realises that it concerns the proper functions of government and what politicians and regulators can learn from political economy. Here Bentham is arguing for a hands off approach, or a policy of laissez-faire: "Je terminerai ce précis comme je l'ai commencé, en répétant que l'économie politique doit être considérée comme une science plutôt que comme un art. Il y a beaucoup à apprendre , et peu à faire. Les abeilles font le miel par instinct; il suffit de leur laisser une ruche tranquille, des champs et des bois pour y amasser leur récolte; mais, parce qu'on a besoin d'une partie de leur miel, il faut étudier leur nature, il faut connaître l'économie de ce petit peuple, pour ne pas nuire à la reproduction de ses travaux." (I will end this precis as I began it, by repeating that political economy ought to be regarded as a science rather than an art. There is much to learn and little (for the government) to do. The bees make honey by instinct. It is sufficient to leave their hive in peace, and also the fields and woods for them to harvest their crop. However, because we need part of their honey it is necessary to understand the economy of these little creatures ("people") in order not to harm their productive labour.) The English language version is somewhat different. In the 1825 edition the editor paraphrases Bentham in a chapter dealing with "Bentham and Adam Smith" on political economy and much of it seems to have been taken from the Manual of Political Economy : "In conclusion, political economy is a science, rather than an art. There is much to be learned respecting it and little to be done. Is it inquired what ought governments to do, that wealth may be increased—the answer is, Very little, and nothing rather than too much. What ought to be done for the increase of population ?—Nothing. In the greater number of states, the best methods of augmenting population and wealth, would consist in abolishing those laws and regulations whereby it has been sought to increase them, provided such abolition were gradually and carefully accomplished. The art therefore is reduced within a small compass: security and freedom is all that industry requires. The request which agriculture, manufactures, and commerce presents to governments, is modest and reasonable as that which Diogenes made to Alexander: " Stand out of my sunshine." We have no need of favour, we require only a secure and open path." See, Oeuvres de Jeremy Bentham, vol. 2 (Bruxelles: L. Hauman, 1829), p. 246; and The Rationale of Reward (London: (London: John and H. L. Hunt, 1825), p. 229.

372 La Politique de Lamartine , vol. 2, p. 164.

373 Bastiat uses the term "la simplification of government" which we have translated as the reduction in size of government" which fits better the contrast he draws between the slogans " Société contrainte, gouvernement compliqué" (coerced society, big or complicated government) and " Société libre, gouvernement simple" (free society, small or simple government).

374 This is a another very early use of the terms disturbing and restorative factors. See the glossary on "Disturbing and restorative Factors."

375 Bastiat makes an issue of slogans and banners in this section so it is worth looking at the slogans he chose to put on the banners of the magazines he edited in the coming years. He was very taken with a phrase used by Lamartine in a speech he gave for the French Free Trade Association in Lyon in August 1847, "la vie à bon marché" (life at low prices). Bastiat made this one of the three slogans he used on the banner of the Association's journal Le Libre-Échange which was edited and largely written by Bastiat and which appeared between 29 Nov. 1846 to 16 April 1848. The others were "on ne doit payer d'impôt qu'à l'État" (one ought to pay taxes only to the state) and "les produits s'achètent avec les produits" (products are bought with other products). In the first magazine he and Molinari and others produced and handed out in the streets of Paris in February and March 1848, La Republique française , the slogans used were "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity) and "Justice, Économie, Ordre" (Justice, Economie, and Order). His second revolutionary magazine, Jacques Bonhomme , appeared in June and July 1848 and had as its primary slogan Lamartine's "la vie à bon marché". See, Discours de M. de Lamartine, prononcé dans l'Assemblée marseillaise du libre échange, le 24 août, 1847 (Association pour la liberté des échanges. Lyon: L. Boitel, 1847), p. 6.

376 Bastiat uses term "liberté de transactions" which we have translated here as "freedom to do business."

377 Bastiat is referring to Richard Cobden, the leader of the Anti-Corn Law League, who was successful in getting the Corn Laws repealed in January 1846. Bastiat's first book was on him: Cobden et la ligue, ou l'Agitation anglaise pour la liberté du commerce (Paris: Guillaumin, 1845). See the glossary on "Cobden."

378 This is his first use of the term"la mécanique social" (the social mechanism). Later he preferred to use the very similar phrase "le mécanisme social" (the social mechanism) which he first used in the article "On Competition" (JDE May 1846). See below, pp. 000.

379 This is a reference to the innovative methods used by the Anti-Corn Law League in spreading free trade ideas in Britain. They employed itinerant lecturers to address large crowds in all the major towns, sold or gave away large numbers of leaflets and pamphlets, and sold merchandise. Bastiat spoke about these new techniques very enthusiastically in the introduction to his book and hoped to emulate them in France with a Free Trade Association with which Bastiat became very active in 1846-47.

380 One of the strategies of the Anti-Corn Law League was to encourage supporters to buy land in key boroughs in order to be allowed to vote, in the hope they might tip the election in their favour.

381 See, CW3, pp. 1-110.

382 He was still expressing considerable self-doubt about his abilities as an economist in the "Draft Preface to the Harmonies " (Fall, 1847) in CW1, pp. 316-20.

383 T.19 "On the Influence of French and English Tariffs on the Future of the Two People" (De l'influence des tarifs français et anglais sur l'avenir des deux peuples), JDE , T. IX, Oct. 1844, pp. 244-71 [OC1, pp. 334-86] [CW6].

384 G. de Molinari, "Nécrologie. Frédéric Bastiat, notice sur sa vie et ses écrits," JDE, T. 28, N° 118. 15 février 1851, pp. 180-96. Molinari said they had thought he was "a simple piece of quartz" from the depths of Les Landes not realising that he was in fact "this diamond," p. 184.

385 Bastiat, Cobden et la ligue, ou l'Agitation anglaise pour la liberté du commerce (Paris: Guillaumin, 1845). Bastiat's Introduction will appear in CW6 (forthcoming). An edited version of the Introduction was published in the JDE: T.28 (1845.06.15) "The Economic Situation of Great Britain: Financial Reforms and Agitation for Commercial Freedom" (Situation économique de la Grande-Bretagne. Réformes financières. Agitation pour la liberté commerciale), JDE , June 1845, T. XI, no. 43, pp. 233-265.

386 He uses the phrase "cette tactique d'agitation" (this tactic of demonstration or protest) in a letter to Horace Say: Letter 33. Letter to Horace Say, 24 November 1844, CW1, pp. 53-55. Quote on p.54.

387 He talks about this meeting in Letter 37. Letter to Félix Coudroy, Paris May, 1845, CW1, pp. 59-61. See the glossary entry on "The Political Economy Society."

388 The next installment of Economic Sophisms appeared in July ("Equalizing the Conditions of Production" and "Our Products are weighed down with Taxes") and October ("The Balance of Trade," "Petition by the Manufacturers of Candles," "Differential Duties," "An immense Discovery!!!," "Reciprocity," and "Nominal Prices". These 10 short pieces which first appeared in the Journal des Économistes , along with 11 others, were published at the end of the 1845 as the first series of Economic Sophisms published by Guillaumin. The second series would appear in January 1848.

389 Letter 41. Letter to Félix Coudroy (n.d.), CW1, pp. 66-67. The context tells us the time it must have been written.

390 Letter 80. Letter to Richard Cobden, Paris, 5 July 1847, CW1, pp. 130-31. He stated: "Being struck by the danger in the path along which the young were rushing headlong, I took the initiative of asking young people to listen to me. I gathered together students from the schools of law and medicine, i.e., the young men who, in a few years' time, will be governing the world, or France at least. They listened to me with goodwill and friendliness but, as you will readily understand, without understanding me very well. No matter; since the experiment has been started I will continue it to the end."

391 See, "To the Youth of France," in EH (FEE edition), pp. xxi-xxxvii. LF edition CW5 (forthcoming). He was still saying the same thing to Fontenay in July 1850: "Middle-aged men (around the Journal des Économistes ) do not easily abandon well-entrenched and long-held ideas. For this reason, it is not to them but to the younger generation that I have addressed and submitted my book." See Letter 180. Letter to M. de Fontenay, Les Eaux-Bonnes, 3 July 1850, CW1, pp. 255-56.

392 Letter 37, CW1, p. 59.

393 Letter 37, CW1, p. 59.

394 Letter 37, CW1, p. 63.

395 Eugène Daire (1798-1847) was of all things a tax collector who revived interest in the heritage of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century free-market economics. He came to Paris in 1839, met Guillaumin, discovered the works of Jean-Baptiste Say, and began editing the fifteen-volume work, Collection des principaux économistes (1840-48). It included works on eighteenth-century finance, the physiocrats, Turgot, Adam Smith, Malthus, Jean-Baptiste Say, and Ricardo. He was a founding member of the Political Economy Society.

396 Letter 42. Letter to Félix Coudroy, Paris, 3 July 1845, CW1, pp. 67-69. Quote on p. 68.

397 Letter 42, CW1, p. 68.

398 Letter 40. Letter to Félix Coudroy,16 June 1845, CW1, pp. 65-66.

399 He describes them as "an accidental meeting of well-meaning men" in Letter 38. Letter to Félix Coudroy, Paris, 23 May, 1845, CW1, pp. 61-62. Quote on p. 61.

400 Bastiat was already beginning to think of writing a theoretical treatise of his own since the "Economic Sophisms" were proving to be popular with ordinary readers and he had gained the esteem and recognition of many of his colleagues. He planned to call it Social Harmonies. See, Editor's Introduction to "A Note on Economic and Social Harmonies" (June 1845), below, pp. 000.

401 Letter 40, CW1, p. 65.

402 Letter 42, CW1, pp. 69, and Letter 43, p. 71. See the glossary entry on "Charles Comte."

403 Bastiat described J.B. Say as "his intellectual father" and called Charles Comte's Traité de la propriété (1834) one of the few books he might take with him if he were marooned on a desert island. See Letter 33, CW1, p. 53; and T.143 "On Mignet's Eulogy of M. Charles Comte" (July 1847), below, pp. 000.

404 The Académie des sciences morales et politiques (the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences) is a French learned society and one of the five academies which comprise the Institute of France. The Academy was founded in 1795 as part of a restructuring of the pre-revolutionary Royal Academies. It was reconstituted by King Louis-Philippe in October 1832 with five sections. Bastiat was made a "corresponding" (or junior) member of the 4th section (Political and Statistical Economics) on 24 January, 1846. See the glossary on "The Academy of Moral and Political Sciences."

405 Can't find in Archives parlementaires ??? Missing vol. 76.

406 The next installment of Economic Sophisms appeared in July ("Equalizing the Conditions of Production" and "Our Products are weighed down with Taxes") and October ("The Balance of Trade," "Petition by the Manufacturers of Candles," "Differential Duties," "An immense Discovery!!!," "Reciprocity," and "Nominal Prices". These 10 short pieces which first appeared in the Journal des Économistes ,along with 11 others, were published at the end of the 1845 as the first series of Economic Sophisms published by Guillaumin. The second series would appear in January 1848.

407 See the glossary entries on "Dunoyer" and "Comte."

408 We have evidence that Bastiat was reading Dunoyer as early as 1827 (Letter to Coudroy, 9 April 1827) where he refers to his theory of "industrialism" and that he was attempting to write to him on the eve of his coming to Paris in the second half of 1844, hoping that Horace Say might make the introduction on his behalf. He finally met Dunoyer at a dinner held in Paris to welcome Bastiat's arrival in May 1845 (Letter to Coudroy, May, 1845). This was the first of several dinners and meetings with the man whose work he so much admired.

409 Letter 34. "Letter to Charles Dunoyer (Mugron, 7 March 1845), CW1, pp.55-56.

410 There is no reference to Bastiat in the printed book but Bastiat may be referring to a hand written note Dunoyer may have included with the copy he sent Bastiat.

411 See, T.19 [1844.10.15] "On the Influence of French and English Tariffs on the Future of the Two People" (De l'influence des tarifs français et anglais sur l'avenir des deux peuples), JDE , T. IX, Oct. 1844, pp. 244-71 [OC1, pp. 334-86] [CW6]; and T.23 [1845.01.15] "Letter from an Economist to M. de Lamartine. On the occasion of his article entitled: The Right to Work (Un économiste à M. de Lamartine. A l'occasion de son écrit intitulé: Du Droit au travail), JDE , Feb. 1845, T. 10, no. 39, pp. 209-223 [OC1, pp. 406-28]

412 Letter 37. Paris, May 1845. To Félix Coudroy (OC1, pp. 50-52)

413 Michel Chevalier, "Variétés", Journal des débats , 21 February, 1845, p. 3.

414 See below, pp. 000.

415 Comte, Charles, Traité de législation, ou exposition des lois générales suivant lesquelles les peuples prospèrent, dépérissent ou restent stationnaire , 4 vols. (Paris: A. Sautelet et Cie, 1827). A second revised edition was published in 1835 by Chamerot, Ducollet of Paris in 4 vols. to coincide with the publication of its sequel, the Traité de la propriété . Comte, Charles, Traité de la propriété , 2 vols. (Paris: Chamerot, Ducollet, 1834).

416 As is often the case in this period, the lengthy subtitles to the works reveal much about the intention of the author: Dunoyer, Charles, L'Industrie et la morale considérées dans leurs rapports avec la liberté (Industry and Morality considered in the Relationship with Liberty) (Paris: A. Sautelet et Cie, 1825); Nouveau traité d'économie sociale, ou simple exposition des causes sous l'influence desquelles les hommes parviennent à user de leurs forces avec le plus de LIBERTÉ, c'est-à-dire avec le plus FACILITÉ et de PUISSANCE (A New Treatise on Social Economy: or a simple Account of the Causes under the Influence of which Mankind comes to use their Powers with the most Liberty, that is to say with the greatest Skill and Strength) (Paris: Sautelet et Mesnier, 1830), 2 vols.; and De la liberté du travail, ou simple exposé des conditions dans lesquelles les forces humaines s'exercent avec le plus de puissance (On the Liberty of Working, or a simple Account of the Conditions under which Mankind's Powers are exercised with the greatest Strength) (Paris: Guillaumin, 1845).

417 See the glossary entry on "Social Economy."

418 Dunoyer, De la liberté du travail , vol. 1, p. 3.

419 Dunoyer, De la liberté du travail , vol. 1, p. 25.

420 Dunoyer, De la liberté du travail , vol. 1, p. 17.

421 See the Editor's Introduction to his "Letter to Lamartine" above, pp. 000. Also the glossaries on "Harmony and Disharmony" and "Service for Service."

422 Dunoyer, De la liberté du travail , vol. 1, Preface, p. xv.

423 This is the first time Bastiat uses the term "harmonique" (harmonious) which would later become the lynch pin of his theoretical work. See the glossary entry on "Harmony and Disharmony."

424 The Moravian Brethren was a Christian sect founded by the followers of Jan Hus (1370-1415) who was a Czech priest and dean of the Prague faculty of theology. He was burned at the stake for heresy. During the 18th century the Moravians established settlements where communal living and simplicity of lifestyle based upon limited personal property was practiced.

425 A Phalanstery. was a self-sustaining community of the followers of the utopian socialist Charles Fourier. He envisaged that new communities of people would spring up in order to escape the injustices of free-market societies and industrialism. He called his new self-supporting communities "phalanxes," which would consist of about 1,600 people who would live in a specially designed building called a "phalanstère," or "phalanstery." See the glossary entries for "Fourier" and "Phalanstery."

426 "Fi de la liberté ! À bas la liberté !" is the refrain from a poem called "La Liberté. Première chanson faite à Sainte-Pélagie" (Janvier 1822) by the poet and political song writer Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780–1857) when he was in prison for offending the censors. He mocks his jailers by listing their crimes against him and pretending to denounce liberty.In Béranger's Songs of the Empire, the Peace, and the Restoration , trans. Robert B. Brough (London: Addey and Co., 1854), pp. 109-11. Chansons de P.J. Béranger, précédées d'une notice sur l'auteur et d'un essai sur ses poésies par M. P. Tissot (Paris: Perrotin, 1829), Tome II. pp. 13-15. See the glossary on Béranger.

427 Marcellin Jobard (1792-1861) was a Belgian lithographer, photographer, and inventor. From 1841 to 1861 he was the director of the Royal Belgian Museum of Industry in Brussels. He was a prolific inventor (with 75 patents) and took up the cause of defending the property rights of inventors. He wrote dozens of pamphlets expressing his views in a very idiosyncratic manner.

428 See the glossary entry "Saint-Simon."

429 See the glossary entry on "Blanc."

430 George Cuvier (1769-1832) was a French naturalist who specialised in the areas of comparative anatomy and paleontology. In the field of geology he was an exponent of the theory of catastrophism in which period cataclysmic events led to the radical transformation of the earth's landscape and the mass extinction of animal species.

431 Bastiat no doubt had in mind some of the people discussed by Louis Reybaud, Études sur les réformateurs ou socialistes modernes: La société et le socialisme, les communistes, les chartistes, les utilitaires, les humanitaires (Paris: Guillaumin, 1843). 3 vols.

432 Dunoyer, De la liberté du travail , vol. 1, Livre 1. "Ce que l'auteur entend par le mot liberté," pp. 23-43.

433 Dunoyer's classification of economic activity was threefold: industries which were involved with transforming "things" (such as mining, transport, manufacturing, and agriculture), industries which were concerned with human well-being (such as medicine, culture, education, and moral development), and activities which were less "industrial" but still an integral part of what he called the "social economy" (such as voluntary associations, trade, and charity and other forms of gift giving). De la liberté du travail , vol. 1, pp. 15-16.

434 Destutt de Tracy, Traité d'économie politique (Paris: Bouguet et Lévi, 1823), Chap. II. "De la formation de nos richesses, ou de la production utile," p. 88. "Quand à la classe laborieuse et directement productive de toutes nos richesses, comme son action sur tous les êtres de la nature se réduit toujours à les changer de forme ou de lieu, elle se partage naturellement en deux: les manufacturiers (y compris les agriculteurs), qui fabriquent et façonnent; et les commerçans, qui transportent, car c'est là la véritable utilité de ces derniers: s'ils ne faisaient qu'acheter et revendre , sans transport et, sans détailler, sans rien faciliter , ils ne seraient que des parasites incommodes, des joueurs , des agioteurs. Nous parlerons bientôt des uns et des autres, et nous verrons promptement combien notre manière de considérer les choses répand de• lumières sur toute la marche de la société. Pour le moment, il est encore nécessaire d'expliquer un peu davantage en quoi consiste cette utilité, notre seule production, laquelle résulte de tout travail bien entendu, et de voir comment elle s'apprécie, et comment elle seule constitue la valeur de tout ce que nous appelons nos richesses."

435 The idea that exchange was in fact the exchange of "service pour service" (a service for a service) was one of Bastiat's key insights which he developed more fully in the Economic Harmonies . Here is his first use of this idea although expressed in a slightly different form, "La société, au point de vue économique, est un échange de services rémunérés". See the glossary entry on "Service for Service."

436 Bastiat defends the idea that people like doctors, lawyers, and teachers also do productive work creating what J.B. Say called "non-material goods" See Say's definition in Traité d'économie politique ou Simple exposition de la manière dont se forment, se distribuent et se consomment les richesses , (Paris: Rapilly, 1826), Volume 3, pp. 312-13: "Produit Immatériel. C'est toute espèce d'utilité qui n'est attachée à aucun corps matériel, et qui, par conséquent, est nécessairement consommée au même instant que produite. Les produits immatériels sont, comme les autres produits, le résultat d'une industrie, ou d'un capital, ou d'un fonds de terre, ou de tous les trois ensemble. L'utilité qu'on retire du service d'un médecin, d'un avocat, d'un fonctionnaire civil ou militaire, est un résultat de leur industrie; L'utilité qu'on retire d'une maison , ou d'un meuble durable, de l'argenterie, est un résultat du service d'un capital; L'utilité ou le plaisir qu'on retire d'une route ou d'un jardin d'agrément, sont le résultat du service d'un fonds de terre, accru du capital consacré à leur arrangement." Trans . ???

I. Abundance and Scarcity [April 1845] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Abondance, disette" (Abundance and Scarcity) [JDE, April 1845, T. 11, p. 1-8]
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 5-14.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

What is better for mankind and society, abundance or scarcity?

What, people will exclaim, is that a question to ask? Has it ever been stated or is it possible to assert that scarcity is the basis of man's well-being?

Yes, that has been claimed; yes, it has been asserted. It is asserted every day, and I have no fear in saying that the theory of scarcity is by far the more popular. It is the subject of conversation in the journals, books, and on the rostrum, and although this may appear extraordinary it is clear that political economy will have fulfilled its task and its practical mission when it has popularized and made irrefutable this very simple proposition: "Mankind's wealth lies in the abundance of things."

Do we not hear this everyday: "Foreigners are going to swamp us with their products"? We therefore fear abundance.

Has M. de Saint-Cricq15 not said: "Production is too high"? He therefore feared abundance.

Do workers not smash machines? They are therefore terrified of excess production or, in other words, abundance.

Has M. Bugeaud16 not pronounced these words: "Let bread become expensive and farmers will be rich!"? Well, bread can become expensive only if it becomes scarce; therefore M. Bugeaud was recommending scarcity.

Has not M. d'Argout17 used the very fact of the productive capacity of the sugar industry as an argument against it? Has he not said: "Beetroot has no future, and its cultivation could not be expanded, since if just a few hectares per department were allocated to it this would meet the entire consumption needs of France." Therefore, in his eyes, good lies in lack of production, or scarcity, and harm in fertility and abundance.

Do La Presse,18 Le Commerce,19 and the majority of daily newspapers not publish one or more articles each morning to demonstrate to the Chambers and the government that it would be sound policy to raise the price of everything by law through the operation of tariffs? Do the three powers of state20 not comply every day with this injunction from the regular press? Now tariffs raise the price of things only because they decrease the quantity offered in the marketplace! Therefore the papers, the Chambers, and the government put into practice the theory of scarcity, and I was right to say that this theory is by far the most popular one.

How has it come about that in the eyes of workers, political writers, and statesmen abundance is shown as something to be feared and scarcity as being advantageous. I propose to go back to the source of this illusion.

We note that men become rich to the extent that they earn a good return from their work, that is to say from what they sell at the highest price. They sell at the highest price in proportion to the rarity, that is to say the relative shortage, of the type of good their efforts produce. We conclude from this that, as far as they are concerned at least, scarcity makes them rich. When this reasoning is applied successively to all people who work, the theory of scarcity is thereby deduced. From this we move to its application, and in order to benefit all these people, high prices and the scarcity of all goods are provoked artificially by means of prohibition, restriction, the suppression of machines, and other similar means.

This is also true for abundance. We observe that when a product is plentiful it is sold at a low price and therefore producers earn less. If all producers are in this situation, they all become poor and it is therefore abundance that ruins society. And, since all beliefs attempt to become reality, in a great many countries, we see laws made by men combating the abundance of things.

This sophism, expressed as a general statement, would perhaps have little effect; but when it is applied to a particular order of facts, to such and such a branch of production, or to a given class of workers, it is extremely specious, and this can be explained. It is a syllogism that is not false but incomplete. Now, whatever truth there is in a syllogism is always and necessarily available to cognitive inspection. But the incomplete element is a negative phenomenon, a missing component which is very possible and even very easy not to take into account.

Man produces in order to consume. He is both producer and consumer. The reasoning that I have just set out considers him only from the first of these points of view. From the second, the opposite conclusion would have been reached. Could we not say in fact:

The consumer is all the richer when he buys everything cheaply. He buys things cheaply the more abundant they are; therefore abundance makes him rich. This reasoning, when extended to all consumers, would lead to the theory of abundance!

It is the way in which the concept of trade is imperfectly understood that produces these illusions. If we look to our own personal interest, we will recognize immediately that it has a twin nature. As sellers, our interest is in things being expensive and consequently that things should be scarce; as buyers, what counts is low prices or what comes to the same thing, that things should be abundant. We cannot therefore base a line of reasoning on one or other of these interests without having established which of the two coincides and is identified with the general and constant interest of the human race.

If man were a solitary animal,21 if he worked exclusively for himself, if he consumed the fruit of his labor directly, in a word, if he did not trade, the theory of scarcity would never have been able to infiltrate the world. It is only too obvious that abundance would be advantageous to him, from wherever it arose, either as the result of his industry or the ingenious tools or powerful machines that he had invented or through the fertility of the soil, the generosity of nature or even a mysterious invasion of products which the waves brought from elsewhere and washed up on the beach. Never would a solitary man, seeking to spur on his own work or to secure some support for it, envisage breaking instruments that spared him effort, or neutralizing the fertility of the soil or throwing back into the sea any of the advantageous goods it had brought him. He would easily understand that work is not an aim but a means, and that it would be absurd to reject the aim for fear of damaging the means. He would understand that if he devotes two hours a day to providing for his needs, any circumstance (machine, fertility, free gift, or anything else) that spares him one hour of this work, the result remaining the same, makes this hour available to him, and that he may devote it to increasing his well-being. In a word, he would understand that sparing people work is nothing other than progress.

But trade clouds our vision of such a simple truth. In a social state, with the division of labor it generates, the production and the consumption of an object are not combined in the same individual. Each person is led to consider his work no longer as a means but as an end. With regard to each object, trade creates two interests, that of the producer and that of the consumer, and these two interests are always in direct opposition to each other.

It is essential to analyze them and study their nature.

Let us take a producer, any producer; what is his immediate interest? It lies in these two things, 1. that the smallest possible number of people should devote themselves to the same work as him; 2. that the greatest possible number of people should seek the product of this work; political economy explains this more succinctly in these terms: supply should be very restricted and demand very high, or in yet other terms: that there should be limited competition with limitless markets.

What is the immediate interest of the consumer? That the supply of the product in question should be extensive and demand restrained.

Since these two interests are contradictory, one of them has of necessity to coincide with the social or general interest while the other runs counter to it.

But which should legislation favor as being the expression of public good, if indeed it has to favor one?

To know this, you need only examine what would happen if the secret desires of men were accomplished.

As producers, it must be agreed, each of us has antisocial desires. Are we vine growers? We would be little displeased if all the vines in the world froze, except for ours: that is the theory of scarcity. Are we the owners of foundries? We would want there to be no other iron on the market than what we brought to it, whatever the needs of the public might be, and with the deliberate intention that this public need, keenly felt and inadequately met, would result in our receiving a high price: that is also the theory of scarcity. Are we farm workers? We would say, with M. Bugeaud, "Let bread become expensive, that is to say, scarce and the farmers will get on with their business": this is the same theory of scarcity.

Are we doctors? We could not stop ourselves from seeing that certain physical improvements, such as the improvement in a country's health, the development of certain moral virtues such as moderation and temperance, the progress of enlightenment to the point that each person was able to take care of his own health, the discovery of certain simple drugs that were easy to use, would be so many mortal blows to our profession. Given that we are doctors, our secret desires are antisocial. I do not mean to say that doctors formulate such desires. I prefer to believe that they would joyfully welcome a universal panacea; but this sentiment reveals not the doctor but the man or Christian who, in self-denial, puts himself in the situation of the consumer. As one who exercises a profession and who draws his well-being from this profession, his consideration and even the means of existence of his family make it impossible for his desires, or if you prefer, his interests not to be antisocial.

Do we manufacture cotton cloth? We would like to sell it at a price most advantageous to us. We would readily agree that all rival factories should be prohibited and while we do not dare to express this wish publicly or pursue its total achievement with any chance of success, we nevertheless succeed to a certain extent through devious means, for example, by excluding foreign fabrics in order to reduce the quantity on offer, and thus produce, through the use of force, a scarcity of clothing to our advantage.

We could go through all forms of industry in this way and we would always find that producers as such have antisocial views. "Merchants," says Montaigne, "do good business only when young people are led astray; farm workers when wheat is expensive; architects when houses are ruined; and officers of justice when court cases and quarrels between men occur. The very honor and practice of ministers of religion are drawn from our death and vices. No doctor takes pleasure in the health even of his friends nor soldiers in peace in the town, and so on."22

It follows from this that if the secret wishes of each producer were realized the world would regress rapidly into barbarism. Sail would outlaw steam, oars would outlaw sail and would soon have to give up transport in favor of carts, carts would yield to mules, and mules to human carriers of bales. Wool would exclude cotton and cotton exclude wool and so on, until a scarcity of everything had made man himself disappear from the face of the earth.

Let us suppose for a moment that legislative power and public force were put at the disposal of the Mimerel Committee,23 and that each of the members making up this association had the right to require it to propose and sanction one little law: is it very difficult to guess to what codes of production the public would be subjected?

If we now consider the immediate interest of the consumer we will find that it is in perfect harmony with the general interest and with what the well-being of humanity demands. When a buyer enters the market, he wants to find it with an abundance of products. That the seasons are propitious to all harvests, that increasingly wonderful inventions bring a greater number of products and satisfactions within reach, that time and work are saved, that distance dissolves, that a spirit of peace and justice allows the burden of taxes to be reduced, and that barriers of all sorts fall: in all this the immediate interest of the consumer runs parallel with the public interest properly understood . He may elevate his secret desires to the level of illusion or absurdity without his desires ceasing to be humanitarian. He may want bed and board, hearth and home, education and the moral code, security and peace, and strength and health to be obtained effortlessly, without work or measure, like dust in the road, water in the stream, the air or the light that surrounds us, without the achievement of such desires being contrary to the good of society.

Perhaps people will say that if these desires were granted, the work of the producer would be increasingly restricted and would end by ceasing for lack of sustenance. Why though? Because, in this extreme supposition, all imaginable needs and all desires would be completely satisfied. Man, like the Almighty, would create everything by a single act of will. Would someone like to tell me, on such an assumption, what would there be to complain about in productive economic activity?

I imagined just now a legislative assembly made up of workers,24 of which each member would formulate into law his secret desire as a producer, and I said that the code that would emerge from this assembly would be systematic monopoly, the theory of scarcity put into practice.

In the same way, a Chamber in which each person consults only his immediate interest as a consumer would lead to the systematic establishment of freedom, the suppression of all restrictive measures, and the overturning of all artificial barriers, in a word, the realization of the theory of abundance.

From this it follows:

That to consult the immediate interest of production alone is to consult an antisocial interest;

That to make the immediate interest of consumption the exclusive criterion is to adopt the general interest.

May I be allowed to stress this point of view once more at the risk of repeating myself?

There is radical antagonism between sellers and buyers.25

Sellers want the object of the sale to be scarce, in short supply and at a high price;

Buyers want it to be abundant, available everywhere at a low price.

The laws, which ought at least to be neutral, take the side of sellers against buyers, of producers against consumers, of high prices against low prices,26 and of scarcity against abundance.

They act, if not intentionally at least in terms of their logic, according to this given assumption: A nation is rich when it lacks everything.

For they say: "It is the producer we should favor by ensuring him a proper market for his product. To do this, we have to raise its price. To raise its price, the supply has to be restricted and to restrict the supply is to create scarcity."And look: let me suppose that right now when these laws are in full force a detailed inventory is taken, not in value but in weight, measures, volumes, and quantities of all the objects existing in France that are likely to satisfy the needs and tastes of her inhabitants, such as wheat, meat, cloth, canvas fuel, colonial goods, etc.

Let me further suppose that on the following day all the barriers that prevent the introduction into France of foreign products are overturned.

Lastly, in order to assess the result of this reform, let me suppose that three months later, a new inventory is taken.

Is it not true that we would find in France more wheat, cattle, cloth, canvas, iron, coal, sugar, etc. on the second inventory than at the time of the first?

This is so true that our protective customs duties have no other aim than to prevent all of these things from reaching us, to restrict their supply and to prevent a decrease in their price and therefore their abundance.

Now, I ask you, are the people better fed under the empire of our laws because there is less bread, meat, and sugar in the country? Are they better clad because there is less yarn, canvas, and cloth? Are they better heated because there is less coal? Are they better assisted in their work because there is less iron and copper, fewer tools and machines?

But people will say: if foreigners swamp us with their products, they will carry off our money.

What does it matter? Men do not eat money; they do not clothe themselves with gold, nor heat themselves with silver. What does it matter if there is more or less money in the country, if there is more bread on the sideboard, more meat on the hook, more linen in the cupboards and more wood in the woodshed?27

I will continue to confront restrictive laws with this dilemma:

Either you agree that you cause scarcity or you do not agree.

If you agree, you are admitting by this very fact that you are doing the people as much harm as you can. If you do not agree, then you are denying that you have restricted supply and caused prices to rise, and consequently you are denying that you have favored producers.

You are either disastrous or ineffective. You cannot be useful.28

15 Pierre Laurent Barthélemy, comte de Saint Cricq (1772-1854) was a protectionist Deputy who became Director General of Customs (1815), president of the Trade Council, and then Minister of Trade and Colonies (1828-29). See the glossary entry on "Saint Cricq."

16 Bugeaud, Thomas, marquess de Piconnerie, duc d'Isly (1784-1849) had a distinguished military career under Napoleon fighting the partisans in Spain. After the 1830 Revolution he became a conservative deputy who supported a policy of protection for agriculture. In 1840 he was appointed the Governor of Algeria by Thiers. See the glossary entry on "Bugeaud."

17 Antoine Maurice Appolinaire, Comte d'Argout (1782-1858), was the Minister for the Navy and Colonies, then Commerce, and Public Works during the July Monarchy. In 1834 he was appointed Governor of the Bank of France. See the glossary on "d'Argout."

18 La Presse was a widely circulated daily newspaper under the control of the politician and businessman Émile de Girardin (1806-81). See the glossary entry on "La Presse" and "French Newspapers" in Appendix 2 "The French State and Politics."

19 Le Commerce is possibly a reference to Le Constitutionnel which began in 1815 but had many name changes throughout its existence, including le Journal du Commerce from 1817. During the July Monarchy it sided with the policies of Thiers. See the glossary entries on "Le Commerce" and "French Newspapers."

20 The King, the Chamber of Peers, and the Chamber of Deputies. See the glossary entry on "The Chamber of Deputies."

21 Without mentioning him by name, Bastiat is referring here to the activities of Robinson Crusoe which he used several times in the Economic Sophisms and the Economic Harmonies as a thought experiment to explore the nature of economic action. See the glossary entry on "Crusoe Economics."

22 Montaigne, Essais de Montaigne, vol. 1, chap. 21, "Le Profit d'un est dommage de l'autre" (One man's gain is another man's loss), pp. 130-31. Sometime in 1847 Bastiat wrote an introduction to a chapter on this very topic. He called this phrase the "classical example of a sophism, the root stock sophism from which comes multitudes of sophisms." Republished in this volume as ES3 15. Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) was one of the best-known and best-admired writers of the Renaissance. His Essays (first published in 1580) were a thoughtful meditation on human nature in the form of personal anecdotes infused with deep philosophical reflections. See the glossary entry on "Montaigne."

23 There are two protectionist bodies which are referred to as the "Mimerel Committee." Pierre Mimerel de Roubaix (1786-1872) was a textile manufacturer and politician from Roubaix who was a vigorous advocate of protectionism. In 1842 he founded a pro-tariff "Comité de l'industrie" (Committee of Industry) in his home town to lobby the government for protection and subsidies. This Committee, known as the Mimerel Committee, was expanded in 1846 into a national body called the "Association pour la défense du travail national" (Association for the Defense of National Employment) in order to better counter the growing interest in Bastiat's Free Trade Association which had also been established in that year. Mimerel and Antoine Odier (1766-1853) sat on the Association's Central Committee which was commonly referred to as the "Mimerel Committee" or the "Odier Committee." See the glossary entries on "Mimerel," "Odier," "Mimerel Committee," and the "Association for the Defense of National Employment."

24 In ES 2 IV. "The Lower Council of Labour" Bastiat satirizes the Superior Council of Commerce which was a body within the Ministry of Trade which served the interests of producers by inventing an "Inferior (or Lower) Council of Labour" which would serve the interests of "proper workers." They of course came to a very different conclusion concerning the merits of protectionism. See the glossary entry on the "Superior Council of Commerce."

25 (Paillottet's note) The author amended the terms of this proposition in a later work. See Economic Harmonies, chapter XI (OC, vol. 6, chap. 11, "Producteur, consommateur").

26 (Bastiat's note) In French we do not have a noun that expresses the opposite concept to expensiveness (cheapness [in English in the original]). It is rather remarkable that popular instinct expresses this concept by the following paraphrase: "marché avantageux, bon marché." (an advantageous market, a good market). Prohibitionists should change this locution. It implies an economic system that is quite contrary to theirs.

27 See ES1 XI. "Nominal Prices" for a more detailed discussion of this topic, below pp. ???

28 (Paillottet's note) The author has dealt with this subject in greater detail in chapter XI of the Economic Harmonies [see note 3, above] and also in another form in the article entitled Abundance written for the Dictionary of Political Economy, which we have included at the end of the fifth volume. [Bastiat's article "Abondance" appeared in the Dictionnaire de l'économie politique, vol. 1, pp. 2–4.]

II. Obstacle and Cause [April 1845] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Obstacle, cause" (Obstacle and Cause] [JDE, April 1845, T. 11, p. 8-10].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 15-18.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

The obstacle taken for the cause—scarcity taken for abundance: this is the same sophism under another guise. It is a good thing to examine it from all sides.

Man originally lacks everything.

Between his destitution and the satisfaction of his needs there is a host of obstacles, which it is the purpose of work to overcome. It is an intriguing business trying to find how and why these same obstacles to his well-being have become in his eyes the cause of his well-being.

I need to transport myself a hundred leagues away. But between the points of departure and arrival there are mountains, rivers, marshes, impenetrable forests, evil doers, in a word, obstacles, and in order to overcome these obstacles I have to make a great deal of effort or, what comes to the same thing, others have to make a great deal of effort and have me pay the price for this. It is clear that in this respect I would have been in a better situation if these obstacles did not exist.

To go through life and travel along the long succession of days that separates the cradle from the tomb, man needs to assimilate a prodigious quantity of food, protect himself against the inclemency of the seasons, and preserve himself from or cure himself of a host of ills. Hunger, thirst, illness, heat, and cold are so many obstacles that lie along his way. In his solitary state, he will have to combat them all by means of hunting, fishing, growing crops, spinning, weaving, and building houses, and it is clear that it would be better for him if there were fewer of these obstacles, or even none at all. In society, he does not have to confront each of these obstacles personally; others do this for him, and in return he removes one of the obstacles surrounding his fellow men.

It is also clear that, taking things as a whole, it would be better for men as a group, that is for society, that the obstacles should be as insignificant and as few as possible.

However, if we examine social phenomena in detail, and the sentiments of men as they have been altered by trade, we soon see how they have managed to confuse needs with wealth and obstacles with causes.

The division of labor, a result of the ability to trade, has meant that each person, instead of combating on his own all the obstacles that surround him, combats only one, and this, not for himself but for the benefit of all his fellow men, who in turn render him the same service.

Now, the result of this is that this person sees the immediate cause of his wealth in the obstacle that it is his job to combat on other people's account. The greater, more serious, more keenly felt this obstacle is, the more his fellow men will be ready to pay him for removing it, that is to say, to remove on his behalf the obstacles that stand in his way.

A doctor, for example, does not occupy himself in baking his bread, manufacturing his instruments, weaving, or making his clothes. Others do this for him, and in return he does battle with the illnesses that afflict his patients. The more numerous, severe, and recurrent these illnesses are, the more willing or even obliged people are to work for his personal advantage. From his point of view, illness, that is to say, a general obstacle to people's well-being, is a cause of individual well-being. All producers reason in the same way with regard to things that concern them. Ship owners make their profit from the obstacle known as distance, farmers from that known as hunger, cloth manufacturers from that known as cold. Teachers live on ignorance, gem cutters on vanity, lawyers on greed, notaries on the possibility of dishonesty, just as doctors depend on the illnesses suffered by men. It is thus very true that each occupation has an immediate interest in the continuation or even the extension of the particular obstacle that is the object of its efforts.

Seeing this, theoreticians come along and develop a theory based on these individual sentiments. They say: "Need is wealth, work is wealth; obstacles to well-being are well-being. Increasing the number of obstacles is to give sustenance to production."

Next, statesmen come along. They have the coercive power of the state at their disposal, and what is more natural than for them to make use of it to develop and propagate obstacles, since this is also to develop and propagate wealth? For example, they say: "If we prevent iron from coming from those places in which it is plentiful, we will create an obstacle at home to our procuring it. This obstacle will be keenly felt and will make people ready to pay to be relieved of it. A certain number of our fellow citizens will devote themselves to combating it, and this obstacle will make their fortune. The greater it is, the scarcer the mineral or the more it is inaccessible, difficult to transport, and far from the centers of consumption, the more all this activity, with all its ramifications, will employ men. Let us keep out foreign iron, therefore; let us create the obstacle in order to create the work of combating it."

The same reasoning will lead to machines being forbidden.

People will say: "Here are men who need to store their wine. This is an obstacle; here are other men whose occupation is to remove it by manufacturing barrels. It is thus a good thing that this obstacle exists, since it supplies a part of national work and enriches a certain number of our fellow citizens. However, here comes an ingenious machine that fells oak trees, squares them and divides them into a host of staves, assembles these and transforms them into containers for wine. The obstacle has become much less and with it the wealth of coopers. Let us maintain both through a law. Let us forbid the machine."

In order to get to the bottom of this sophism you need only say to yourself that human work is not an aim but a means. It never remains unused. If it lacks one obstacle, it turns to another, and the human race is freed from two obstacles by the same amount of work that removed a single one. If ever the work of coopers became superfluous, they would turn to something else. "But with what" people will ask, "would it be paid?" Precisely with what it is paid right now, for when one quantity of labor becomes available following the removal of an obstacle, a corresponding quantity of money also becomes available. To say that human labor will be brought to an end for lack of employment you would have to prove that the human race will cease to encounter obstacles. If that happened, work would not only be impossible, it would be superfluous. We would have nothing left to do because we would be all powerful and we would just have to utter a fiat for all our needs and desires to be satisfied.29

29 (Paillottet's note) See chapter XIV of the second series of Sophisms [see this volume, "Something Else," pp. 000—00] and chapters III and XI of the Economic Harmonies on the same subject (OC, vol. 6, chap. 3, "Des besoins de l'homme," and chap. 11, "Producteur, consommateur").

III. Effort and Result [April 1845] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Effort, résultat" (Effort and Result) [JDE, April 1845, T. 11, p. 10-16].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 19-27.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

We have just seen that there are obstacles between our needs and their satisfaction. We manage to overcome them or to reduce them by using our various faculties. In a very general way, we may say that production is an effort followed by a result.

But against what is our well-being or wealth measured? Is it on the result of the effort? Is it on the effort itself? There is always a ratio between the effort employed and the result obtained. Does progress consist in the relative increase of the second or of the first term of this relationship?

Both of these theses have been advocated; in political economy, they divide the field of opinion.

According to the first thesis, wealth is the result of output. It increases in accordance with the increase in the ratio of the result to the effort. Absolute perfection, of which the exemplar is God, consists in the infinite distancing of two terms, in this instance: effort nil; result infinite.

The second thesis claims that it is the effort itself that constitutes and measures wealth. To progress is to increase the ratio of the effort to the result. Its ideal may be represented by the effort, at once eternal and sterile, of Sisyphus.30 31

Naturally, the first welcomes everything that tends to decrease the difficulties involved and increase the product: the powerful machines that add to human powers, the trade that enables better advantage to be drawn from the natural resources spread to a greater or lesser extent over the face of the earth, the intelligence that makes discoveries , the experience that verifies these discoveries, the competition that stimulates production, etc.

Logically, by the same token, the second willfully summons up everything whose effect is to increase the difficulties of production and decrease the output: privileges, monopolies, restrictions, prohibitions, the banning of machines, sterility, etc.

It is fair to note that the universal practice of men is always directed by the principle of the first doctrine. Nobody has ever seen and nobody will ever see anyone working, whether he be a farmer, manufacturer, trader, artisan, soldier, writer, or scholar, who does not devote the entire force of his intelligence to doing things better, faster, and more economically, in a word, to doing more with less.

The opposite doctrine is practiced by theoreticians, deputies, journalists, statesmen, and ministers, in a word men whose role in this world is to carry out experiments on society.

Again it should be noted that, with regard to things that concern them personally, they, like everybody else in the world, act on the principle of obtaining from work the greatest number of useful results possible.

You may think I am exaggerating, and that there are no real Sisyphists.

If you mean that, in practice, the principle is not pushed to the limit of its consequences, I would readily agree with you. Actually, this is always the case when people start from a false principle. It soon leads to results that are so absurd and harmful that that one is simply forced to abandon it. For this reason, very practical productive activity never accepts Sisyphism: punishment would follow errors too closely for them not to be revealed. However, with regard to speculative theories of industrial activity, such as those developed by theoreticians and statesmen, a false principle may be followed for a long time before people are made aware of its falsity by complicated consequences of which moreover they are ignorant, and when at last they are revealed, and action is taken in accordance with the opposing principle, people contradict themselves and seek justification in this incomparably absurd modern axiom: in political economy there is no absolute principle.32

Let us thus see whether the two opposing principles that I have just established do not hold sway in turn, one in actual production and the other in the legislation regulating production.

I have already recalled something M. Bugeaud33 has said; however, in M. Bugeaud there are two men, one a farmer and the other a legislator.

As a farmer, M. Bugeaud tends to devote all his efforts to this twin aim: to save on work and to obtain bread cheaply. When he prefers a good cart to a bad one, when he improves the quality of fertilizer, when in order to break up his soil he substitutes the action of the atmosphere for that of the harrow or the hoe as far as he can, when he calls to his assistance all the procedures in which science and experiment have shown their effectiveness, he has and can have one single goal: to reduce the ratio of the effort to the result. Actually, we have no other way of recognizing the skill of the farmer and the quality of the procedure other than measuring what they have saved in effort and added to the result. And since all the farmers around the world act according to this principle, it may be said that the entire human race aspires, doubtless to its advantage, to obtaining bread or any other product more cheaply and to reducing the effort required to have a given quantity available.

Once account has been taken of this incontrovertible tendency in human beings, it ought to be enough to show legislators the real principle of the matter, that is show them how they should be supporting productive economic activity (as far as it lies within their mission to support it), for it would be absurd to say that human laws ought to act in opposition to the laws of providence.

Nevertheless, the deputy, M. Bugeaud, has been heard to exclaim, "I do not understand the theory of low prices; I would prefer to see bread more expensive and work more plentiful." And as a result, the deputy for the Dordogne has voted for legislative measures whose effect has been to hamper trade precisely because it indirectly procures us what direct production can supply us only at a higher cost.

Well, it is very clear that M. Bugeaud's principle as a deputy is diametrically opposed to that of M. Bugeaud as a farmer. If he were consistent with himself, he would vote against any restriction in the Chamber or else he would carry on to his farm the principles he proclaims from the rostrum. He would then be seen to sow his wheat on the most infertile of his fields, since he would then succeed in working a great deal for little return. He would be seen to forbid the use of the plough, since cultivation using his nails would satisfy his double desire of making bread more expensive and work more plentiful.

The avowed aim and acknowledged effect of restriction is to increase work.

It also has the avowed aim and acknowledged effect of raising prices, which is nothing other than making products scarce. Thus, when taken to its limit, it is pure Sisyphism as we have defined it: infinite work, product nil.

Baron Charles Dupin34, said to be a leading light among the peers in economic science, accuses the railway of harming shipping, and it is clear that it is the nature of a more perfect means to restrict the use of a means that is comparatively rougher. However, the railway can harm shipping only by diverting transport to itself; it can do so only by carrying it out more cheaply, and it can carry it out more cheaply only by reducing the ratio of the effort used to the result obtained, since this is what constitutes the lower cost. When, therefore, Baron Dupin deplores this reduction of work for a given result, he is following the lines of the doctrine of Sisyphism. Logically, since he prefers ships to rail, he ought to prefer carts to ships, packhorses to carts, and backpacks to all other known means of transport, since this is the means that requires the greatest amount of work for the least result.

"Work constitutes the wealth of a people." said M. de Saint-Cricq, this minister of trade who imposed so many impediments to trade.35 It should not be believed that this was an elliptical proposition which meant: "The results of work constitute the wealth of a people." No, this economist genuinely meant to say that it is the intensity of labor that measures wealth, and proof of this is that, from one inference to another, one restriction to another, he led France and considered he was doing a good thing in this, to devote twice as much work to acquire the same amount of iron, for example. In England, iron then cost 8 fr.; in France it cost 16 fr. If we take a day's work to cost 1 fr. it is clear that France could, through trade, procure a quintal of iron for eight days taken from national work as a whole. Thanks to M. de Saint-Cricq's restrictive measures, France needed sixteen days of work to obtain a quintal36 of iron through direct production. Double labor for identical satisfaction, therefore double wealth; here again wealth is measured not by outcomes but by the intensity of the work. Is this not Sisyphism in all its glory?

And so that there is no possible misunderstanding, the minister is careful to take his idea further, and in the same way as he has just called the intensity of labor wealth, he is heard calling the abundance resulting from production, or things likely to satisfy our needs, poverty. "Everywhere", he says, "machines have taken the place of manpower; everywhere, there is an overabundance of production; everywhere the balance between the ability to produce and the means of consumption has been destroyed." We see that, according to M. de Saint-Cricq, if France was in a critical situation it was because it produced too much and its production was too intelligent and fruitful. We were too well fed, too well clothed, too well provided for in every way. Production was too fast and exceeded all our desires. An end had to be put to this scourge, and to this end we had to force ourselves, through restrictions, to work more to produce less.

I have also recalled the opinion of another minister of trade, M. d'Argout.37 It is worth our spending a little time on it. As he wished to deliver a terrible blow to sugar-beet , he said, "Growing sugar-beet is doubtless useful, but its usefulness is limited. It does not involve the gigantic developments that people were happy to forecast for it. To be convinced of this, you just have to note that this crop will of necessity be restricted to the limits of consumption. Double or triple current consumption in France if you want, you will always find that a very minimal portion of the land would be enough to meet the needs of this consumption. (This is certainly a strange complaint!). Do you want proof of this? How many hectares38 were planted with sugar-beet in 1828? There were 3,130, which is equivalent to 1/10540th of the cultivatable land. How many are there now that indigenous sugar39 has taken over one third of consumption? There are 16,700 hectares, or 1/1978th of the cultivatable land, or 45 square meters per commune. If we suppose that indigenous sugar had already taken over the entire consumption, we would have only 48,000 hectares planted with beetroot, or 1/680th of the cultivatable land."40 41

There are two things in this quotation: facts and doctrine. The facts tend to establish that little land, capital, and labor is needed to produce a great deal of sugar and that each commune in France would be abundantly provided with it if it devoted one hectare of its territory to its cultivation. The doctrine consists in seeing this situation as disastrous and seeing in the very power and fruitfulness of the new industry the limit of its usefulness.

I have no need to make myself the defender of sugar-beet or the judge of the strange facts put forward by M. d'Argout,42 but it is worth examining in detail the doctrine of a statesman to whom France entrusted for many years the fate of its agriculture and trade.

I said at the beginning that there was a variable ratio between productive effort and its result; that absolute imperfection consists in an infinite effort with no result: that absolute perfection consists in an unlimited result with no effort; and that perfectibility consists in a gradual reduction in the effort compared to the result.

But M. d'Argout informs us that death is where we believe we are glimpsing life and that the importance of a branch of production is a direct result of its impotence. What, for example, can we expect from sugar-beet? Do you not see that 48,000 hectares of land and a proportional amount of capital and manpower will be enough to provide all of France with sugar? Therefore it is an industry with limited usefulness, limited, of course, with regard to the input of labor it requires, the only way, according to the former minister, in which an industry can be useful. This usefulness would be much more limited still if, because of the fertility of the soil or the richness of the sugar-beet , we harvested from 14,000 hectares what we could obtain only from 48,000. Oh! If twenty or a hundred times more land, capital, or labor were needed to achieve the same result, fair enough, we might build a few hopes on this new industry and it would be worthy of the full protection of the state, since it would offer a vast opportunity for national work. But to produce a lot with a little! That would be a bad example, and it is right for the law to establish order in this regard.

But what is the truth with regard to sugar cannot be a falsehood with regard to bread. If, therefore, the usefulness of an industry is to be assessed, not by the satisfaction it can provide through a given quantity of work, but on the contrary through the development of the work it requires to meet a given amount of satisfaction; what we ought obviously to want is that each hectare of land should produce little wheat and each grain of wheat little food. In other words, our territory should be infertile, since then the mass of land, capital, and labor that we would need to mobilize to feed the population would be much more in comparison. It might even be said that the market open to human labor will be in direct proportion to this infertility. The desires of MM. Bugeaud, Saint-Cricq, Dupin, and d'Argout will be granted. Bread will be expensive, work plentiful, and France will be rich, rich as these men understand the term.

What we ought to want in addition is for human intelligence to grow weaker and die out, for as long as it exists, it will constantly seek to increase the ratio of the end to the means and the product to the labor. It is actually in that, and only in that, that it consists.

Thus, Sisyphism is the doctrine of all the men who have been responsible for our economic development. It would not be just to blame them for this. This principle directs the Ministers only because it holds sway in the Chambers; it holds sway in the Chambers only because it is sent there by the electorate and the electorate is imbued with it only because public opinion is saturated with it.

I think I should repeat here that I am not accusing men such as MM. Bugeaud, Saint-Cricq, Dupin, and d'Argout of being absolutely and in all circumstances, Sisyphists. They are certainly not that in their private transactions; each one of them certainly obtains by exchange what it would cost him more to obtain through direct production. However, I say that they are Sisyphists when they prevent the country from doing the same thing.43

30 (Bastiat's note) For this reason we ask the reader to excuse us for using the name Sisyphism as an abbreviation for this thesis hereafter.

31 In Greek myth Sisyphus was the King of Corinth who was notorious for his mistreatment of travelers. He also angered Zeus by revealing details of his amorous exploits. For this he was punished by being forced to roll a large boulder up a hill every day only to have it roll down the hill every night.

32 This is a topic taken up again in Sophism no. XVIII "There are no absolute Principles," below, p. ???.

33 Bugeaud, Thomas, marquess de Piconnerie, duc d'Isly (1784-1849) had a distinguished military career under Napoleon fighting the partisans in Spain. After the 1830 Revolution he became a conservative deputy (Dordogne 1831-1848) who supported a policy of protection for agriculture. In 1840 he was appointed the Governor of Algeria by Thiers. See the glossary entry on "Bugeaud."

34 Charles Dupin (1784-1873) was a pioneer in mathematical economics and worked for the statistical office of France. In 1828 he was elected deputy for Tarn, was made a Peer in 1830, and served in the Constituent and then the National Assemblies during the Second Republic. See the glossary entry on "Dupin."

35 Pierre Laurent Barthélemy, comte de Saint Cricq (1772-1854) was a protectionist Deputy who became Director General of Customs (1815), president of the Trade Council, and then Minister of Trade and Colonies (1828-29). See the glossary entry on "Saint Cricq."

36 A quintal weighs 100 kilogrammes. See glossary entry on "French Weights and Measures".

37 Antoine Maurice Appolinaire, Comte d'Argout (1782-1858), was the Minister for the Navy and Colonies, then Commerce, and Public Works during the July Monarchy. In 1834 he was appointed Governor of the Bank of France. See the glossary on "d'Argout."

38 A hectare is 10,000 square metres or approximately 2 acres. See the glossary entry on "French Weights and Measures."

39 Growing sugar-beet (or beetroot) for sugar as a substitute for imported cane sugar had been encouraged at the time of the continental blockade. Normally, cane sugar was imported from overseas or from the slave colonies

40 (Bastiat's note ) It is true to say that M. d'Argout put this strange statement in the mouths of opponents of sugar-beet. However, he adopted it formally and incidentally sanctioned it by the very law it served to justify.

41 The FEE edition translator Arthur Goddard notes (p. 25) that: "The centiare is 1/10,000 of the hectare, one square meter, or 1.196 square yards. The commune is the smallest administrative unit in France, averaging less than ten square miles. The error may be Argout's, Bastiat's, or the publisher's, but centiare here should read are (1/100 of a hectare): with about 35,000 communes in France, there would be about 0.45 hectare, or forty-five ares, per commune in sugar beets." See the glossary entry on "Weights and Measures."

42 (Bastiat's note) If we suppose that 48,000 to 50,000 hectares were enough to supply current consumption, we would need 150,000 for a tripling of consumption, which M. d'Argout accepts is possible. What is more, if sugar-beet were included in a six-year rotation of crops, it would occupy in turn 900,000 hectares or 1/38th of the cultivatable land.

43 (Paillottet's note) On the same subject, see chapter XVI of the second series of Sophisms [see this volume, "The Right Hand and the Left Hand," pp. 000–00] and chapter VI of the Economic Harmonies (OC, vol. 6, chap. 6, "Richesse").

IV. Equalizing the Conditions of Production [July 1845] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Égaliser les conditions de production" (Equalizing the Conditions of Production) [JDE, July 1845, T. 11, p. 345-56].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 27-45.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

It is said . . . but, so that I am not accused of putting sophisms into the mouths of protectionists, I will let one of their most vigorous athletes speak for himself.

"It has been thought that protection in our country ought to be simply a representation of the difference that exists between the cost price of a commodity that we produce and the cost price of a similar commodity produced by our neighbors. . . . A protective duty calculated on these bases ensures nothing more than free competition. Free competition exists only where conditions and charges are equal. In a horse race, the weight that each runner has to bear is weighed and the conditions are equalized; without this, they are no longer competitors. In matters of trade, if one of the sellers is able to deliver at lower cost, he ceases to be a competitor and becomes a monopolist. If you abolish this protection that represents the difference in cost, as soon as foreigners invade your market, they have acquired a monopoly in it".44

"Each person has to want, for himself as for the others, the production of the country to be protected against foreign competition, wherever this can supply products at a lower price."45

This argument recurs constantly in articles written by the protectionist school. I propose to examine it carefully, that is to say, I will be asking for the attention and even the patience of the reader. I will first deal with the inequalities that result from nature and then those that result from the differences in taxation.

Here, as elsewhere, we find the theoreticians of protection situated in the producers' camp, whereas we are taking up the cause of these unfortunate consumers whom they refuse to take into account. They compare the field of industry to the race track .46 However, the race track is simultaneously the means and the end. The public takes no interest in the competition outside the competition itself. When you start your horses with the sole aim of knowing which is the best runner, I can understand that you make the weights equal. But if your aim is to ensure that a major and urgent item of news reaches the post, could you with impunity create obstacles for the one that might offer you the best conditions of speed? This is, however, what you are doing to economic production. You are forgetting the result sought, which is well-being. You leave this out of the account, and even sacrifice it through completely begging the question.

But since we cannot bring our opponents round to our point of view, let us adopt theirs and examine the question from the point of view of production.

I will seek to establish:

1. That leveling the conditions of production is to attack the very basis of trade;

2. That it is not true that production in one country is stifled by competition from more favored countries;

3. That even if this were true, protectionist duties do not make production conditions equal;

4. That freedom levels these conditions as far as they can be leveled;

5. Lastly, that it is the countries that are least favored that gain the most from trade.

I. Leveling the conditions of production is not merely hampering a few transactions, it is attacking the very principle of trade, since it is based precisely on this diversity, or, if you prefer, on these inequalities of fertility, aptitude, climate, or temperature that you wish to wipe out. If the Guyenne sends wine to Brittany and Brittany wheat to the Guyenne, it is because these two provinces are situated in different conditions of production.47 Is there a different law for international trade? Once again, to hold against them the inequality of conditions that motivates and accounts for their actions is to attack their very raison d'être. If the protectionists had enough logic and power on their side, they would reduce men, like snails, to total isolation. Besides there is not one of their sophisms that, when subjected to the test of rigorous deduction, does not end in destruction and annihilation.

II. It is not true in fact that the inequality in conditions between two similar productive enterprises necessarily leads to the fall of the one that is the less well endowed. At the race track , if one runner wins the prize, the other loses it, but when two horses work to produce useful commodities, each produces to the extent of its strength, and because the stronger provides the more services it does not follow that the weaker provides none at all. Wheat is grown in all the départements of France, although there are huge differences of fertility between them and if, by chance, there is one that does not grow wheat, it is because it is not good, even for that department, to grow it. In the same way, a similar argument tells us that, under the regime of freedom, in spite of differences like these, wheat would be produced in all the kingdoms of Europe, and if there were one which had decided to abandon this crop it would be because, in its own interest, it had found a better use for its land, capital and labor. And why does the fertility of a département not paralyze farmers in neighboring départements that are less favored? Because economic phenomena have a flexibility, elasticity, and, so to speak, a capacity for leveling that appears to escape the grasp of the protectionist school totally. The latter accuses us of being prisoners of a system, but it is its own members who are rigid to the highest degree, if the spirit of such consists in building arguments based on a single fact rather than on a set of facts. In the example above, it is the difference in the value of the land that compensates for the difference in its fertility. Your field produces three times more than mine. Yes, but it has cost you ten times more and I can still compete with you. This is the question in a nutshell. And note that superiority in some respects brings about inferiority in others. It is precisely because your land is more fruitful that it is more expensive, in such a way that it is not accidental, but necessary for a balance to be established or to tend to become established. And can it be denied that freedom is the regime that favors this trend the most?

I have quoted one branch of agriculture but I could have quoted a branch of manufacturing just as well. There are tailors in Quimper,48 and that does not prevent there being tailors in Paris, even though rent, furnishings, workers, and food cost Paris tailors much more. But they also have a very different class of customers, and this is enough not only to restore the balance but also even to tilt it in their favor.

So when we talk about balancing the conditions of work, we have at least to examine whether freedom does not do what we are asking arbitrary rule to do.

This natural leveling out of economic phenomena is so important functionally and at the same time so worthy of our admiration for the providential wisdom that presides in the egalitarian governance of our society, that I ask your permission to dwell on it for a moment.

You protectionists say that such and such a people have the advantage of cheap coal, iron, machines, and capital over us; we cannot compete with them.

This statement will be examined from other points of view. For the present I am limiting myself to the question whether, when superiority and inferiority confront one another, they do not carry within themselves, in the latter case a natural tendency to rise and in the former to descend, such as to bring them back to a fair balance.

Here we have two countries, A and B. A has all sorts of advantages over B. You conclude from this that labor would be concentrated in A and that B is powerless to do anything. A, you say, sells a great deal more than it purchases, while B purchases much more than it sells. I might dispute this, but I align myself with your viewpoint.

In this hypothetical circumstance, the demand for labor is high in A and it soon becomes more expensive.

Iron, coal, land, food, and capital are in high demand in A and they soon become more expensive.

At the same time, labor, iron, coal, land, food, capital, and everything else are in very low demand in B and soon become much cheaper.

That is not all. As A still continues to sell and B continues to purchase, money passes from B to A. It is plentiful in A and scarce in B.

But where there is an abundance of money, this means that you need a great deal to buy anything else. Therefore, in A, to the high real prices which result from very active demand must be added the high nominal money prices due to the excess supply of precious metals.49

Scarcity of money means that little is needed for each purchase. Therefore in B, low nominal money prices combine with low real prices.

In these circumstances, production will have all sorts of reasons, reasons that are, if I may put it this way, raised to the fourth power, to leave A and establish itself in B.

Or, to stick to literal truth, let us say that production would not have waited up to now, that sudden moves are contrary to its nature and that, from the outset under a free regime, it would have gradually divided and distributed itself between A and B in accordance with the laws of supply and demand, that is to say, in accordance with the laws of justice and usefulness.

And when I say that, if it were possible for production to concentrate at a single point, an irresistible force for decentralization would arise within it for this very reason, I am not speaking hypothetically.

Listen to what a manufacturer had to say in the chamber of commerce in Manchester (I am omitting the figures he used to support his demonstration):

"In former times we exported fabrics, then this activity gave way to the export of yarn, which is the raw material of fabric, and then to the export of machines, which are the instruments of production for yarn, and later to the export of capital, with which we built our machines, and finally to the export of our workers and our industrial genius, which are the source of our capital. All these changes in production succeeded one another in moving to where they might be exercised to greatest advantage, where the cost of living was lowest and life easier, so that now we can see in Prussia, Austria, Saxony, Switzerland, and Italy huge factories established with English capital, operated using English workers and directed by English engineers."

You can see clearly that nature, or rather providence, which is more ingenious, wise, and farsighted than your narrow and rigid theory supposes, did not want this concentration of work, this monopoly of all the forms of superiority that you argue to be an absolute and irremediable fact, to continue. It made it possible, using means that are as simple as they are infallible, for there to be dispersion, dissemination, solidarity, and simultaneous progress, all things that your restrictive laws paralyze as far as they can, since, by isolating peoples, they tend to make their differences in living conditions much more entrenched, to prevent leveling out, obstruct intermingling, neutralize counterbalancing tendencies, and entrap nations in their respective superiority or inferiority.

III. In the third place, to say that through a protectionist duty the conditions of production are equalized is to use an inaccurate turn of phrase to put across an error. It is not true that an import duty brings the conditions of production into balance. After the imposition of an import duty these conditions remain what they were before. All that this duty balances at most are the conditions of sale. It will perhaps be said that I am paying with words, but I will throw this accusation back at my opponents. It is for them to prove that production and sale are synonymous, and unless they do so, I am entitled to blame them, if not for playing with words, at least for mixing them up.

Let me give an example to illustrate my idea.

Let me suppose that a few Parisian speculators have the bright idea of devoting their time to the production of oranges. They know that Portuguese oranges can be sold in Paris for 10 centimes, whereas they, in view of the conservatories and greenhouses they need because of the cold that often undermines their cultivation, cannot demand less than one franc in order to cover their costs . They demand that oranges from Portugal should be subject to a duty of 90 centimes. Through this duty, the conditions of production, as they say, will be balanced and the Chamber when giving way as usual to this line of reasoning, adds an import duty of 90 centimes for each foreign orange to the customs tariffs.

Well then, I say that the conditions of production have not changed in the slightest. The law has removed nothing from the heat of the sun in Lisbon nor the frequency or intensity of the frosts in Paris. Oranges will continue to mature naturally on the banks of the Tagus and artificially on the banks of the Seine, that is to say, that it will require much more human work in one country than in the other. What will be balanced are the conditions of sale: the Portuguese will have to sell us their oranges at 1 franc, including 90 centimes to pay the tax. Obviously, the tax will be paid by French consumers. And look at the oddity of the result. On each Portuguese orange consumed, our country will lose nothing, for the 90 centimes more that are paid by the consumer will go to the treasury. There will be displacement but no loss. However, on each French orange consumed, there will be 90 centimes or thereabouts of loss, since the purchaser will certainly lose this and the seller, also certainly, will not earn this since, according to the hypothesis itself, he will have earned only the cost price. I leave the protectionists to draw the right conclusion.

IV. If I have stressed this distinction between the conditions of production and the conditions of sale, one which the protectionists will doubtless find paradoxical, it is because it will lead me to afflict them once more with another paradox that is even stranger, which is this: Do you really want to balance the conditions of production? Then let trade be free.

Oh! people will say, that is too much at this time, and an abuse of intellectual games. Well then, if only through curiosity, I ask the protectionists to follow my line of argument to the bitter end. It will not take long. Let me go back to my example.

If you agree to suppose for a minute that the average, daily earnings of each Frenchman come to 1 franc, it will ineluctably follow that to produce one orange directly in France will require one day's work or its equivalent whereas to produce the exchange value of one Portuguese orange only one tenth of a day's work is needed, which means nothing other than that the sun does in Lisbon what work does in Paris. Well, is it not obvious that, if I can produce an orange or what amounts to the same thing, the means to buy one, with one tenth of a day's work, my position with regard to this production is subject to the same conditions as the Portuguese producer himself, except for the transport costs, which I must incur? It is therefore apparent that freedom balances the direct or indirect conditions of production, as far as they can be balanced, since it leaves only one remaining inevitable difference, that of transport.

I will add that freedom also balances the conditions of enjoyment, satisfaction, and consumption, which are never taken into account and which are nevertheless essential, since in the end consumption is the final aim of all our productive efforts. Through free trade we would enjoy the Portuguese sun just as Portugal herself does and the inhabitants of Le Havre, like those of London and under the same conditions, will have access to the advantages that nature has conferred on Newcastle with respect to its mineral resources .

V. Gentlemen of the protectionist persuasion, you think me full of paradox! Well, I want to go even further. I say, and I think this quite sincerely, that if two countries are placed in unequal conditions of production, it is the one of the two which is less favored by nature that has the more to gain from free trade. To prove this, I will have to digress a little from the form this article should take. I will nevertheless do this, first of all because this is the nub of the matter and also because it will give me the opportunity of setting out a law of economics of the greatest importance which, when correctly understood, seems to me to be destined to bring back into the fold of science all the sects that these days seek in the land of illusion the social harmony that they have been unable to discover in nature. I wish to speak about the law of consumption, for which the majority of economists may be blamed for having too long much neglected.

Consumption is the end, the final purpose of all economic phenomena, in which purpose consequently lies their final, definitive solution.

Nothing favorable or unfavorable can stop permanently at the producer's door. The advantages that nature and society have heaped on him, like the disadvantages that afflict him, slide over him,50 so to speak, and tend to be unconsciously absorbed by, mingled with, the community, understood from the point of view of consumption. We have here a law that is admirable alike in its cause and its effects, and the man who succeeds in describing it properly will have, I think, the right to say "I have not spent time on this earth without contributing something to society."

Any circumstance that encourages production is welcomed joyfully by the producer since its immediate effect is to put him in a position to provide even more services to the community and to demand greater remuneration from it . Any circumstance that hampers production is received with disappointment by the producer since its immediate effect is to limit his services and therefore his remuneration. It was necessary for the immediate gains and losses resulting from fortunate or unfortunate circumstances to be the lot of the producer, so that he would be irresistibly drawn to seeking the former and avoiding the latter.

In the same way, when a worker succeeds in improving his output, he receives the immediate benefit of this improvement. This was necessary for him to be motivated to working intelligently; it was proper because an effort crowned with success ought to bring its reward with it.

But I hold that these good and bad effects, although permanent in themselves, are not so for producers. If this were so, a principle of gradual and subsequently infinite inequality between men would have been introduced, and this is why these favorable and unfavorable events are soon absorbed into the general fortunes of the human race.

How does this work? I will give a few examples to help it to be understood.

Let us go back to the thirteenth century.51 The men who devoted themselves to the art of copying received for their services payment that was governed by the general level of profits. Among them, there happened to be one who sought and discovered the means to increase the copies of the same book rapidly. He invented printing.

In the first instance, one man became richer and many others grew poorer. At first glance, however marvelous the discovery was, people hesitated as to whether it was not more disastrous than useful. It seemed that it was introducing into the world, just as I said, an element of indefinite inequality. Gutenberg made money with his invention and extended his invention using this money, and did this ad infinitum until he had ruined all other copiers. As for the public, the consumers, they gained little, for Gutenberg took care to decrease the price for his books to no more than was necessary to undercut his rivals.

But the thought that put harmony into the movement of the heavenly bodies was also able to insert it into the internal mechanisms of society. We will see the economic advantages of the invention escape from one individual and become the common and eternal heritage of the masses.

In the event, the procedure ended up by becoming known. Gutenberg was no longer the only printer; others imitated him. Their profits were at first considerable. They were rewarded for being the first to go down the path of imitation, and this was still necessary in order to attract them and so that they could contribute to the great result we were approaching. They earned a great deal, but less than the inventor, since competition had begun to work. The price of books continued to decrease. The profits of the imitators decreased as the date of the invention receded, that is to say, as imitation became less meritorious. Soon the new industry reached its normal state, in other words, the pay given to printers was no longer exceptional and, as for scribes in former times, it was governed only by the general level of profitability. Thus production , as such, returned to what it had been at the beginning . The invention was, nevertheless, no less of a boon; the saving in time, work, and effort for a given result, for a determined number of items, was nonetheless achieved. But how does it manifest itself? Through the low price of books. And for whose benefit? For the benefit of consumers, society, and the human race. Printers, who now have no exceptional merit, no longer receive exceptional remuneration. As men and consumers, they are doubtless beneficiaries of the advantages that the invention has bestowed on the community. But that is all. As printers and as producers, they are once again subject to the common conditions governing all producers in the country. Society pays them for their work, and not for the usefulness of the invention. The invention itself has become part of the common heritage and free to the entire human race.

I admit that the wisdom and beauty of these laws have struck me with admiration and respect. I see Saint-Simonist doctrines52 in them: To each according to his capacity, to each capacity according to his work. I see communism in them, that is to say, the tendency for property to become the common heritage of men. But this is a Saint-Simonism and a communism governed by infinite farsightedness, and not in the slightest abandoned to the fragility, passions, and arbitrary rule of men.

What I have said about printing can be said about all the tools of work, from the hammer and nail to the locomotive and electric telegraph. Society benefits from everything through the abundance of the things it consumes, and benefits from these freely, for their effect is to reduce the price of objects; and the entire portion of the price that has been abolished and that represents fully the contribution of the invention in the production process obviously makes the product free to this extent. All that remains to be paid for is the human work, the work done now and this is paid for, regardless of the resulting benefit of the invention, at least where it has gone through the cycle I have just described and which it is destined to go through. I call a workman to my home; he arrives with a saw, I pay two francs for his day's work and he produces twenty-five planks. If the saw had not been invented, he would probably not have made a single plank and I would not have paid him any less for his day's work. The usefulness produced by the saw is therefore a free gift of nature to me; or rather it is a portion of the heritage I have received, in common with all my fellows, from the intelligence of our ancestors. I have two workers in my field. One holds the handles of a plough, the other the handle of a spade. The result of their work is very different but their day's pay is the same since pay is not subject to the usefulness produced but to the effort or the work required.

I call upon the reader's patience and beg him to believe that I have not lost sight of commercial freedom. Let him just remember the conclusion that I have reached: Remuneration is not in proportion to the useful contributions that the producer brings to the market but to his work.53

I have taken my examples from human inventions. Let us now talk about natural advantages.

All products incorporate a contribution from both nature and man. However the portion of usefulness contributed by nature is always free. Only that portion of usefulness resulting from human work is subject to exchange and consequently to remuneration. This doubtless varies a great deal because of the intensity of the work, the skill required, its promptness, its relevance, the need for it, the temporary absence of competition, etc. etc. But it is no less true in principle that the contribution of natural laws, which belong to everyone, does not enter into the price of the product.

We do not pay for the air we breathe, although it is so useful to us that we would not be able to live for two minutes without it. In spite of this, we do not pay for it because nature supplies it to us without any human intervention. If, however, we wish, for example, to separate out one of the gases that make it up to carry out an experiment, we have to make a certain effort or, if we have someone else make the effort, we will have to sacrifice to him an equivalent amount of effort that we have put into another product. In this way we see that there is an exchange in pain, effort, and work. It is not really for oxygen that I am paying, since it is available to me everywhere, but for the effort required to separate it out, work that I have been spared and which I need to compensate. Will I be told that other things, such as expenses, materials, or apparatus, need to be paid for? Once again, it is the work contained in these things that I am paying for. The price of the coal used represents the work that has needed to be done to extract and transport it.

We do not pay for sunlight since nature lavishes it on us. But we pay for the light obtained from gas, tallow, oil, or wax because this includes human work that requires remuneration. And note that the remuneration is so closely proportioned to the work done and not to its usefulness, that it may well happen that one of these sources of light, even though it is much brighter than the others, is nevertheless less expensive. For this to happen, all that is necessary is for the same quantity of human work to produce more.

When a water carrier comes to supply my house, if I paid him according to the absolute usefulness of the water, my entire fortune would not be enough. However I pay him according to the trouble he has taken. If he demanded more, others would take over, and in the end, if need be, I would take the trouble myself. Water is not really the subject of our bargain, but in reality the work involved in relation to the water. This point of view is so important and the consequences I am going to draw from it so illuminating, with regard to international free trade, that I feel I have to elucidate my ideas with other examples.

The quantity of nourishment contained in potatoes does not cost us very much because we obtain a great deal with very little work. We pay more for wheat because, in order to produce it, nature requires a great deal of human work. It is obvious that, if nature behaved in the same way for one as for the other, their prices would tend to level out. It is not possible for wheat producers to earn much more on a regular basis than potato producers. The law of competition prevents this.

If, by a happy miracle, the fertility of all arable land happened to increase, it would not be the farmer but the consumer who would reap the advantage of this phenomenon, because the result would be abundance and cheap prices. There would be less labor incorporated in each hectoliter of wheat54 and the farmer would be able to trade it only for less labor incorporated in another product. If, on the contrary, the fertility of the soil suddenly decreased, the contribution by nature to production would be less, the contribution of work more, and the product would be more expensive. I was therefore right to say that it is in consumption, in the human race, that all economic phenomena are resolved in the long run. As long as we have not followed their effects to this point, as long as we stop at the immediate effects, those that affect one man or one class of men, as producers, we are not being economists, any more than someone who, instead of monitoring the effects of a potion on the whole of the organism but limits himself to observing how it affects the palate or throat in order to judge it, is a doctor.55

Tropical regions are highly suited to the production of sugar and coffee. This means that nature carries out the majority of the task and leaves very little work to be done. Who then reaps the advantages of this generosity of nature? It is not at all these regions, since competition means that they receive payment only for their work; it is the human race, since the result of this generosity is called low prices, and they belong to everyone.

Here we have a temperate zone in which coal and iron ore are on the surface of the land and you have only to bend down to pick it up. In the first instance, the inhabitants benefit from this happy circumstance, I agree. But soon, competition will start and the price of coal and iron will decrease to the point where the gift of nature is free to everyone and human work alone is remunerated in accordance with the general level of profitability.

In this way, the generosity of nature, like the advances made in production processes, are or constantly tend to become the common and free heritage of consumers, the masses and the human race, in accordance with the law of competition. Therefore the countries that do not have these advantages have everything to gain from trading with those that do, because it is work which is exchanged, setting aside the natural utilities that work encompasses; and obviously the countries that are most favored have incorporated the most of these natural utilities in a given amount of production. Their products, since they represent less work, fetch lower prices; in other words they are cheaper, and if all the generosity of nature results in cheapness, obviously it is not the producing country but the consuming country that receives the benefit.

From this we see the immense absurdity of this consumer country if it rejects a product precisely because it is cheap; it is as though it were saying: "I do not want anything that nature provides. You are asking me for an effort worth two in order to give me a product that I can create only with work worth four; you can do this because in your country nature has accomplished half of the work. Well then! I for my part will reject it and I will wait until your climate has become more inclement and forces you to require work worth four from me, so that we may trade on an equal footing."

A is a favored country. B is a country ill treated by nature. I say that trade is beneficial to both of them and especially to B since the trade is not in utilities for utilities but in value for value. Well, A includes more utilities in the same value, since the utility of the product encompasses what nature has contributed to it as well as what work has contributed, whereas the value corresponds only to what work has contributed. Therefore, B strikes a bargain that is wholly to its advantage. In paying the producer in A simply for his work, it receives more natural utilities that it gives over and above the trade.56

Let us set out the general rule.

A trade is an exchange of values; since the value is reduced by competition to the work involved, trade is thus an exchange of equal work. What nature has provided to the products being traded is given from one to the other freely and over and above the trade, from which it strictly follows that trade with the countries most favored by nature are the most advantageous.

The theory whose lines and contours I have tried to trace in this article needs to be developed more fully. I have discussed it as it relates to my subject, commercial freedom. But perhaps an attentive reader will have perceived the fertile seed, the growth and spread of which will necessarily stifle protection, along with protectionism, Fourierism,57 Saint-Simonism,58 communism, and all the schools whose object is to exclude the law of COMPETITION from the governance of the world. Considered from the point of view of producers, competition doubtless upsets our individual and immediate interests, but if you consider it from the point of view of the general aim of all production, of universal well-being, in a word of consumption, you will find that competition accomplishes the same role in a moral world as equilibrium does in a material one. Competition is the foundation of genuine communism, true socialism, and the equality of well-being and conditions, so longed for these days, and if so many sincere political writers, so many reformers of good faith demand this equality from arbitrary government power , it is because they do not understand freedom.59

44 (Bastiat's note) The Vicomte de Romanet. [Auguste, Vicomte de Romanet (n.d.), was a staunch protectionist who served on the Conseil général de l'agriculture, du commerce, et des manufactures. See the glossary entry on "Romanet."]

45 (Bastiat's note) Mathieu de Dombasle. [Joseph Alexandre Mathieu de Dombasle (1777-1843) was an agronomist who introduced the practice of triennial crop rotation (cereals, forage, vegetables) in France. He also wrote on the sugar-beet industry, De l'impôt sur le sucre indigène: Nouvelles considerations (1837). See the glossary entry on "Dombasle."]

46 It is not surprising that Romanet would compare economic competition to a horse race as he had a great interest in horse racing, having given a paper to the Academy of Sciences on this topic in June 1843. See the lengthy summary of the Mémoire which he gives in his pamphlet to promote his candidature to the Academy. Mémoire sur le principe de l'amélioration des races de chevaux, et sur la préférence qui doit être accordée, comme moyen d'encouragement, soit aux prix de course, soit aux primes locales, Suivant Le Sexe De L'animal. Lu à l'Académie des sciences le 19 juin 1843. Notice sur les travaux de M. le vte de Romanet. Membre du Conseil général de l'agriculture, du commerce et des manufactures, à l'appui de sa candidature à la place d'Académicien libre, vacante par le décès de M. le duc de Raguse (Paris: Bouchard-Huzard, 1852). See the glossary entry on "Romanet."

47 Guyenne was an old province in the south west of France, with Bordeaux as its capital city. It covered roughly the same territory as Bastiat's homeland, Les Landes. Brittany is a peninsula in the most north western part of France. See the glossary entry on "Les Landes" and the maps above, pp. ???

48 Quimper is a commune in Brittany in the north west of France. In 1846 the population was about 11,000 people. It was sometimes the butt of jokes because of its remoteness from Paris, its small size, and the fact that its inhabitants spoke the Breton language.

49 Throughout the nineteenth century, European currencies were based on the gold standard. See the glossary entry on "French Currency" and ES1 XI. "Nominal Prices" for more discussion of this.

50 Here Bastiat is grappling with the concept which in two years time he was to call the "ricochet effect" (or flow effect) to describe the interconnectedness of all economic activity and the need to be aware of immediate effects (the seen) and later indirect effects (the unseen). He uses the word "glisser" (to slide or slip) in this sentence. See a later occurrence of this in ES3 XV "A Little Manual for Consumers", below pp. ??? and the Appendices "Bastiat and the Ricochet Effect" and "The Sophism Bastiat never wrote: the Sophism of the Ricochet Effect."

51 Bastiat is mistaken. Johannes Gutenberg (1398–1468) invented printing using movable type in the 1440s, so it should read here the 15th not the 13th century.

52 Claude Henri de Rouvroy, count of Saint-Simon (1760-1825) was a writer and social reformer who founded one of the main schools of socialist thought during the Restoration which continued to be influential throughout the July Monarchy. He advocated rule by a new technocratic elite which would replace the old aristocracy and state-supported industry which would replace what he thought was the injustice and chaos of the free market. See the glossary entry on "Saint-Simon."

53 (Bastiat's note) It is true that work is not uniformly remunerated. It is more or less intense, dangerous, skillful, etc. Competition establishes a market price for each category, and I am talking here about the variable price for this kind of work.

54 One hectorlitre is 100 litres or about 22 U.S. gallons.

55 It should be noted that is was a severe throat condition (possibly cancer) which killed Bastiat at the end of 1850. As it was an extremely painful disease which hindered his work as a writer and politician Bastiat saw his doctor many times in the last years of his life to get some relief. Thus, he had some personal experience of what he is saying in this passage. See a brief discussion of Bastiat's fatal condition in "The Cause of Bastiat's Untimely Death" in "Anecdotes and Reflections" in the Collected Works, vol. 2, pp. 413-14.

56 Bastiat is referring here to David Ricardo's idea of international comparative advantage, which he proposed in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817). A French translation by Constancio appeared in 1818, with notes by Jean-Baptiste Say; it was republished with his Complete Works in 1847 with additional notes and translated material by Fonteyraud. See Oeuvres complètes de D. Ricardo. See also Boudreaux, "Comparative Advantage," Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, <https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/ComparativeAdvantage.html> and the glossary entry on "Ricardo."

57 François-Marie Charles Fourier (1772-1837) was a socialist and founder of the phalansterian school or "Fourierism." This consisted of a utopian, communistic system for the reorganization of society in which individuals would live together as one family and hold property in common. See the glossary entries on "Fourier" and "Utopias."

58 Claude Henri de Rouvroy, count of Saint-Simon (1760-1825) was a writer and social reformer who founded one of the main schools of socialist thought during the Restoration which continued to be influential throughout the July Monarchy. He advocated rule by a new technocratic elite which would replace the old aristocracy and state-supported industry which would replace what he thought was the injustice and chaos of the free market. See the glossary entry on "Saint-Simon."

59 (Paillottet's note) The theory sketched out in this article is the one that was developed in the Economic Harmonies four years later. Remuneration exclusively limited to human work, the exemption from payment of natural agents, the gradual mastery of these agents for the benefit of the human race whose common heritage they thus become, the elevation of general well-being, and the tendency for conditions to become relatively level: these are all recognizable as being the essential elements of Bastiat's major works.

V. Our Products are weighed down with Taxes [July 1845] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Nos produits sont grevés de taxes" (Our Products are weighed down with Taxes) [JDE, July 1845, T. 11, p. 356-60].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 46-52.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

This is the same sophism. People demand that foreign products be taxed in order to neutralize the effects of the taxation that burdens our national products. This too, then, is about equalizing the conditions of production. The only observation we would want to make is that tax is an artificial obstacle with exactly the same result as a natural obstacle: it forces prices to rise. If this rise reaches the point at which a greater loss is incurred in creating the product itself than there is in bringing it in from outside and creating a counter value for it, let it happen.60 Private interest will be fully capable of choosing the lesser of two evils. I could therefore refer the reader back to the preceding argument, but the sophism that I have to combat here recurs so often in the complaints and appeals, I might almost say the pressing claims, of the protectionist school, that it is well worth discussing it separately.

If we want to discuss one of those special taxes to which certain products are subject, I will readily agree that it is reasonable to subject foreign products to these also. For example, it would be absurd to exempt foreign salt from tax, not that from an economic point of view France loses anything, on the contrary. Whatever we say about this, principles are constant, and France would gain, just as she will always gain from avoiding a natural or artificial obstacle. However, here the obstacle has been established with a fiscal aim. This aim has to be achieved, and if foreign salt were to be sold in our market free of duty the treasury would not recover its hundred million and would have to exact this amount from some other form of taxation. It would quite evidently be contradictory to put in the way of a specific policy an obstacle calculated to prevent it. It would have been better to address this other tax first of all and not tax French salt.61 These are the circumstances that I accept for inflicting a duty that is not protectionist but fiscal on a foreign product.

But to claim that a nation has to protect itself through tariffs against competition from a rival because it is subject to heavier taxes than a neighboring country, this is where the sophism lies, and this is what I intend to attack.

I have said several times that I intend only to set out a theory and go back, as far as I am able, to the sources of the protectionists' errors. If I were indulging in polemics, I would say to them "Why are you aiming tariffs principally against England and Belgium, the countries in the world that are most burdened with taxes? Am I not entitled to see in your argument only a pretext?" However, I am not one of those who believe that people are protectionist through interest and not through conviction. Protectionist doctrine is too popular not to be sincere. If the majority had faith in freedom, we would be free. Doubtless it is private interest that causes our tariffs to weigh down on us so heavily, but this is after it has acted on our convictions. "Will," said Pascal,62 "is one of the principal organs of belief."63 However, belief is no less real for having its roots in will and in the secret inspiration of egoism.

Let us return to the sophism derived from taxation.

The state can make good or bad use of taxes; it makes good use of them when it provides the public with services that are equivalent to the flow of revenue the public contributes to it. It makes bad use of them when it squanders these resources without giving anything in return.

In the first case, to say that taxes put the country that pays them in a less favorable position with regard to production than one that does not pay them is a sophism. We pay twenty million for law and the police,64 it is true, but we have law and the police, the security they provide us and the time they save us, and it is highly probable that production is neither easier nor more active in those nations, if they exist, where everyone carries out law and order for himself. We pay several hundred million for roads, bridges ports, and railways, I agree.65 But we have these railways, ports, and roads, and unless we claim that we are making a bad bargain in building them, nobody can say that they make us inferior to those peoples who, it is true, do not contribute to a budget for public works but do not have any public works either. And this explains why, while accusing taxes of being one of the causes of inferior industrial capacity, we aim our tariffs precisely against those nations that are the most taxed. It is because taxes, when used well, far from damaging them, have improved the conditions of production of these nations. So we always come to the same conclusion, that protectionist sophisms not only depart from the truth but are also contrary, are the direct opposite, to the truth.66

As for taxes that are unproductive, abolish them if you can. The strangest conceivable way of neutralizing their effects, however, is surely to add specific individual taxes to public ones. Spare us any such compensation! The state has taxed us too much, you say. Well then, all the more reason for our not taxing each other any further!

A protectionist duty is a tax aimed against a foreign product but which falls, and let us never forget this, on the national consumer. Now, the consumer is a taxpayer. And is it not ludicrous to say to him: "Since taxes are heavy, we are going to raise the prices of everything to you; since the state takes a part of your income, we are going to pay another part to the monopoly"?

But let us probe further a sophism so esteemed by our legislators, although it is rather extraordinary that it is precisely those who maintain unproductive taxes (the proposition I am drawing your attention to now) who are attributing our alleged industrial inferiority to them in order to make this good subsequently through other taxes and restrictions.

It appears obvious to me that, without changing its nature and effects, protection might have taken the form of a direct tax raised by the state and distributed through indemnity subsidies to privileged industries .

Let us assume that foreign iron can be sold in our market at 8 francs and no lower and French iron at 12 francs and not below this.

Under such circumstances, the state has two ways of ensuring that the national producer retains a dominant position in the market.

The first is to subject foreign iron to a duty of 5 francs. It is clear that foreign iron would be excluded since it could now be sold only at 13 francs, 8 francs being the cost price and 5 francs the tax, and that at this price it would be chased out of the market by French iron, which we have taken to cost 12 francs. In this case, the purchaser, the consumer, will have paid all the costs of this protection.

The state might also have imposed a tax of 5 francs on the public and given it as a subsidy to ironmasters. The protectionist effect would have been the same. Foreign iron would have been equally excluded, since our ironmaster would have sold at 7 francs which, with the subsidy of 5 francs, would give him his profitable price of 12 francs. However, faced with iron at 7 francs, foreigners would not be able to deliver theirs at 8.

I can see only one difference between these two systems: the principle is the same and the effect is the same, except that in one case protection is paid for by a few and in the other by all.

I admit frankly my preference for the second system. It seems to me more just, more economic, and more straightforward. More just because if society wants to give handouts to a few of its members, everyone has to contribute; more economic because it would save a great deal in collection costs and would cause a great many restrictions to disappear and finally, more straightforward since the public would see clearly how the operation worked and what they were being made to do.

If the protectionist system had taken this form, however, would it not be rather risible to hear it said, "We pay heavy taxes for the army, navy, law and order, public works, the university, the national debt, etc. and this exceeds a billion.67 For this reason, it would be a good thing if the state took another billion from us to ease the situation of these poor ironmasters, these poor shareholders of Anzin,68 these unfortunate owners of forests, and these cod fishermen who are so useful."

If you look closely, you will see that this is what the significance of the sophism I am combating is reduced to. Whatever you do, sirs, you can give money to some only by taking it from others. If you genuinely wish to drain taxpayers dry, go ahead, but at least do not mock them and say to them, "I am taking from you to compensate you for what I have already taken from you."

We would never reach the end of it if we wished to note everything that is false in this sophism. I will limit myself to three considerations.

You win acceptance for the fact that France is burdened with taxes in order to infer that such and such an industry ought to be protected. But we have to pay these taxes in spite of protection. If therefore an industry comes forward and says, "I contribute to the payment of taxes; this raises the cost price of my products and I demand that a protectionist duty should also raise the sales price," what else is it demanding than to discharge its tax onto the rest of the community? It claims to be recouping the increase in tax it has paid by raising the price of its products. So, as all taxes have always to be paid to the treasury, and as the masses have to bear this increase in price, they pay both their taxes and those of this industry. "But," you will say, "everyone is being protected." Firstly, this is impossible and, even if it were possible, where would the relief be? I am paying for you and you for me; but the tax still needs to be paid.

In this way, you are being fooled by an illusion. You want to pay taxes to have an army, a navy, a religion, a university, judges, roads, etc., and then you want to relieve of its share of taxes first one industry, then a second, and then a third, always by sharing the burden among the masses. But you are doing nothing other than creating interminable complications, with no other result than these complications themselves. Prove to me that the increase in price resulting from protection falls on foreigners, and I will be able to see something specious in your argument. But if it is true that the French public paid the tax before the law and that after the law it paid both the protection and the tax, then I really do not see what it gains by this.

I will even go much further; I say that the heavier our taxes are, the more we should be in a hurry to open our ports and frontiers to foreigners who are less taxed than us. Why? In order to pass on to them a greater part of our burden. Is it not an undeniable axiom in political economy that, in the long run, taxes fall on the consumer? The more our trading transactions are increased, the more foreign consumers will reimburse us the taxes included in the products we sell them, while we would have to make them in this respect, only a lesser restitution, since according to our hypothesis their products are less taxed than ours.

In sum, have you never asked whether these heavy taxes that you use in argument to justify the protectionist regime are not caused by this regime itself? I would like to be told what the great standing armies and the powerful navies would be used for if trade were free. . . . But this is a question for politicians,

And let us not confuse, by going too deeply,

Their business with ours.69 70

60 "Laissez faire" in the original. See the glossary entry on "Laissez-faire."

61 The domestic tax on salt, or "gabelle" as it was known under the old regime was a much hated tax on an item essential for preserving food. It was abolished during the Revolution but revived during the Restoration. In 1816 it was set at 30 centimes per kilogramme and in 1847 it raised fr. 70.4 million. During the Revolution of 1848 it was reduced to 10 centimes per kilogramme. According to the Budget Papers of 1848 the French state raised fr. 38.2 million from tariffs on imported salt and fr. 13.4 million from the salt tax on internal sales. Bastiat's proposed cut to 10 centimes in January 1847 was the same level adopted by the new government in 1848. See E. de Parieu, "Sel", DEP, vol. 2, pp. 606-09. See the Appendix on "French Government Finances in 1848-49."

62 Blaise Pascal (1623-62) was a French mathematician and philosopher whose best-known work, Pensées, appeared only after his death. See the glossary on "Pascal."

63 "The will is one of the chief organs of belief, not that it forms belief, but that things are true or false according to the side on which we view them. The will which chooses one side rather than the other turns away the mind from considering the qualities of all that it does not like to see, thus the mind, moving in accord with the will, stays to look at the side it chooses, and so judges by what it sees." From "The Authenticity of Sacred Books," in Molinier, The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal, p. 128.

64 According to the Budget Papers for 1848 fr. 26.million was spent on courts and tribunals b y the ministry of justice. See the Appendix on "French Government Finances in 1848-49."

65 It is not clear where Bastiat gets these figures. According to the Budget Papers for 1848 the ordinary expenditure for the Ministry of Public Works was fr. 63.5 million and extraordinary expenditure was fr. 47.4 million and fr. 74.8 million on the railways for a total of fr. 185.7 million. Additional amounts were spent on public works in Algeria by the Ministry of War and on local public works by the départements. See the Appendix on "French Government Finances in 1848-49."

66 (Paillottet's note) See chapter XVII of the Harmonies (OC, vol. 6, chap. 17, "Services privés, services publics").

67 The French government annual expenditure in 1848 was fr. 1.446 billion and its receipts were fr. 1.391 billion, resulting in a deficit of fr. 55 million. See the Appendix on "French Government Finances in 1848-49."

68 The Compagnie des mines d'Anzin was a large coal-mining company in the north of France near the town of Anzin. It was founded in 1757 and nationalized by the French government in 1949. It was the setting for Émile Zola's novel Germinal (1885), where it was used as a symbol of French capitalism.

69 (Paillottet's note) See the pamphlet Peace and Freedom in vol. 5 (OC, vol. 5, "Paix et liberté ou le budget républicain"). [This quotation comes from the very end of Fontaine's fable "La Belette entrée dans un grenier" (The Weasel That Got Caught in the Storeroom), about a weasel that was able to squeeze through a small hole in order to get into a grain-storage room. Once inside it ate so much that it got bigger and couldn't get back out through the same hole in the wall. A rat, on seeing its predicament, says that, after 5 or 6 days of not eating, "you would have then a belly that is much less full. You were thin to get in, you'll have to be thin to get out. What I'm telling you now, you've well heard from others: but let us not confuse, by going too deeply, their business with yours." From La Fontaine, Fables de La Fontaine, Bk. 3, Fable 17, p. 121.]

70 Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) was a poet and writer of fables which have become famous for their surface simplicity which masks much deeper moral and political insights. See the glossary on "La Fontaine".

VI. The Balance of Trade [October 1845] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Balance du commerce" (The Balance of Trade) [JDE, October 1845, T. 12, p. 201-04].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 52-57.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

Our opponents have adopted a tactic which we cannot help feeling embarrassed about. Are we getting our views across? They accept them with the utmost respect. Are we attacking their fundamental approach? They abandon it with the best grace in the world. They ask for only one thing, that is that our views, which they hold to be true, should be relegated to books and that their approach, which they acknowledge to be faulty, should reign over the carrying out of business. Leave them the handling of tariffs and they will not dispute your having the domain of theory.

"Certainly", said M. Gaulthier de Rumilly71 recently, "none of us wants to resurrect the old theories on the balance of trade." Very well, but M. Gaulthier, it is not enough just to administer a slap in the face to error as you pass by; you must also desist from reasoning immediately afterward and for two hours at a time as though this error was the truth.

Talk to me about M. Lestiboudois.72 Here is someone who reasons consistently, a logician who can debate. There is nothing in his conclusions that is not in his premises: he asks nothing of practice that he cannot justify in theory. His basic ideas may be false, and that is indeed the dispute. But at least he has some basic ideas. He believes and proclaims loudly that if France pays ten to receive fifteen it is losing five, and he quite straightforwardly makes laws in this light.

"What is important," he says, "is that the figure for imports is constantly increasing and exceeds that for exports, that is to say, each year France purchases more foreign products and sells fewer products produced nationally. The figures are there to prove it. What do we see? In 1842, we see imports exceed exports by 200 million.73 These facts appear to me to prove with utter clarity that national work is not sufficiently protected, that we let foreign work take care of our needs and that competition from our rivals is beating our industry down. The law currently in force appears to sanction the fact that it is not true, contrary to what economists say, that when we buy we sell of necessity a corresponding portion of goods. It is obvious that we can buy things, not with our customary products, not with our income, not with the fruit of ongoing production but with our capital, with products that have been accumulated and saved and those used for making more, that is to say, we can spend and dissipate the profits of previous savings, that we can grow poorer and march toward our ruin and that we can consume the national capital in its entirety. This is exactly what we are doing. Each year, we give 200 million to foreigners."

Well then, here is a man with whom we can agree. His language contains no hypocrisy. The balance of trade is set out clearly. France imports 200 million more than it exports. Therefore, France is losing 200 million a year. And the remedy? To prevent imports. The conclusion is irreproachable.

It is therefore M. Lestiboudois whom we are going to attack, for how can we combat M. Gaulthier? If you say to him, "The balance of trade is a mistake," he will reply to you, "That is what I have put forward in my introductory remarks." If you exclaim "But the balance of trade is a truth", he will reply to you "that is what I have stated in my conclusions". The Economist School74 will doubtless criticize me for debating with M. Lestiboudois. Combating the balance of trade, I will be told, is like titling at windmills.

Take care, however, the balance of trade is neither as old, nor as sick, nor as dead as M. Gaulthier wishes to tell us, for the entire Chamber, including M. Gaulthier himself, aligned themselves with M. Lestiboudois's theory through their vote.

However, in order not to tire the reader, I will not go into this theory. I will content myself with subjecting it to the test of facts.

Our principles are constantly being accused of being correct only in theory. But tell me, sirs, do you believe that the account books of businessmen are correct in practice? It seems to me that, if there is anything in the world that has practical authority when it is a question of ascertaining profits and losses, it is commercial accounting. Apparently all the traders on earth have not agreed down the centuries to keep their books in such a fashion that profits are shown as losses and losses as profits. Truly, I would prefer to believe that M. Lestiboudois is a bad economist.

Well, when one of my friends, who is a trader, completed two operations with very contrasting results, I was curious to compare the accounts of the warehouse with those of the customs service, interpreted by M. Lestiboudois with the sanction of our six hundred legislators.

M. T. shipped from Le Havre to the United States a cargo of French goods, in the majority products known as Articles de Paris,75 for an amount of 200,000 fr. This was the figure declared to the customs. When it arrived in New Orleans, it was found that the cargo had incurred 10 percent of costs and paid 30 percent in duty, which made it worth 280,000 fr. It was sold at a profit of 20 percent, or 40,000 fr. and produced a total of 320,000 fr., which the consignee converted into cotton. These cotton goods further had to bear 10 percent costs for transport, insurance, commission, etc. so that, when it entered Le Havre, the new cargo was worth 352,000 fr. and this was the figure recorded in the registers of the customs. Lastly, M. T. made another 20 percent profit on this return shipment, or 70,400 fr.; in other words, the cotton goods were sold for 422,400 fr.

If M. Lestiboudois requires it, I will send him an excerpt from M. T's books. He will see there under the credits of the profit and loss account, that is to say as profits, two entries, one for 40,000, the other for 70,400 fr., and M. T. is totally convinced that in this respect his accounts are not misleading him.

However, what do the figures that the customs have recorded regarding this operation tell M. Lestiboudois? They tell him that France has exported 200,000 fr. and that it has imported 352,000 fr., from which the honorable deputy concludes, "that it has spent and dissipated the profits of previous savings, that it has impoverished itself, that it is marching toward ruin and that it has given 152,000 fr. of capital to foreigners."

A short time afterward, M. T. shipped another cargo of nationally produced goods worth 200,000 fr. But the unfortunate ship foundered on leaving the port and M. T. was left with no alternative but to record in his books two short entries as follows:

Various goods debited to X for 200,000 fr. for the purchase of various articles shipped by the boat N.

Profit and loss due to various goods 200,000 fr. for the total and final loss of the cargo.

In the meantime, the customs had recorded for its part 200,000 fr. on its export table, and since it will never have anything to record on the imports table, it follows that M. Lestiboudois and the Chamber will see in this shipwreck a clear, net profit of 200,000 fr. for France.

One more consequence has to be drawn from this, which is that according to the theory of the balance of trade, France has a very simple way of doubling its capital at every moment. To do this, once it has passed it through the customs, it just has to throw it into the sea. In this case, exports will be equal to the amount of its capital; imports will be nil and even impossible, and we will gain everything that the ocean has swallowed up.

This is a joke, the protectionists will say. It is impossible for us to say such absurd things. However, you are saying them and what is more, you are doing them, you are imposing them in practice on your fellow citizens, at least as far as you are able.

The truth is that the balance of trade would have to be taken backward and national profit in foreign trade calculated through the excess of imports over exports. This excess, with costs deducted, is the genuine profit. But this theory, which is the correct one, leads directly to free trade. I hand this theory to you, sirs, like all the others that were the subject of the previous chapters. Exaggerate it as much as you like, it has nothing to fear from such a test. Assume, if that amuses you, that foreigners swamp us with all sorts of useful goods without asking us for anything; if our imports are infinite and our exports nil, I challenge you to prove to me that we would be the poorer for this.76

71 Louis Gaulthier de Rumilly (1792-1884) was trained as a lawyer and served as a Deputy between 1830-34 and 1837-40. He was active in the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale (Society to Promote National Industry) and had a special interest in agriculture, railroads, and tariffs. See the glossary entry on "Rumilly" and "Society to promote National Industry."

72 Thémistocle Lestiboudois (1797–1876) was a Deputy from Lille (elected 1842) who supported the liberals in 1844 in wanting to end the stamp tax on periodicals but opposed them in supporting protectionism. In 1847 he published the pro-tariff book Économie politique des nations. See the glossary on "Lestiboudois."

73 The figures for 1847 are similar. The estimated amount of total exports from France was fr. 1,271 million and the total amount of imports was fr. 1,343 million producing a trade imbalance of fr. 172 million (p. 23). See the article "Commerce extérieur de la France pour l'année 1847," in Annuaire de l'économie politique (1849), pp. 18-67.

74 The "Economists school" or "Les Économistes" was the name given to the group of liberal, free-trade political economists who were active in the late 18th and the first half of the 19th century. See the glossary entry on "The Economists."

75 "Articles de Paris" were high priced luxury goods produced in France and included leather goods, jewelry, fashion clothing, perfume, and other such goods.

76 (Paillottet's note) In March 1850, the author was once more obliged to combat the same sophism, which he meant to produce on the national rostrum. He altered the preceding demonstration by excluding from his calculations the cost of transport, etc. See "Balance of Trade" in vol. 5 (OC, vol. 5, "Balance du Commerce," p. 402).

VII. Petition by the Manufacturers of Candles, etc. [October 1845] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Pétition des fabricants de chandelles, etc." (Petition by the Manufacturers of Candles, etc.) [JDE, October 1845, T. 12, p. 204-07].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 57-62.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

By the manufacturers of tallow candles, wax candles, lamps, candlesticks, street lamps, snuffers, extinguishers and producers of tallow, oil, resin, alcohol, and in general everything that relates to lighting

To Honorable Members of the Chamber of Deputies

Sirs,

You are doing all right for yourselves. You are rejecting abstract theories; abundance and cheapness are of little account to you. You are concerned most of all with the fate of producers. You want them to be free from foreign competition, in a word, you want to keep the domestic market for domestic labor.

We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity to apply your . . . what will we call it? Your theory? No, nothing is more misleading than theory. Your doctrine? Your system? Your principles ? But you do not like doctrines, you have a horror of systems and as for principles , you declare that none exists in the economic life of society. We will therefore call it your practice, your practice with no theory and no principle.

We are suffering from the intolerable competition of a foreign rival whose situation with regard to the production of light, it appears, is so far superior to ours that it is flooding our national market at a price that is astonishingly low for, as soon as he comes on the scene, our sales cease, all consumers go to him, and a sector of French industry whose ramifications are countless is suddenly afflicted with total stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging such a bitter war against us that we suspect that it is instigated by perfidious Albion77 (good diplomacy in the current climate!), especially as it treats this proud island in a way which it denies us.78

We ask you to be good enough to pass a law which orders the closure of all windows, gables, shades, wind-breaks, shutters, curtains, skylights, fanlights, blinds, in a word, all openings, holes, slits, and cracks through which the light of the sun is accustomed to penetrate into houses to the disadvantage of the fine industries that we flatter ourselves that we have given to the country, which cannot now abandon us to such an unequal struggle without being guilty of ingratitude.

Deputies, please do not take our request for satire and do not reject it without at least listening to the reasons we have to support us.

Firstly, if you forbid as far as possible any access to natural light, if you thus create a need for artificial light, what industry in France, would not bit by bit be encouraged?

If more tallow is consumed, more cattle and sheep will be needed and consequently, we will see an increase in artificial meadows, meat, wool, leather and above all, fertilizer, the basis of all agricultural wealth.

If more oil is consumed, we will see an expansion in the cultivation of poppies, olive trees, and rapeseed. These rich and soil-exhausting plants will be just the thing to take advantage of the fertility that the rearing of animals will have contributed to our land.

Our moorlands will be covered with coniferous trees. Countless swarms of bees will gather from our mountains scented treasures which now evaporate uselessly like the flowers from which they emanate. There is thus no sector of agriculture that will not experience significant development.

The same is true for shipping. Thousands of ships will go to catch whales, and in a short time we will have a navy capable of upholding the honor of France and satisfying the patriotic susceptibility of us who petition you, the sellers of tallow candles, etc.

But what have we to say about Articles de Paris?79 You can already picture the gilt work, bronzes, and crystal in candlesticks, lamps, chandeliers, and candelabra shining in spacious stores compared with which today's shops are nothing but boutiques.

Even the poor resin tapper on top of his sand dune or the poor miner in the depths of his black shaft would see his earnings and well-being improved.

Think about it, sirs, and you will remain convinced that perhaps there is not one Frenchman, from the wealthy shareholder of Anzin to a humble match seller, whose fate would not be improved by the success of our request.

We anticipate your objections, sirs, but you cannot put forward a single one that you have not culled from the well-thumbed books of the supporters of free trade. We dare to challenge you to say one word against us that will not be turned instantly against yourselves and the principle that governs your entire policy.

Will you tell us that if we succeed in this protection France will gain nothing, since consumers will bear its costs?

Our reply to you is this:

You no longer have the right to invoke the interests of the consumer. When the latter was in conflict with the producers, you sacrificed him on every occasion. You did this to stimulate production and to increase its domain. For the same reason, you should do this once again.

You yourselves have forestalled the objection. When you were told: "Consumers have an interest in the free introduction of iron, coal, sesame, wheat, and cloth", you replied: "Yes, but producers have an interest in their exclusion." Well then, if consumers have an interest in the admission of natural light, producers have one in its prohibition.

"But," you also said, "producers and consumers are one and the same. If manufacturers gain from protection, they will cause agriculture to gain. If agriculture prospers, it will provide markets for factories." Well, then, if you grant us the monopoly of lighting during the day, first of all we will purchase a great deal of tallow, charcoal, oil, resin, wax alcohol, silver, iron, bronze, and crystal to fuel our industry and, what is more, once we and our countless suppliers have become rich, we will consume a great deal and spread affluence throughout the sectors of the nation's production.

Will you say that sunlight is a free gift and that to reject free gifts would be to reject wealth itself, even under the pretext of stimulating the means of acquiring it?

Just take note that you have a fatal flaw at the heart of your policy and that up to now you have always rejected foreign products because they come close to being free gifts and all the more so to the degree that they come closer to this. You had only a half reason to accede to the demands of other monopolists; to accede to our request, you have a complete reason and to reject us precisely on the basis that we are better founded would be to advance the equation + x + = -; in other words it would be to pile absurdity on absurdity.

Work and nature contribute in varying proportions to the production of a product, depending on the country and climate. The portion provided by nature is always free; it is the portion which labor contributes that establishes its value and is paid for.

If an orange from Lisbon is sold at half the price of an orange from Paris, it is because natural and consequently free heat gives to one what the other owes to artificial and consequently expensive heat.

Therefore when an orange reaches us from Portugal, it can be said that it is given to us half free and half paid for, or in other words, at half the price compared to the one from Paris.

Well, it is precisely its being half-free (excuse the expression) that you use as an argument to exclude it. You say, "How can domestic labor withstand the competition of foreign labor when domestic labor has to do everything and foreign labor only half of the task, with the sun accomplishing the rest?" But if this matter of things being half-free persuades you to reject competition how will things being totally free lead you to accept competition? Either you are not logicians or, in rejecting half-free products as harmful to our domestic economy, you have to reject totally free goods a fortiori and with twice as much zeal.

Once again, when a product, coal, iron, wheat, or cloth, comes to us from abroad and if we can acquire it with less work than if we made it ourselves, the difference is a free gift bestowed on us. This gift is more or less significant depending on whether the difference is greater or lesser. It ranges from one-quarter to half- or three-quarters of the value of the product if foreigners ask us only for three-quarters, half-, or one-quarter of the payment. It is as total as it can be when the donor asks nothing from us, like the sun for light. The question, which we set out formally, is to know whether you want for France the benefit of free consumption or the alleged advantages of expensive production. Make your choice, but be logical, for as long as you reject, as you do, foreign coal, iron, wheat, and cloth, the closer their price gets to zero, how inconsistent it would be to accept sunlight, whose cost is zero, throughout the day?

77 "Perfidious Albion" (or faithless or deceitful England) was the disparaging name given to Britain by its French opponents. It probably dates from the 1790s, when the British monarchy subsidized the other monarchies of Europe in their struggle against the French Republic during the revolution. Bastiat makes fun of this name in a later Sophism by talking about "Perfidious Normandy." See ES2, XIII "Protection, or the Three Municipal Magistrates," below, pp. ???. See the glossary entry on "Perfidious Albion."

78 This is a dig by Bastiat at the famously bad British weather. By making it so often overcast in Britain the sun seems to be favoring the British artificial light industry in a way that it doesn't for the French industry which has to suffer economic hardship because there is more sunny weather (at least in the south of France). The average number of hours of sunshine per year in Britain (1971-2000) was 1,457.4. For France, Lille in the north east had 1,617 hours (1991-2010), Paris had 1,662 hours, Bordeaux (near where Bastiat lived) had 2,035 hours, and Marseille on the Mediterranean had 2,858. For Australia (1981-2010), Townsville in North Queensland had 3,139 hours, Sydney had 2,592, and Hobart in the south had 2,263 hours.

79 "Articles de Paris" were high priced luxury goods produced in France and included leather goods, jewelry, fashion clothing, perfume, and other such goods.

VIII. Differential Duties [October 1845] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Droits différentiels" (Differential Duties) [JDE, October 1845, T. 12, p. 207-08].
• Published as book or pamphlet: 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 62-63.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

A poor farmer in the Gironde80 had lovingly cultivated a vine. After a lot of tiring work, he finally had the joy of producing a cask of wine, and he forgot that each drop of this precious nectar had cost his forehead one drop of sweat. "I will sell it," he told his wife, "and with the money I will buy some yarn with which you will make our daughter's trousseau." The honest farmer went to town and met a Belgian and an Englishman. The Belgian said to him, "Give me your cask of wine and in exchange I will give you fifteen reels of yarn." The Englishman said, "Give me your wine and I will give you twenty reels of yarn for we English spin more cheaply than the Belgians." However, a customs officer who happened to be there said, "My good man, trade with the Belgian if you like, but my job is to prevent you from trading with the Englishman." What!" said the farmer, "you want me to be content with fifteen reels of yarn from Brussels when I can have twenty from Manchester?" "Certainly, do you not see that France would be the loser if you received twenty reels instead of fifteen?" "I find it difficult to understand this," said the wine producer. "And I to explain it, went on the customs officer, "but this is a fact, for all the deputies, ministers, and journalists agree on this point, that the more a people receive in exchange for a given quantity of their products, the poorer they become." He had to conclude the bargain with the Belgian. The farmer's daughter had only three-quarters of her trousseau, and these honest people still ask themselves how it can be that you are ruined by receiving four instead of three and why you are richer with three dozen napkins than with four dozen.

80 The "Gironde" is a département in the Aquitaine region in southwest France, immediately to the north of the département of Les Landes, on the Atlantic coast. The Gironde contains the port city of Bordeaux and is famous for its wines. See the glossary entry on "Gironde".

IX. An immense Discovery!!! [October 1845] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Immense découverte!!!" (An immense Discovery!!!) [JDE, October 1845, T. 12, p. 208-11].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 63-67.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

At a time when all minds are occupied with searching for savings on various means of transport;

At a time when, in order to achieve these savings, we are leveling roads, canalizing rivers, improving steamships, and linking all our frontiers to Paris by an iron network, by traction systems that are atmospheric, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, etc.;81

Finally, at a time when I simply have to believe that everyone is enthusiastically and sincerely seeking the solution to the following problem:

"To ensure that the price of things at their place of consumption is as close as possible to their price at their place of production."

I would feel guilty toward my country, my century, and myself if I kept secret any longer the marvelous discovery I have just made.

For while the inventor's illusions may well be legendary, I am as certain as I can be that I have found an infallible means that ensures that products from around the world reach France and vice versa with a considerable reduction in their prices.

Infallible! This is just one of the advantages of my astonishing invention.

It requires neither a drawing, an estimate, nor preliminary studies, nor any engineers, machine operators, entrepreneurs, capital, shareholders, nor help from the government!

It offers no risk of shipwreck, explosion, shocks, fire, or derailment!

It can be put into practice in less than a day!

Lastly, and this will doubtless recommend it to the public, it will not cost the budget one centime, far from it. It will not increase the numbers of civil servants and the requirements of bureaucracy, far from it. It will not cost anyone his freedom, far from it.

It is not by chance that I have come about my discovery, it is through observation. I have to tell you now what led me to it.

This in fact was the question I had to solve:

"Why does something made in Brussels, for example, cost more when it reaches Paris?"

Well, it did not take me long to see that this is a result of the fact that there are several types of obstacles between Paris and Brussels. First of all, there is distance; we cannot cover this without a certain difficulty and loss of time, and we either have to subject ourselves to this or pay someone else to. Next come the rivers, the marshes, the lie of the land, and the mud; these are so many difficulties to be overcome. We do this by constructing roadways, building bridges, cutting roads, and reducing their resistance through the use of cobbles, iron bands, etc. But all this has a cost, and the object being carried must bear its share of these costs. There are also thieves on the roads, which necessitates a gendarmerie, a police force, etc.

Well, among these obstacles, there is one that we have set up ourselves, and at great expense, between Brussels and Paris. This is the men lying in ambush all along the frontier, armed to the teeth and responsible for placing difficulties in the way of the transport of goods from one country to the other. We call them customs officers. They act in exactly the same way as mud or ruts in the road. They delay, hinder, and contribute to the difference we have noted between the cost of production and the consumer price, a difference which it is our problem to decrease as far as possible.

And now we have solved the problem. Reduce tariffs .

You will have built the Northern railway line without it having cost you a penny. Furthermore, you will save heavy expenditure and you will begin to put capital in your pocket right from the first day.

Really, I ask myself how it was possible for enough strange ideas to have got into our heads that we were persuaded to pay many millions with a view to destroying the natural obstacles lying between France and foreign countries and at the same time to pay many other millions to substitute artificial obstacles for them which have exactly the same effect, so that the obstacles created counteract those destroyed, things go on as before and the result of the operation is double expenditure.

A Belgian product worth 20 fr. in Brussels fetches 30 when it reaches Paris, because of transport costs. A similar product of Parisian manufacture costs 40 fr. So what do we do about it?

First we put a duty of at least 10 fr. on the Belgian product in order to raise its cost price in Paris to 40 fr., and we pay a host of supervisors to ensure that it does not escape this duty, with the result that during the journey 10 fr. is charged for transport and 10 fr. for tax.

Having done this, we reason thus: transport from Brussels to Paris, which costs 10 fr., is very expensive. Let us spend two or three hundred million on railways, and we will reduce it by half.82 Obviously, all that we will have obtained is that the Belgian product will be sold in Paris for 35 fr., that is to say:

20 fr. its price in Brussels

10 duty

5 reduced transport by rail

35 fr. total, or the cost price in Paris

Well, would we not have achieved the same result by lowering the tarif to 5 fr.? We would then have:

20 fr. its price in Brussels

5 fr. reduced duty

10 fr. transport by ordinary road

35 fr. total, or the cost price in Paris

And this procedure would have saved us the 200 million that the railway costs, plus the cost of customs surveillance, since these are bound to decrease as the incentive to smuggle decreases.

But, people will say, the duty is necessary to protect Parisian industry. So be it, but then do not ruin the effect with your railway.

For if you persist in wanting the Belgian product to cost 40 fr. like the Parisian one, you will have to raise the duty to 15 fr. to have:

20 fr. its price in Brussels

15 protectionist duty

5 transport by rail

40 fr. total with prices equalized.

Then my question is, from this point of view, what is the use of the railway?

Frankly, is it not somewhat humiliating for the nineteenth century to prepare a spectacle of childishness such as this for future ages with such imperturbable seriousness? To be fooled by others is already not very pleasant, but to use the huge system of representation in order to fool yourself is to fool yourself twice over and in a matter of arithmetic, this is something to take down the pride of the century of enlightenment a peg or two.

81 In 1842 the government decided to encourage the building of a national network. Under the Railway Law of 11 June 1842 the government ruled that 5 main railways would be built radiating out of Paris which would be built in cooperation with private industry. The government would build and own the right of way, bridges, tunnels and railway stations, while private industry would lay the tracks, and build and maintain the rolling stock and the lines. The government would also set rates and regulate safety. The first railway concessions were issued by the government in 1844-45 triggering a wave of speculation and attempts to secure concessions. See the glossary entry on "The French Railways."

82 Michel Chevalier estimates that the French government had spent over fr. 420 million on railway construction between 1841 and 1848. See Michel Chevalier, "Statistique des travaux publics sous le Gouvernement de Juillet," Annuaire de l'économie politiques pour 1849, pp. 209-37.

X. Reciprocity [October 1845] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Réciprocité" (Reciprocity) [JDE, October 1845, T. 12, p. 211].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 67-70.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

We have just seen that everything that makes transport expensive during a journey acts to encourage protection or, if you prefer, that protection acts to encourage everything that makes transport expensive.

It is therefore true to say that a tariff is a marsh, a rut or gap in the road, or a steep slope, in a word, an obstacle whose effect results in increasing the difference between the prices of consumption and production. Similarly, it is incontrovertible that marshes or bogs are genuine protective tariffs .

There are people (a few, it is true, but there are some) who are beginning to understand that obstacles are no less obstacles because they are artificial and that our well-being has more to gain from freedom than from protection, precisely for the same reason that makes a canal more favorable than a "sandy, steep and difficult track."83

But, they say, this freedom has to be mutual. If we reduced our barriers with Spain without Spain reducing hers with us, we would obviously be stupid. Let us therefore sign commercial treaties on the basis of an equitable reciprocity, let us make concessions in return for concessions, and let us make the sacrifice of buying in order to obtain the benefit of selling.

It pains me to tell people who reason thus that, whether they realize it or not, they are thinking along protectionist lines, the only difference being that they are slightly more inconsistent than pure protectionists, just as pure protectionists are more inconsistent than absolute prohibitionists.84

I will demonstrate this through the following fable:

Stulta and Puera85

Once upon a time there were, somewhere or other, two towns, Stulta and Puera. At great expense, they built a road between the two. When it was completed, Stulta said to itself, "Now Puera is flooding us with its products; we had better look into it." As a result, it created and paid a Corps of Obstructors,86 so called because their mission was to place obstacles in the path of convoys that arrived from Puera. Soon afterwards, Puera also had a Corps of Obstructors.

After several centuries had passed, and enlightenment had made considerable progress, such was the growth of Puera's awareness that it had grasped that these reciprocal obstacles must necessarily be mutually detrimental. It sent a diplomat to Stulta, who, though his words were couched in official terms, effectively said: "We built a road and now we are obstructing it. This is absurd. It would have been better for us to have left things in their original state. First of all, we would not have had to pay for the road, and secondly for the obstacles. In the name of Puera, I have come to suggest to you, not that we suddenly abandon the setting up of mutual obstacles between us, that would be to act in accordance with a principle and we despise principles as much as you do, but to reduce these obstacles a little, taking care to balance our respective sacrifices in this respect equitably." This was what the diplomat said. Stulta asked for time to consider this. It consulted in turn its manufacturers and its farmers. Finally, after a few years, it declared that the negotiations had broken down.

At this news, the inhabitants of Puera held a council. An old man (who had always been suspected of being secretly bribed by Stulta) stood up and said: "The obstacles created by Stulta damage our sales, and this is terrible. The ones we have created ourselves damage our purchases, and this is also terrible. We cannot do anything about the first situation but the second is in our power. Let us at least free ourselves of one since we cannot get rid of both. Let us abolish our Corps of Obstructors without demanding that Stulta does the same. One day, it will doubtless learn to do its sums better."

A second councilor, a practical man of action who had no theoretical principles and was imbued with the experience of his ancestors, replied: "Do not listen to this dreamer, this theoretician, this innovator, this utopian,87 this economist, this Stulta-lover.88 We would all be ruined if the obstacles on the road were not equal, in equitable balance between Stulta and Puera. There would be greater difficulty in going than in coming and in exporting than in importing. Compared with Stulta, we would be in the inferior position that Le Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, Lisbon, London, Hamburg, and New Orleans are in compared with the towns situated at the sources of the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne, the Tagus, the Thames, the Elbe, and the Mississippi, for it is harder to go up rivers than to go down them." (A voice observed that towns at the mouths of rivers were more prosperous than those at their sources.) "That is not possible." (The same voice: But it is true.) "Well then, they have prospered contrary to the rules." Such conclusive reasoning shook the assembly. The speaker succeeded in convincing it by referring to national independence, national honor, national dignity, national production, the flood of products, tributes, and merciless competition; in short, he carried the day for maintaining the obstacles and, if you are interested in this, I can take you to certain countries in which you will see with your own eyes the Corps of Road Builders89 and the Corps of Obstructors working in total harmony [??? - travaillant de la meilleure intelligence du monde - working with the best intentions in the world, best information available to them], in accordance with a decree issued by the same legislative assembly and at the expense of the same taxpayers, the former to clear the road and the latter to obstruct it.

83 Bastiat quotes the opening lines of a fable by La Fontaine "Le Coche et la mouche" (The Coach and the Fly): "Over a hilly, sandy, and difficult road, exposed on all sides to the sun, six strong horses were pulling a coach." [FEE trans.] From Fables de la Fontaine. Illustrées par J.J. Granville. Nouvelle édition. (Paris: H. Fournier ainé, 1838), Tome I, pp. 269-70. See the glossary entry on "Fontaine."

84 Bastiat distinguishes between a policy of "protectionism", which imposes tariffs or duties on the importation of foreign goods in order to "protect" domestic producers from foreign competition, and a policy of "prohibition", which prevents of prohibits the importation of any foreign goods in ordinary to prevent any competition from challenging the position of domestic producers. This should be distinguished from the modern policy of "prohibition", such as of alcohol or certain drugs, which makes it illegal for anyone, domestic or foreign, to produce, sell, or consume these products anywhere under threat of punishment by the State. See the glossary entry on "Bastiat's Policy on Tariffs."

85 The names of the towns "Stulta" and "Puera" are plays on the Latin words "stultus," for foolish, and "puer/puera," for young boy or girl; thus one might translate them as "Stupidville" and "Childishtown."

86 Bastiat uses the expression "corps d'Enrayeurs" (body or corps of Obstructors) which we have translated as "Corps" to give it the flavor of an official government or military body, as in the "Army Corps of Engineers" in the United Sates, or the "Corps des ingénieurs des Mines" (Corps of Mining Engineers) or the "Corps des ingénieurs des Ponts, des Eaux et des Forêts" (Corps of Engineers for Bridges, Waterways, and Forests) in France.

87 See the glossary entry on "Utopias."

88 Bastiat creates a neologism - "stultomane", meaning Stultophile (used in the FEE translation, p. 69) or Stulta-lover.

89 Bastiat uses the term "cantonnier" which refers to the workers who are employed by the local districts known as "Cantons" whose responsibility it was to maintain the roads which passed through their districts. The system of "cantonniers" was formalized by a decree issued by Napoleon on 16 December 1811 and after 1816 they became permanent employees of the state. As a useful contrast to Bastiat's "Corps of Obstructors" we have translated "cantonniers" as "Corps of Road Builders."

XI. Nominal Prices [October 1845] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Prix absolus" (Nominal Prices) [JDE, October 1845, T. 12, p. 213-15 (this chapter was originally numbered XII in the JDE but became chapter 11 in the book version of Economic Sophisms and incorporated chapter XI. "Stulta et Puera", from the JDE version p. 211-12)].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 70-74.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

Do you wish to assess the merits of freedom and protection? Do you wish to understand the effects of an economic phenomenon? Then look for its effects on the abundance or scarcity of things and not on whether prices rise or fall. Be careful of only thinking about nominal prices;90 this will lead you into an inextricable labyrinth.

After establishing that protection makes things more expensive, M. Mathieu de Dombasle91 adds:

"The increase in prices raises living expences and consequently the price of labor, (but) each person is compensated for the increase in their expenses by the increase in prices for the things they produce. Thus, if everybody pays more as a consumer, everybody also receives more as a producer."92

It is clear that this argument can be turned on its head, and we can say: "If everybody receives more as a producer, everybody pays more as a consumer."

Well, what does that prove? Nothing other than that protection moves wealth about uselessly and unjustly. This is just what plunder does.

Moreover, to accept that this vast apparatus results in simple mutual compensations, we have to agree with M. de Dombasle's word "consequently" and be sure that the price of labor rises in line with the price of protected products. This is a question of fact that I pass back to M. Moreau de Jonnès;93 let him please look into whether pay rates have moved upward in line with Anzin mining shares. For my part, I do not think so, because I believe that the price of labor, like all the others, is governed by the relationship between supply and demand. Now, I can quite see that restriction decreases the supply of coal and consequently increases its price, but I see rather less clearly that it increases the demand for labor to the extent of increasing rates of pay. I see this all the less clearly in that the quantity of labor demanded depends on the capital available. Protection may well cause capital to move and shift from one industry to another, but it cannot increase it by an obole.94

Besides, this highly interesting question will be examined elsewhere. I will return to nominal prices and say that there are no absurdities that cannot be made plausible by reasoning like M. de Dombasle's.

Imagine that an isolated nation that had a given quantity of cash took pleasure in burning half of what it produced each year, and I will take it on myself to prove, using M. de Dombasle's theory, that it will not be a whit the less rich.

In effect, following the fire, everything will double in price and inventories taken before and after the disaster will show exactly the same nominal value. But in this case, who will have lost? If Jean buys cloth at a higher price, he will also sell his wheat at a higher price, and if Pierre loses on his purchase of wheat, he will make good on the sale of his cloth. "Each person is compensated (I say) for the increase in the amount of their expenses by the increase in the price for the things they produce; and if everybody pays more as a consumer, everybody receives more as a producer. "

All this is a tissue of confusion rather than science. The truth expressed in its simplest form is this: whether men destroy cloth and wheat by fire or through use, the effect will be the same with respect to the price but not with respect to wealth, for it is precisely in the use of things that wealth or well-being consists.

In the same way, restriction, while decreasing the abundance of things, may increase their price so that, if you like, in purely monetary terms, each person may be just as rich. But in an inventory, does a record of three hectoliters of wheat at 20 francs or four hectoliters at 15 francs come to the same thing from the point of view of satisfying need because the result is still 60 francs?

And it is to this point of view of consumption that I will incessantly bring protectionists back, since this is the purpose of all our efforts and the solution to all problems.95 I will always say to them: "Is it not true that by hampering trade, by limiting the division of labor, and by forcing labor to grapple with the difficulties of location and temperature, restriction ultimately decreases the quantity produced by a given amount of effort?" And what does it matter that the lesser quantity produced under a protectionist regime has the same nominal value as a larger quantity produced under the regime of freedom? Man does not live by nominal values, but by real products, and the more he has of these products, at whatever price, the richer he is.

When writing the foregoing, I did not expect ever to meet an anti-economist who was sufficiently good as a logician to contend explicitly that the wealth of peoples depends on the monetary value of things irrespective of their abundance. But just look what I have found in the book by M. de Saint-Chamans (page 210): 96

"If 15 million francs worth of goods sold abroad is taken from normal production, estimated to be 50 million, the remaining 35 million worth can no longer meet normal demand and will increase in price and will reach a value of 50 million. Then the revenue of the country will be 15 million more. . . . There will therefore be an increase in wealth of 15 million for the country, exactly the amount of the cash which is imported."

Is that not ridiculous! If during the year a nation makes 50 million francs' worth of harvested products and goods, it just has to sell a quarter abroad to be a quarter richer! Therefore, if it sold half, it would increase its fortune by half, and if it trades for cash its last wisp of wool and last grain of wheat, it would raise its wealth to 100 million! Producing infinitely high prices through absolute scarcity is very strange way of becoming wealthier!

Anyway, do you want to assess the merits of the two doctrines? Subject them to the exaggeration test.

According to the doctrine of M. de Saint-Chamans, the French would be just as rich, that is to say, as well provided with everything with a thousandth part of their annual output, since it would be worth a thousand times more.

According to ours, the French would be infinitely rich if their annual output was infinitely abundant and consequently was of no value at all.97

90 Bastiat uses several terms to describe what he is getting at in this article: "prix absolus" (nominal prices), "valeurs nominales" (nominal value), "en hausser le prix… numérairement parlant" (raising prices in purely monetary terms), and so on. He wants to make the point that there is a difference between real economic wealth and the accounting device (the money price) used to measure it.

91 Joseph Alexandre Mathieu de Dombasle (1777-1843) was an agronomist who introduced the practice of triennial crop rotation (cereals, forage, vegetables) in France. He also wrote on the sugar-beet industry, De l'impôt sur le sucre indigène: Nouvelles considerations (1837). See the glossary entry on "Dombasle."

92 Christophe Joseph Alexandre Mathieu de Dombasle, Oeuvres diverses: économie politique, instruction publique, haras et remontes (Paris: Bouchard-Huzard, 1843). "Études sur le commerce international dans les rapports avec la richesse des peuples," Chap. IV. "Le régime de protection blesse-t-il les intérêts des consommateurs?". Quote on pp. 49-50. See the glossary entry on "Dombasle."

93 Alexandre Moreau de Jonnès (1778–1870) was an economist and a statistician who was director of the statistical bureau in the ministry of trade (1834–42). See the glossary entry on "Moreau de Jonnès."

94 An "obole" was a coin of very low value. Traditionally, the relative value of coinage before the introduction of the France was 240 denier = 20 sol = 1 livre. An obole was a small fraction of a denier (sometimes 1/2). See the glossary entry on "French Currency."

95 (Paillotet's note) This thought often recurs in the author's writings. In his eyes it was of capital importance, and four days before his death it dictated the following recommendation to him "Tell de F. [Roger de Fontenay] to treat economic questions always from the point of view of the consumer, since the consumer's interest is at one with that of the human race." [Roger de Fontenay (1809-91) was a friend and intellectual ally of Bastiat's in their debates in the Political Economy Society on the nature of rent. Fontenay worked with Prosper Paillottet in editing the Ouevres complètes of Bastiat for which he wrote the Preface. See the glossary entry on "Fontenay."]

96 Bastiat quotes from Saint-Chamans's Du système d'impôt fondé sur les principes de l'économie politique, pp. 210-11. See the glossary entry on "Saint-Chamans."

97 (Paillottet's note) See chapter V of the second series of the Sophisms [see this volume, "High Prices, Low Prices," pp. 000—00] and chapter IV of the Economic Harmonies (OC, chap. 4, p. 93, "Échange").

[Author's Introduction to Economic Sophisms] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: [No title given] [1st published in book].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 1-5.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

In political economy there is a lot to learn and very little to do. (Bentham)5 6

In this small volume, I have sought to refute a few of the arguments against the deregulation of trade.

This is not a conflict that I am entering into against protectionists. It is a principle that I am attempting to instill into the minds of sincere men who hesitate because they doubt.

I am not one of those who say: "Protection is based on interests." I believe that it is based on error or, if you prefer, on half-truths. Too many people fear freedom for this apprehension not to be sincere.

This is setting my sights high, but I must admit that I would like this small work to become in some way a manual for men called upon to decide between the two principles. When you do not possess a long-standing familiarity with the doctrine of freedom, protectionist sophisms will constantly come to one's mind in one form or another. To release it from them, a long effort of analysis is required on each occasion, and not everyone has the time to carry out this task, least of all the legislators. This is why I have tried to do it all at once.

But, people will say, are the benefits of freedom so hidden that they are apparent only to professional economists?

Yes, we agree that our opponents in the debate have a clear advantage over us. They can set out a half-truth in a few words, and to show that it is a half-truth we need long and arid dissertations.

This is in the nature of things. Protection brings together in one single point all the good it does and distributes among the wider mass of people the harm it inflicts. One is visible to the naked eye, the other only to the mind's eye.7 — It is exactly the opposite for freedom.

This is so for almost all economic matters.

If you say: Here is a machine that has thrown thirty workers out into the street ;

Or else: Here is a spendthrift who will stimulate all forms of industry;

Or yet again: The conquest of Algiers8 has doubled Marseille's trade;

Or lastly: The budget assures the livelihood of one hundred thousand families.

You will be understood by everyone, and your statements are clear, simple, and true in themselves. You may deduce the following principles from them:

Machines are harmful;

Luxury, conquest, and heavy taxes are a blessing;

And your theory will have all the more success in that you will be able to support it with irrefutable facts.

We, on the other hand, cannot stick to one cause and its immediate effect. We know that this effect itself becomes a cause in its turn. To judge a measure, it is therefore necessary for us to follow it through a sequence of results up to its final effect. And, since we must give utterance to the key word, we are reduced to reasoning.

But right away here we are, assailed by these cries, "You are theorists, metaphysicians, ideologues,9 utopians,10 and in thrall to rigid principles," and all the prejudices of the public are turned against us.

What are we to do, therefore? Call for patience and good faith in the reader and, if we are capable of this, cast into our deductions such vivid clarity that the truth and falsehood stand out starkly in order for victory to be won either by restriction or freedom, once and for all.

I must make an essential observation at this point.

A few extracts from this small volume have appeared in the Journal des économistes.

In a criticism that was incidentally very benevolent, published by the Vicomte de Romanet11 (see the issues of Le Moniteur industriel dated 15 and 18 May 1845)12, he assumed that I was asking for customs dues to be abolished. M. de Romanet is mistaken. What I am asking for is the abolition of the protectionist regime. We do not refuse taxes to the government; what we would like, if possible, is to dissuade those being governed from taxing each other. Napoleon said: "Customs dues ought not to be a fiscal instrument, but a means of protecting industry."13 We plead the contrary and say: "Customs dues must not be an instrument of mutual plunder in the hands of workers, but it can be a fiscal instrument that is as good as any other." We are so far, or to involve only me in the conflict, I am so far from demanding the abolition of customs dues that I see in them a lifeline for our finances.14 I believe that they are likely to produce huge revenues for the Treasury, and if my idea is to be expressed in its entirety, at the snail's pace that sound economic doctrine takes to circulate, I am counting more on the needs of the Treasury than on the force of enlightened public opinion for trade reform to be accomplished.

But finally what are your conclusions, I am asked.

I have no need of conclusions. I am opposing sophisms, that is all.

But, people continue, it is not enough to destroy, you have to build. My view is that in the destruction of an error the truth is created.

After that, I have no hesitation in expressing my hope. I would like public opinion to be persuaded to ratify a customs law that lays down terms of approximately this order:

Objects of prime necessity shall pay an ad valorem duty of 5%

Objects of normal usefulness 10%

Luxury objects 15 or 20%

Furthermore, these distinctions are taken from an order of ideas that is totally foreign to political economy as such, and I am far from thinking that they are as useful and just as they are commonly supposed to be. However, that is another story.

5 Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was the founder of the school of thought known as utilitarianism and influenced a group of political and economic reformers in the early 19th century known as the Philosophic Radicals. It is interesting that Bastiat chose two passages from Bentham's Théorie des peines et des récompenses (1811) as the opening for both the First and Second Series of the Economic Sophisms. See the glossary entry on "Bentham."

6 Some of Jeremy Bentham's writings appeared first in French as a result of the work of his colleague Étienne Dumont, who translated, edited, and published several of Bentham's works in Switzerland. The quotation above comes from Dumont's Théorie des peines et des recompenses, (1811), p. 270. It is also possible that Bentham was the inspiration behind Bastiat's choice of words for the title of this series of articles known as "Economic Sophisms." Bentham used Dumont to edit some of his unpublished manuscripts and to prepare them for publication in French. One of these texts was Traité des sophismes politiques, which appeared in 1816. An English version of the book appeared with the editorial assistance of the Benthamite Peregrine Bingham the Younger, the Handbook of Political Fallacies, which appeared in 1824. See the introduction to Bentham, Handbook of Political Fallacies; and Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 2, "The Book of Fallacies: From Unfinished Papers of Jeremy Bentham" (</title/1921/114047>). Bentham also wrote an attack on the idea of natural rights as expressed in the French "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" (1789) under the title of "Anarchical Fallacies" (written 1796 but not published until 1843) (/title/1921/114226). See also Waldron, Nonsense upon Stilts. Bentham's famous dismissal of natural rights as "nonsense upon stilts" can be found in this volume: "Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense,—nonsense upon stilts" (/title/1921/114230/2345508).

7 (Paillottet's note) This glimpse gave rise later to the pamphlet entitled What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen, which is included in this volume [see this volume, pp. 000—00].

8 Algeria was invaded and conquered by France in 1830 and the occupied parts were annexed to France in 1834. According to the new constitution of the Second Republic (1848) it was declared that Algeria was no longer a colony but an integral part of France (with three Départements) and that the emigration of French settlers would be officially encouraged and subsidized by the government. These policies were vigorously opposed by Bastiat. See the glossary entry on "Algeria."

9 The theory of "Idéologie" had a specific meaning in the early 19th century. It referred to the ideas of Étienne Condillac (1715-1780) who believed that all ideas were the result of sensations and a wrote a pioneering treatise on economics, Commerce and Government (1776). More especially the word refers to the work of Destutt de Tracy who coined the term "idéologie". He was part of a movement in the 1790s called the "Idéologues" and their belief in constitutional government and free markets incurred the wrath of Napoleon. Jefferson translated one of Tracy's volumes on Ideology into English, with the title Treatise of Political Economy (1817). See the glossary entries on "Condillac" and "Destutt de Tracy".

10 See the glossary entry on "Utopias."

11 Auguste, Vicomte de Romanet (n.d.), was a staunch protectionist who served on the Conseil général de l'agriculture, du commerce, et des manufactures. See the glossary entry on "Romanet."

12 Le Moniteur industriel was the journal of the protectionist "Association pour la défense du travail national" (Association for the Defense of National Employment) founded by Mimerel de Roubaix in 1846. See the glossary entries on "Le Moniteur industriel," "Mimerel," and "Association for the Defense of National Employment".

13 There are remarks about tariffs and protection for French industry scattered throughout the Mémoires of Napoleon. His most direct comments come in a discussion of the Continental System he introduced in November 1806 to weaken the British economy by preventing the sale of British goods in Europe. In the Mémoires Napoleon is very proud of his economic accomplishments and believed that the system of protection he introduced stimulated French industry enormously. "Experience showed that each day the continental system was good, because the State prospered in spite of the burden of the war… The spirit of improvement was shown in agriculture as well as in the factories. New villages were built, as were the streets of Paris. Roads and canals made interior movement much easier. Each week some new improvement was invented: I made it possible to make sugar out of turnips, and soda out of salt. The development of science was at the front along with that of industry." See Mémoires de Napoléon Bonaparte: manuscrit venu de Sainte-Hélène (Paris: Baudouin, 1821), pp. 95-99. See the glossary entry on "Napoléon."

14 Free traders like Bastiat and Cobden distinguished between two kinds of tariffs - "fiscal tariffs," which were solely designed to raise revenue for the government (it should be noted that income taxes did not exist at this time), and "protectionist tariffs" which were designed to provide government favours to particular vested interest groups. In his essay "The Utopian" (written 17 January 1847 and published in ESII as no. XI) Bastiat says he would like to reduce tariffs to 5% across the board (for both imports and exports) in order to achieve the former goal. See the glossary entries on "Cobden," "Utopias," and "Bastiat's Policy on Tariffs."

XII. Does Protection increase the Rate of Pay? [n.d.] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "La protection élève-t-elle le taux des salaires?" (Does Protection increase the Rate of Pay?) [no date given] [1st published in book].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 74-79.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

An atheist was railing against religion, against priests and against God. "If you continue", said one of the audience, himself not very orthodox, "you are going to re-convert me."

Thus, when we hear our beardless scribblers, romantic writers, reformers, rose-scented and musky writers of serials, gorged on ice cream and champagne, clutching in their portfolios shares of Ganneron, Nord and Mackenzie98 or having their tirades against the egoism and individualism of the century heaped with gold; when we hear them, as I say, railing against the harshness of our institutions, wailing about the wage-earners and the proletariat;99 when we see them raise to the heavens eyes that mourn the sight of the destitution of the working classes, destitution that they never visit save to conjure up lucrative pictures of it, we are tempted to say to them: "If you continue in this way, you will make me indifferent to the fate of the workers."

Oh, such affectation! This is the sickening disease of our time! Workers, if a serious man, a sincere philanthropist, reveals a picture of your distress or writes a book that makes an impression, a rabble of reformers immediately seizes this prey in its claws. It is turned one way and another, exploited, exaggerated and squeezed to the point of disgust and ridicule. All that you are thrown by way of a remedy are the high-sounding words, organization and association. You are flattered and fawned upon, and soon workers will be reduced by this to the situation of slaves: responsible men will be ashamed to take up their cause publicly, for how will they be able to introduce a few sensible ideas in the midst of such bland protestations?

But I refuse to adopt this cowardly indifference that is not justified by the affectation that triggers it!

Workers, your situation is strange! You are being robbed, as I will shortly be proving … No, I withdraw that word. Let us banish from our discourse all violent and perhaps misleading expressions seeing that plunder, clad in the sophisms that conceal it, is carried out, we are expected to believe, against the will of the plunderer and with the consent of those being plundered. But when all is said and done, you are being robbed of the just remuneration for your work and nobody is concerned with achieving justice for you. Oh! If all that was needed to console you were noisy calls for philanthropy, impotent charity and degrading alms and if high-sounding words like organization, communism and phalanstery100 were enough, you would have your fill. But nobody thinks of ensuring that justice, simple justice is rendered to you. And yet, would it not be just for you, when you have been paid your meager salary following a long and hard day's work, to be able to exchange it for as many forms of satisfaction as you can obtain voluntarily from any man anywhere in the world?

One day, perhaps, I too will speak to you about association and organization, and we will then see what you can expect from these illusions that have led you down the garden path.

In the meantime, let us see whether people are doing you an injustice when they pass laws which determine from whom you are permitted to buy the things you need, such as bread, meat, linen and cloth, and, as it were, at what artificial price you will have to pay for them.

Is it true that protection, which, it is admitted, makes you to pay a high price for everything and thus causes you harm, raises your rate of pay proportionally?

On what do rates of pay depend?

One of your people has said this forcefully: "When two workers pursue an employer, earnings decrease; when two employers pursue one worker, they rise."101

Allow me, in short, to use this statement, which is more scientific but may be less clear: "Rates of pay depend on the ratio of the supply of and the demand for labor."

Well, on what does the supply of labor depend?

On the number in the marketplace, and on this initial element, protection has no effect.

On what does the demand for labor depend?

On the national capital available. But has the law that says: "We will no longer receive such and such a product from abroad, we will manufacture it internally," increased this capital? Not in the slightest. The law has withdrawn the product from one area to place it in another but it has not increased the product by one obole. Therefore the law does not increase the demand for labor.

A factory is shown off with pride. Has it been established and maintained with capital from the moon? No, capital has had to be withdrawn either from agriculture, shipping or the wine producing industry. And this is why while there are more workers in our mineshafts and in the suburbs of our manufacturing towns since protectionist duties became law, there are fewer sailors in our ports and fewer workers and wine producers in our fields and hills.

I could continue on this theme for a long time. I prefer to try to make you understand my thought with this example.

A farmer had twenty arpents of land,102 which he developed, with a capital of 10,000 francs. He divided his domain into four parts and established the following rotation: 1st corn, 2nd wheat, 3rd clover, 4th rye. He and his family needed only a small part of the grain, meat and milk that the farm produced, and he sold the excess to purchase oil, flax, wine, etc. All of his capital was spent each year on wages and other payments owed to neighboring workers. This capital was returned through sales and even increased from one year to the next and our farmer, knowing full well that capital produces nothing unless it is put to use, made the working class benefit from these annual surpluses which he used for fencing, land clearance and improvements to his farm equipment and buildings. He even invested some savings with the banker in the neighboring town who did not leave the money idle in his coffers but lent it to ship-owners and entrepreneurs carrying out useful work, so that it continued to generate wages.

However, the farmer died, and his son, as soon as he had control of the inheritance, said: "It must be confessed that my father was a fool all his life. He purchased oil and thus paid tribute to Provence while our land could at a stretch grow olive trees. He bought wine, flax and oranges and paid tribute to Brittany, the Médoc and the islands of Hyères, while vines, jute and orange trees could, more or less, provide a small crop on our land.103 He paid tribute to millers and weavers while our domestic servants could well weave our linen and grind our wheat between two stones. He ruined himself, and in addition he had foreigners earning the wages that were so easy for him to spread around him."

Using this reasoning, our scatterbrain changed the rotation of the domain. He divided it into twenty small strips of land. On one he grew olive trees, on another mulberry trees, on a third flax, on a fourth vines, on a fifth wheat, etc. etc. He thus managed to provide his family with everything and become independent. He took nothing from general circulation and, it is true, paid nothing into it either. Was he any richer? No, for the land was not suitable for growing vines, the climate was not conducive to the prospering of olive trees, and in the end the family was less well provided with these things than at the time when his father obtained them through trade.

As for the workers, there was no more work for them than in the past. There were indeed five times as many strips to cultivate, but they were five times smaller. Oil was produced but less wheat, flax was no longer purchased but rye was no longer sold. Besides, the farmer could not pay more than his capital in salaries and his capital, far from increasing through the new distribution of land, decreased constantly. The majority of it was tied up in buildings and countless items of equipment that were essential for someone who wanted to do everything. As a result, the supply of labor remained the same but the means to pay these workers declined and there was of necessity a decrease in wages.

That is a picture of what happens in a nation that isolates itself through a prohibitionist regime. It increases the number of its industries, I know, but it decreases their size; it provides itself, so to say, with a rotation of industries104 that is more complicated but not more fruitful, far from it, since the same capital and workforce have to attack the job in the face of greater natural difficulties. Fixed capital absorbs a greater portion of working capital, that is to say a greater part of the funds intended for wages. What remains of the fund for wages may well be diversified but that does not increase the total amount. It is like the water in a lake that people thought they had made more abundant because, having been put into many reservoirs, it touches the ground on more spots and offers a greater surface to the sun. They do not understand that it is precisely for this reason that it is absorbed, evaporated and lost more quickly.

With a given amount of capital and labor, a quantity of output is created that decreases in proportion to the number of obstacles it encounters. There is no doubt that, where barriers to international trade in each country force this capital and labor to overcome greater difficulties of climate and temperature, the general result is that fewer products are created or, which comes to the same thing, fewer needs of people are satisfied. Well, workers, if there is a general decrease in the number of needs satisfied, how can your share increase? I ask you, would those who are rich, those who make the law, have arranged things so that not only would they suffer their fair share of the total reduction in the needs that can be satisfied, but that even their already reduced portion would decrease still further, they say, by everything that is to be added to yours? Is that possible? Is it credible? Oh! This generosity is suspect and you would be wise to reject it.105

98 The FEE translator provides the following very informative note (p. 74): "Bastiat here refers by name to certain securities that enjoyed wide public confidence at the time: those of the Comptoir Ganneron, a bank in which, at the height of the speculation, almost four hundred million francs were invested; those of the fur-trading company founded by Sir Alexander MacKenzie and later amalgamated with the original Hudson's Bay Company; and those of the Northern Railway of France."

99 This is the first time before the February Revolution of 1848 that Bastiat used the socialist term "prolétaires" (proletarians) or "prolétariat" (the proletariat). The second occurred in ES3 XVIII. "Monita secreta" which was published on 20 February 1848 (the Revolution broke out on 23 February). Before this time he normally used the word "les ouvriers" (workers) so it seems the vocabulary of political debate was changing on the eve of the Revolution. After the Revolution he used the word proletarian or proletariat several times.

100 The "organization" of workers was urged by Louis Blanc in his influential pamphlet L'Organisation du travail (1839) as a way to overcome the "iniquities" of the system of wage labour and became a catch phrase of the socialist movement in the 1840s. The "Phalanstery" was a method of socialist organization advocated by Charles Fourier and his supporters in which people would live, own property, and work in common. See the glossary entries on "Blanc," "Fourier," and "Phalanstery." See also the discussion of "Association" and "Organization" as commonly used socialist slogans in the 1840s, in the "Note on the Translation."

101 This pithy and colorful formulation of how wages rise or fall according to demand is attributed to the English free trader and manufacturer Richard Cobden (1804-65) and was much quoted by French liberal economists. We have not been able to track down the original source. See the glossary entry on "Cobden".

102 An arpent is about the same size as an acre. See the glossary entry on "French Weights and Measures."

103 Provence is a region in southeastern France along the Mediterranean Sea. Médoc is a wine growing region in the Département of the Gironde north of the city of Bordeaux. The Hyères Islands are located in the Mediterranean close to Provence.

104 The word Bastiat uses in these passages is "sole" which is a small strip of land traditionally used for crop rotation (assolement de culture) in feudal agriculture. He coins another neologism here, namely "assolement industrial" (industrial rotation) suggesting that the protectionist regime creates a kind of "feudalization of industry."

105 (Paillottet's note) See chapter XIV of the Harmonies in Tome VI.

XIII. Theory and Practice [n.d.] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Théorie, Pratique" (Theory and Practice) [no date given] [1st published in book].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 79-86.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

People accuse us, advocates of free trade, of being theoreticians and not taking sufficient account of practical aspects.

"What a terrible prejudice against M. Say,106" said M. Ferrier,107 "is this long line of distinguished administrators, this imposing line of writers, all of whom have seen things differently from him," a point M. Say does not hide from himself! Listen to him:

"It has been said, in support of old errors, that it is necessary to have some foundation for the ideas so generally adopted by every nation. Should we not be suspicious of observations and reasoning that overturn what has been taken to be constant up to now, what has been taken to be certain by so many leading figures to whom their enlightenment and intentions give credence? This argument, I admit, is worthy of making a profound impression and might cast doubt on the most incontrovertible points if we had not seen in turn the most erroneous opinions, now generally acknowledged to be such, accepted and professed by everyone for many centuries. It is not so long ago that every nation, from the coarsest to the most enlightened, and all men, from street porters to the most learned philosophers, recognized four elements. Nobody thought of disputing this doctrine, which is nevertheless false, to the extent that today there is no assistant biologist who would not be decried if he considered the earth, water, and fire as elements."

At which point, M. Ferrier makes the following observation:

"If M. Say thinks that he has answered the strong objection put forward, he is strangely mistaken. That men, who were nevertheless highly enlightened, have been wrong for several centuries on some point of natural history is understandable and proves nothing. Were water, air, earth and fire, whether elements of not, any the less useful to man? Errors like this are inconsequential; they do not lead to upheavals; they do not cast doubt into people's minds and above all do not harm any interests, and for this reason they might be allowed to last for thousands of years without mishap. The physical world therefore moves forward as though they did not exist. But can this be so for errors that attack the moral world? Can we conceive of an administrative system that is totally false and consequently harmful being followed for several centuries and in several nations with the general consent of all educated men? Could we explain how a system like this could be allied to the increasingly great prosperity of nations? M. Say admits that the argument he is combating is worthy of making a profound impression. Yes, certainly, and this impression remains, for M. Say has argued more in its favor than destroyed it."

Let us listen to M. de Saint-Chamans108:

"It was scarcely before the middle of the last century, the eighteenth century in which all subjects and every principle without exception were subject to discussion by writers, that these suppliers of speculative ideas, applied to everything without being applicable to anything, began to write on the subject of political economy. Before that, there was an unwritten system of political economy that was practiced by governments. Colbert,109 it was said, was its inventor, and it was the rule for all the states in Europe. The strangest thing about it is that it is still so, in spite of anathema and scorn and in spite of the discoveries of the modern school. This system, which our writers called the mercantile system, consisted in … obstructing, through prohibition or import duties, foreign products that might have ruined our factories by competing with them. . . . This system was declared by economist writers of all schools110 to be inept, absurd and likely to impoverish any country; it has been banished from all books, reduced to taking refuge in the practice of all peoples, and we cannot conceive that, with regard to the wealth of nations, governments have not drawn their counsel from scholars rather than from the long-standing experience of a system, etc. …. Above all we cannot conceive that the French government … is determined to resist the progress of enlightenment with regard to political economy and to retain the practice of old errors that all of our economist writers have pointed out … But this is dwelling too much on this mercantile system which has only facts in its favor and which is supported by no writer!"111

Hearing this, will some people not say that when economists call for each person to have the free disposal of his property, they have given birth, like the followers of Fourier, to a new social order, fanciful, strange, a sort of phalanstery that is unprecedented in the annals of the human race?112 It seems to me that if there is anything in all this that has been invented, contingent, it is not freedom, but protection; it is not the ability to trade but indeed the customs service, which is applied to upsetting artificially the natural order of income.

But it is not a question of comparing or judging the two systems. The question for the moment is to know which of the two is based on experience.

Thus, you monopolists claim that facts are on your side and that we have only theories to support us.

You even flatter yourselves that this long series of public acts, this old experience of Europe's that you invoke appeared imposing to M. Say, and I agree that he has not refuted you with his customary sagacity. For my part, I do not yield the domain of fact to you, for you have in your support only exceptional and restrained facts, while we have to oppose the universal facts, the free and voluntary acts of all men.

What are we saying and what do you say?

We say:

"It is better to purchase from others what it would cost more to produce ourselves."

You, on the other hand, say:

"It is better to make things ourselves even though it costs less to purchase them from others."

Well, sirs, leaving theory, demonstration, and reasoning, all things that appear to nauseate you, to one side, which of these two statements has the approval of universal practice on its side?

Just pay a visit to fields, workshops, factories, and stores, look upward, downward, and around you, scrutinize what is being done in your own households, observe your own everyday acts, and tell us what principle is governing all these laborers, workers, entrepreneurs, and merchants. Tell us what your personal practice is.

Do farmers make their own clothes? Do tailors produce the grain they consume? Does your housekeeper not stop making bread at home as soon as she finds it cheaper to purchase it from the baker? Do you mend your own boots instead of writing, in order not to pay tribute to the cobbler? Does the entire economy of society not rest on the separation of occupations, the division of labor, in a word, on exchange? And is trade anything other than this calculation that makes us all, whatever we are, cease direct production when indirect acquisition saves us both time and trouble?

You are thus not men of practice, since you cannot show us a single man anywhere in the world who acts in accordance with your principle.

But, you will say, we have never heard of our principle being used as a rule for individual relations. We fully understand that this would disrupt social links and force men to live like snails, each in his shell. We limit ourselves to claiming that it dominates de facto the relations established between groups in the human family.

As it happens, this assertion is also false. Families, communes, cantons, départements, and provinces are so many groups which all, without exception, reject in practice your principle and have never even given it a thought. All of these obtain by means of exchange what would cost them more to obtain by production. Every nation would do likewise if you did not prevent it by force.

It is therefore we who are the men of practice and experience, for in order to combat the prohibition that you have specially placed on some international trade, we base ourselves on the practice and experience of every individual and every group of individuals whose acts are voluntary and thus can be quoted as evidence. You, however, begin by constraining and preventing and then you seize upon acts that are forced or prohibited to claim: "You see, practice justifies us!"

You rise up against our theory and even against theory in general. But when you posit a principle that is antagonistic to ours, did you ever by chance imagine that you were not indulging in theory? No, no, cross that out of your papers. You are indulging in theory, just like us, but between yours and ours there is this difference:

Our theory consists only in observing universal facts, universal sentiments, universal calculations and procedures, and at the very most classifying them and coordinating them in order to understand them better.

It is so little opposed to practice that it is nothing other than practice explained. We watch the actions of men driven by the instinct of self-preservation and progress and what they do freely and voluntarily; it is exactly this that we call political economy or the economics of society. We constantly repeat that each man is in practice an excellent economist, producing or trading depending on whether there is more to gain from trading or producing. Each one through experience teaches himself this science, or rather science is merely this same experience scrupulously observed and methodically set out.

You, however, make theory in the disparaging meaning of the word. You imagine and invent procedures that are not sanctioned by the practice of any living man under the heavens and then you call coercion and prohibition to your assistance. You have indeed to resort to force since, as you want men to produce what it is more advantageous to purchase, you want them to abandon an advantage and you require them to act in accordance with a doctrine that implies a contradiction even on its own terms.

Thus, I challenge you to extend, even in theory, this doctrine that you admit would be absurd in individual relationships, to transactions between families, communes, départements, or provinces. On your own admission, it is applicable only to international relations.

And this is why you are reduced to repeating each day:

"Principles are never absolute. What is good in individuals, families, communes, and provinces is bad in nations. What is good on a small scale, that is to say, purchasing rather than producing when a purchase is more advantageous than production, is the very thing that is bad on a large scale; the political economy of individuals is not that of peoples," and more nonsense ejusdem farinae.113

And what is the reason for all this? Look closer. To prove to us that we the consumers are your property! That we belong to you, body and soul! That you have an exclusive right over our stomachs and limbs! That it is up to you to feed us and clothe us at a price set by you whatever your incompetence, rapacity or the inferiority of your situation!

No, you are not men of practice; you are men of abstraction . . . and of extortion.114

106 Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832) was the leading French political economist in the first third of the nineteenth century. He had the first chair in political economy at the Collège de France. Say is best known for his Traité d'économie politique (1803) and the Cours complet d'économie politique pratique (1828-33). See the glossary on "J.B.Say."

107 (Bastiat's note) From page 5 of De l'administration commerciale opposée à l'économie politique. [Bastiat is quoting from pages v-viii of the second edition of Ferrier's Du gouvernement considéré dans ses rapports avec le commerce (1821). Ferrier in turn is quoting from Say's Traité d'économie politique, 3rd edition, p. lxvi, or 4th edition, p. lxvii. François Ferrier (1777-1861) was an advocate for protectionism and served as director general of the Customs Administration during the Empire and was a member of the Chamber of Peers during the July monarchy. See the glossary entry on "Ferrier."]

108 Auguste Saint-Chamans (1777-1860) was a deputy (1824-27) and a Councillor of State. He advocated protectionism and a mercantilist theory of the balance of trade. See the glossary entry on "Saint-Chamans."

109 Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-83) was the comptroller-general of finance under Louis XIV from 1665 to 1683. He epitomized the policy of state intervention in trade and industry known as "mercantilism." See the glossary entry on "Colbert."

110 (Bastiat's note) Could it not be said: "It is a terrible prejudice against MM. Ferrier and Saint-Chamans that economists of all schools, that is to say, every man who has studied the question, should have reached the same conclusion, that after all, freedom is better than constraint and that God's laws are wiser than Colbert's. [Bastiat is no doubt thinking of at least two schools of economic thought which advocated free trade and laissez-faire policies, the French Physiocrats (such as Quesnay and Turgot) and the Smithian School which followed the ideas of Adam Smith. See the glossary entries on "The Physiocrats," "Adam Smith," and "Laissez-faire."]

111 (Bastiat's note) From page 11 of Du système de l'impôt (The Tax System) by the vicomte de Saint-Chamans. [DMH - Bastiat is quoting from pp. 11-13 of chap. 2 of this work.]

112 François-Marie Charles Fourier (1772-1837) was a socialist and founder of the phalansterian school or "Fourierism." This consisted of a utopian, communistic system for the reorganization of society in which individuals would live together as one family and hold property in common. See the glossary entry on "Fourier."

113 A Latin phrase "ejusdem farinae" meaning literally "of the same flour", in other words, "cut from the same cloth."

114 (Paillottet's note) See chapter XV below (see this volume, "More Reciprocity," pp. 000—00).

XIV. A Conflict of Principles [n.d.] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Conflit de principes" (A Conflict of Principles) [no date given] [1st published in book].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 86-90.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

There is something that confuses me, and it is this:

Sincere political writers studying the economy of societies from the sole point of view of the producer have reached the following two policies:

"Governments ought to make the consumers who are subject to their laws favour national industry."

"They ought to make foreign consumers subject to their laws in order to make them favour national industry."

The first of these policies is called Protectionism, the second is called opening up foreign markets.

Both of them are based on the fundamental idea known as the balance of trade:

"A people grows poorer when it imports and wealthier when it exports."

For if any purchase from abroad is tribute paid out and a loss, it is very simple to restrict and even prohibit imports.

And if any sale abroad is tribute received and a profit, it is only natural to create markets for yourself, even through force.

Protectionist systems, colonial systems: these are therefore just two aspects of the same theory. Preventing our fellow citizens from purchasing from foreigners and forcing foreigners to purchase from our fellow citizens are just two consequences of an identical principle.

Well, it is impossible not to recognize that, according to this doctrine, if it is true, general interest is based on monopoly, or internal plunder, and on conquest, or external plunder.

I enter one of the chalets clinging to the slopes of our Pyrénées.

The head of the household has received only a meager wage for his work. A glacial wind makes his scantily clad children shiver, the fire is out and the table empty. There is wool, wood, and corn the other side of the mountain but these goods are forbidden to the family of the poor journeyman, as the other side of the mountains is no longer France. Foreign pine will not cheer the chalet's fireplace, the shepherd's children will not learn the taste of Basque bread,115 and Navarre wool will not warm their frozen limbs. If this is what the general interest wants: fine! But let us agree that in this instance it is contrary to justice.

To command consumers by law, to force them to buy only in the national market, is to infringe on their freedom and to forbid them an activity, trade, that is in no way intrinsically immoral; in a word, it is to do them an injustice.

And yet it is necessary, people say, if we do not want national production to halt, if we do not want to deal a deathblow to public prosperity.

Writers of the protectionist school therefore reach the sorry conclusion that there is radical incompatibility between Justice and the Public Interest.

On the other hand, if every nation is interested in selling and not purchasing, a violent action and reaction will be the natural state of their mutual dealings, for each will seek to impose its products on everyone and everyone will endeavor to reject the products of everyone else.

A sale, in effect, implies a purchase, and since, according to this doctrine, selling is making a profit just as purchasing is making a loss, every international transaction implies the improvement of one nation and the deterioration of another.

On the one hand, however, men are inexorably drawn to whatever brings them a profit, while on the other they instinctively resist anything that harms them, which leads to the conclusion that every nation carries within itself a natural impulsion to expansion and a no less natural impulsion to resistance, both of which are equally harmful to everybody else, or in other words, antagonism and war are the natural condition of the human race.

Thus, the theory I am discussing can be summarized by these two axioms:

Public Interest is incompatible with Justice within the country.

Public Interest is incompatible with Peace abroad.

Well then! What astonishes and disconcerts me is that a political writer or a statesman, who has sincerely adopted an economic doctrine whose basic ideas are so violently contrary to other incontrovertible principles can have even one instant of calm and peace of mind.

For my part, I think that, if I had gone into science through this particular door, if I had not clearly perceived that Freedom, Public Interest, Justice and Peace are things that are not only compatible but closely linked with each other and, so to say, identical, I would endeavor to forget everything I had learnt and tell myself:

"How could God have wished men to achieve prosperity only through injustice and war? How could He have decreed that they should renounce war and injustice only by renouncing their well-being?

"Is the science that has led me to the horrible blasphemy implied by this alternative not misleading me with false flashes of insight, and do I dare to take it on myself to make it the basis for the legislation of a great nation? And when a long line of illustrious scholars has gathered more reassuring results from this same science, to which they have devoted their entire life, when they state that freedom and public interest can be reconciled with justice and peace; that all these great principles follow infinite parallel paths without conflicting with each other for all eternity; do they not have on their side the presumption that results from everything we know of the goodness and wisdom of God as shown in the sublime harmony of physical creation? Am I casually to believe, faced with such beliefs and on the part of so many imposing authorities, that this same God took pleasure in instilling antagonism and discord in the laws governing the moral world? No, no, before holding as certain that all social principles conflict with each other, crash into and neutralize each other, and are locked in an anarchical, eternal, and irremediable struggle; before imposing on my fellow citizens the impious system to which my reasoning has led me, I wish to review the entire chain and reassure myself that there is no point on the route at which I have gone astray."

If, after a sincere examination, redone twenty times, I continued to reach this frightful conclusion, that we have to choose between the Right and the Good,116 I would reject science in my discouragement, I would sink into willful ignorance, and above all I would decline any participation in the affairs of my country, leaving men of another stamp the burden and responsibility of such a painful choice.117

115 Bastiat uses the term "la méture" which is a kind of corn bread and is a speciality of Les Landes region where Bastiat grew up. It can also be made with pieces of ham known as "la méture au jambon." Bastiat would have known well the Spanish provinces Biscay and Navarre on the other side of the border where he lived as he was fluent is Spanish and had once attempted to establish an insurance business in Spain. He may have witnessed personally the smuggling that took place across the border and might have known Béranger's poem "The Smugglers" about smuggling on the Franco-Spanish border. Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780-1857) was a liberal poet and songwriter who rose to prominence during the Restoration period with his funny and clever criticisms of the monarchy and the church. He was sent to prison twice in the 1820s for offending the political authorities with his irreverent verses. Bastiat knew him and was known to have sung his drinking songs on occasion. See the glossary entry on "Béranger."

116 The phrase Bastiat uses is "le Bien et le Bon" which is difficult to translate. Given the context of what Bastiat is arguing, one might translate it as "the morally good and the materially good (or useful)."

117 (Paillottet's note) See chapters XVIII, XX at the end of this volume [see this volume, "There Are No Absolute Principles" and "Human Labor, Domestic Labor"], and the letter to M. Thiers titled "Protectionism and Communism" (OC, vol. 4, p. 504, "Protectionisme et communisme"). ["Protectionism and Communism" also appears in The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, in the volume titled "The Law," "The State," and Other Political Writings, 1843–1850, pp. 000–00.]

XV. More Reciprocity [n.d.] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Encore la réciprocité" (More Reciprocity) [no date given] [1st published in book].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 90-92.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

As M. de Saint-Cricq118 said: "Are we sure that foreigners will purchase as much from us as they sell to us?"

M. de Dombasle119 says: "What reason have we to believe that English producers will come to us rather than any other nation in the world in search of the products they may need and products whose value is equivalent to their exports to France?"

I am amazed that men who above all call themselves practical reason in a way divorced from all practicality!

In practice, is there one trading operation in a hundred, a thousand, or perhaps even ten thousand that is a direct exchange of one product for another? Since money first came into the world, has any farmer ever said to himself: "I want to buy shoes, hats, advice, and lessons only from a shoemaker, milliner, lawyer, or teacher who will buy wheat from me for exactly the equivalent value"? And why would nations impose this obstacle on themselves?

How are things really done?

Let us imagine a nation that has no foreign trade. One man has produced wheat. He sells it in the national market at the highest price he can obtain and receives in exchange . . . what? Écus,120 that is to say, money orders, goods which can be split up indefinitely, which will permit him to take from the national market the goods which he needs or wants at a time he judges suitable and up to the amount he has at hand.121 All said and done, at the end of the operation he will have withdrawn from the total the exact equivalent of what he has put into it and in value, his consumption will be exactly the same as his production.

If this nation's external trade is free it is no longer in the national flow of goods but in the general flow of goods that each person places his products and it is from that flow that he withdraws his consumption. He does not have to worry whether what he puts into this general circulation is bought by a fellow citizen or a foreigner, whether the money orders he receives come from a Frenchman or an Englishman, whether the objects for which he later trades these money payments, according to his needs, have been made on this or that side of the Rhine or the Pyrénées. What remains true is that there is for each individual an exact balance between what he puts in and what he takes out of the great common reservoir, and if this is true for each individual, it is also true for the nation as a whole.

The only difference between the two cases is that, in the second, each is facing a market that is wider for his sales and purchases and has consequently more opportunity to do well on both fronts.

The following objection is made: If everyone joins forces in order not to withdraw from the circulation the products of a given individual, he will not be able to withdraw anything in turn from the overall flow. This is the same for a nation.

Reply: If this nation cannot withdraw anything from the general circulation, it will not put anything into it either; it will work for its own account. It will be forced to submit to what you wish to impose on it at the outset, that is to say, isolation.

And that will be the ideal of the prohibitionist regime.

Is it not ludicrous that you are already inflicting this regime on the nation for fear that it will run the risk of reaching it one day without you?

118 Pierre Laurent Barthélemy, comte de Saint Cricq (1772-1854) was a protectionist Deputy who became Director General of Customs (1815), president of the Trade Council, and then Minister of Trade and Colonies (1828-29). See the glossary entry on "Saint Cricq."

119 Joseph Alexandre Mathieu de Dombasle (1777-1843) was an agronomist who introduced the practice of triennial crop rotation (cereals, forage, vegetables) in France. He also wrote on the sugar-beet industry, De l'impôt sur le sucre indigène: Nouvelles considerations (1837). See the glossary entry on "Dombasle."

120 See the glossary entry on "French Currency."

121 The technical commercial term Bastiat uses is "jusqu'à due concurrence" which can mean in commercial transactions "proportionally" or "up to the amount of."

XVI. Blocked Rivers pleading in favor of the Prohibitionists [n.d.] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Les fleuves obstrués plaidant pour les prohibitionistes" (Blocked Rivers pleading in favor of the Prohibitionists) [no date given] [1st published in book].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 92-93.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

A few years ago I was in Madrid.122 I went to the cortès.123 They were discussing a treaty with Portugal on improving the bed of the Douro.124 A deputy stood up and said: "If the Douro is channeled, transport will cost less. Portuguese grain will be sold cheaper in Castile and will provide formidable competition for our national production. I reject the project unless the ministers undertake to raise customs duties so as to reestablish the balance." The assembly had no answer to this argument.

Three months later I was in Lisbon. The same question was put before the Senate. A noble hidalgo125 said: "Mr. President, the project is absurd. You are putting guards at huge expense on the banks of the Douro to prevent the invasion of grain from Castile into Portugal and, at the same time, you want, also at huge expense, to make this invasion easier. Let the Douro be passed to our sons in the same state as our fathers left it to us."

Later, when it was a question of improving the Garonne,126 I remembered the arguments of the Iberian speakers and said to myself: "If the deputies in Toulouse were as good economists as those from Palencia and the representatives of Bordeaux were as skilled logicians as those of Oporto,127 the Garonne would surely be left "to sleep to the pleasing sound of its tilting urn,"128 for the channeling of the Garonne would encourage the invasion of products from Toulouse to the detriment of Bordeaux and the flooding of products from Bordeaux to the detriment of Toulouse.

122 Bastiat's family had business interests in Spain. In 1840 he travelled to Spain and Portugal with the intention of setting up an insurance business. This did not eventuate.

123 The Cortes Generales is the legislative body which rules Spain. Liberal deputies enacted a new more liberal constitution in 1812.

124 The Douro river flows across northern-central Spain and Portugal towards its mouth at Porto on the Atlantic coast. It flows through a major wine growing region.

125 A member of the lower nobility.

126 The Garonne river has its source in the Pyrénnées mountains on the border between Spain and France and flows northwards through the city of Toulouse before reaching Bordeaux on the coast.

127 Palencia is a Spanish city on a tributary of the Douro river; and Oporto is a Portuguese city at the mouth of the Douro.

128 Bastiat misquotes some lines from Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux's (1636-1711) poem celebrating the crossing of the Rhine River by the French army in 1672: "Au pied de mont Adule, entre mille roseaux / Le Rhin tranquille, et fier du progrès de ses eaux, / Appuyé d'une main sur son urne penchante, / Dormoit au bruit flatteur de son onde naissante: / Lorsqu'un cri tout à coup suivi de mille cris / Vient d'un calme si doux retirer ses esprits." [At the foot of Mount Adule, between a thousand reeds / The tranquil Rhine, proud of the progress of its waters, / Supported with one hand on its sloping urn, / Sleeps to the flattering sounds of its new wave, / When a cry, suddenly followed by a thousand cries / Comes from a calm so soft to take its spirits away.] From Épitre IV. "Au Roi," in Oeuvres de Boileau Despréaux, p. 136. Bastiat misquotes it as "Dormir au bruit flatteur de son urne penchante" conflating two adjacent lines of the poem. This could be a mistake or it could be deliberate. The word "urne" has another meaning, namely a ballot box in which votes were deposited. Since in the previous passage he was criticizing elected politicians for their contradictory policies in wanting to both improve the transportation of goods by river by digging canals and at the same time to hamper the transportation of goods by river by setting up customs barriers, he might be having a joke at their expense by re-writing this famous poem. It might now read "to sleep to the flattering sounds of its bent ballot box." See the glossary entry on "Boileau-Despréaux".

XVII A Negative Railway [n.d.] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Un chemin de fer négatif" (A Negative Railway] [no date given] [1st published in book].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 93-94.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

I have said that when, unfortunately, we took the point of view of the producers' interest, we could not fail to clash with the general interest,129 since producers, as such, demand only effort, needs, and obstacles.

I have found a remarkable example of this in a Bordeaux journal.

M. Simiot130 asks himself this question:

Should the Paris to Spain railway be offered to Bordeaux with a complete fracture in the line?131

He answered it in the positive with a host of reasons that it is not my place to examine but which include the following:

The railway between Paris and Bayonne should be completely broken in two132 at Bordeaux so that goods and passengers forced to stop in the town would contribute revenue to boatmen, packmen, commission agents, shippers, hoteliers, etc.

It is clear that this is once again a case of the interest of producers being put ahead of the interest of consumers.

But if Bordeaux can be allowed to profit from this break in the line, and if this is in keeping with the public interest, Angoulême, Poitiers, Tours, Orleans, and more, all intermediary points, Ruffec, Châtellerault, etc., etc., must also demand breaks in the line in the general interest, that is of course in the interest of national production, since the more breaks there are, the more consignments, commissions, and transshipping there will be all along the line. With this system, we will have created a railway made up of consecutive segments, a negative railway.

Whether the protectionists want this or not, it is no less certain that the principle of trade restriction is the same as the principle of breaks in the line: the sacrifice of the consumer to the producer and of the end to the means.

129 In a letter of 19 May 1846 addressed to a commission of the Chamber of Deputies which was looking into the route that should be taken by a new railway from Bordeaux to Bayonne, Bastiat argues that any political decision on routes is bound to upset somebody: the shortest route is the cheapest to build, but a winding route will service the needs of more people. See "On the Bordeaux to Bayonne Railway Line" in CW, vol. 1, pp. 312-16.

130 Alexandre Étienne Simiot (1807-1879) was a member of the Municipal Council of the Gironde and one of the leading figures in local democratic politics. He wrote Gare du chemin de fer de Paris à Bordeaux (impr. de Durand, 1846). See the glossary entry on "Simiot."

131 Bastiat here uses the medical term "La solution de la continuité" which is used to describe, somewhat counterintuitively, a rupture, fracture, or complete break in a vessel or a bone, such as the skull. As one medical dictionary put it, the expression should really be "la dissolution de la continuité" (the rupturing or breaking of continuity). See the many references in Auguste-Théodore Vidal, Traité de pathologie externe et de médecine opératoire, 2e édition, 5 vols. (Paris: J.B. Baillière, 1846).

132 Bastiat uses the word "la lacune" (break or gap) here. It is in the medical sense noted above that one should understand Bastiat's use of the word "la lacune", not to mean a "stop" at a station to let passengers on or off, but the literal fracturing or breaking of the railway into two separate and discontinuous pieces which would require the transshipping of passengers and luggage from one railway to the next in order for them to continue their journey. This would sometimes occur at the border between states. Fifty years after Bastiat wrote these lines, Mark Twain related his experience in traveling by train from Sydney to Melbourne in his travel book Following the Equator (1898). At the border town of Albury passengers had to get up in the middle of cold winter's night to trans-ship themselves and their belongings from the narrow-gauge train in New South Wales to the broad-gauge train in Victoria. Twain described this as "the oddest thing, the strangest thing, the most baffling and unaccountable marvel that Australasia can show." He also interestingly, like Bastiat, saw the similarity to customs barriers and discussed the cost to the west coast of America of being forced to buy higher price east coast steel instead of cheaper foreign steel. See Appendix 5 "Mark Twain and the Australian Negative Railroad."

XVIII There are no Absolute Principles [n.d.] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Il n'y a pas de principes absolus" (There are no Absolute Principles) [no date given] [1st published in book].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 94-97.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

You cannot be too surprised at the ease with which men resign themselves to ignoring what they need most to know, and you can be sure that they are determined to fall asleep in their ignorance once they have come to the point of proclaiming this axiom: There are no absolute principles.

You enter the legislative chamber. The question before the house is to ascertain whether the law will forbid or free up international trade.

A deputy stands up and says:

"If you allow this trade, foreigners will flood you with their products, the English with cloth, the Belgians with coal, the Spanish with wool, the Italians with silk, the Swiss with cattle, the Swedish with iron, and the Prussians with wheat, so that no industry will be possible in this country."

Another replies:

"If you forbid this trade, the various benefits that nature has showered on each geographical region will be nonexistent for you. You will not share in the mechanical skills of the English, the richness of the Belgian mines, the fertility of Polish soil, the fruitfulness of Swiss pastures, the cheapness of Spanish labor, or the heat of the Italian climate, and you will have to satisfy your demand with goods produced under awkward and difficult conditions instead of with goods obtained by trading with those who can produce things more easily."

It is certain that one of these deputies is wrong. But which one? It is nevertheless worth while taking the trouble to find out, as it is not just a matter of opinion. You are faced with two paths and you have to choose; and one inevitably leads to poverty.

To escape from this quandary, people say: There are no absolute principles.

This axiom, so fashionable today, in addition to nodding to laziness, is also suited to ambition.

If the theory of prohibition won, or else if the doctrine of freedom triumphed, a very small law would encompass our entire economic code. In the first case, it would say: All foreign trade is forbidden and in the second: All foreign trade is free, and many leading figures would lose their importance.

But if trade does not have its own proper nature, if it is not governed by any natural law, if it is capriciously useful or disastrous, if it does not find its stimulus in the good it does and its limit in the good it ceases to do, and if its effects cannot be appreciated by those who carry it out, in a word, if there are no absolute principles, oh! It would then be necessary to weigh, balance, and regulate transactions, to equalize the conditions of labor, and to set the level of profits; a colossal task, but one well suited to be given to those who enjoy high remuneration and wide influence.

On entering Paris, which I had come to visit, I said to myself: Here there are a million human beings who would all die in a few days if supplies of all sorts did not flood into this huge metropolis. The mind boggles when it tries to assess the huge variety of objects that have to enter through its gates tomorrow if the lives of its inhabitants are not to be snuffed out in convulsions of famine, uprisings, and pillage. And in the meantime everyone is asleep, without their peaceful slumber being troubled for an instant by the thought of such a frightful prospect. On the other hand, eighty departments133 have worked today without being in concert and without agreement to supply Paris. How does it happen that every day what is needed and no more or less is brought to this gigantic market? What is thus the ingenious and secret power that presides over the astonishing regularity of such complicated movements, a regularity in which everyone has such blind faith, although well-being and life depend on it? This power is an absolute principle, the principle of free commerce.134 We have faith in this intimate light that Providence has placed in the hearts of all men to whom it has entrusted the indefinite preservation and progress of our species, self-interest, for we must give it its name, that is so active, vigilant, and farsighted when it is free to act. Where would you be, you inhabitants of Paris, if a minister took it into his head to substitute the arrangements he had thought up, however superior they are thought to be, for this power? Or if he took it into his head to subject this stupendous mechanism to his supreme management, to gather together all these economic activities in his own hands, to decide by whom, how, or under what conditions each object has to be produced, transported, traded and consumed? Oh! Although there are a good many causes of suffering within your city, although destitution, despair, and perhaps starvation are causing more tears to flow than your ardent charity can stem, it is probable or, I dare to say, even certain, that the arbitrary intervention of the government would infinitely increase these sufferings and extend to you all the misfortunes that are only affecting a small number of your fellow citizens.

Well then! Why, when we have faith in a principle when it relates to domestic transactions, do we not have the same faith in this principle when it is applied to international transactions, which are certainly fewer in number and less difficult and complicated? And, if it is not necessary for the Prefecture of Paris to regulate our industries, balance our opportunities, profits, and losses, concern itself with the depletion of our money, and equalize the conditions governing our labor in domestic commerce, why is it necessary for the customs service to aspire to exercise protective action, which is beyond its fiscal mission, with regard to our foreign commerce?135

133 In Bastiat's day there were 86 départements in France. See the glossary entry on "French Government Administrative Regions."

134 Bastiat uses a slightly different expression here. Instead of the usual "la liberté des échanges" (free trade) he uses "la liberté des transaction" which could mean "freedom of commerce".

135 (Paillottet's note) See the first letter to M. de Lamartine in volume 1 and chapter I of the Economic Harmonies in volume 6 (OC, vol. 1, p. 406, "Un Économiste à M. de Lamartine"; and vol. 6, p. 21, "Organisation naturelle, organisation artificielle").

XIX. National Independence [n.d.] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Indépendance nationale" (National Independence) [no date given] [1st published in book].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 97-99.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

Among the arguments put forward in favor of protectionism, we should not forget the one based on national independence.

"What will we do in case of war", people say, "if we are subject to England's discretion with regard to iron and coal?"

Monopolists in England, for their part, unfailingly proclaim:

"What would become of Great Britain in time of war if she were dependent on France for her food?"

We tend to disregard one fact, which is that this type of dependence resulting from trade and commercial transactions is mutual. We cannot be dependent on foreigners without these foreigners being dependent on us. This is the very essence of society. Breaking off natural relationships does not make us independent, but isolated.

And note this well: we isolate ourselves because of an expectation of war, but the very act of isolating ourselves is the first step to war. It makes it easier, less of a burden and because of this, less unpopular. If nations are constant markets for each other, if their relationships cannot be broken off without inflicting on them the twin suffering of deprivation and over supply, they will no longer need the powerful navies that are ruining them and the massive armies now crushing them, the peace of the world will not be compromised by the caprices of M. Thiers136 or Lord Palmerston,137 and war will disappear for lack of incentive, resources, reasons, pretexts, and popular favor.138

I am fully aware that I will be blamed (for this is the current fashion) for resting fraternity between nations on self-interest, vile and prosaic interest. People would prefer fraternity to be rooted in charity and love, with even a little self-sacrifice, and in hurting men's material well-being, to possess the merit of generous sacrifice.

When will we ever be rid of this puerile moralism? When will we finally banish hypocrisy from science? When will we drop this sickening contradiction between our writings and our actions? We boo at, we shout down self-interest, that is to say what is useful and good (since to say that all nations are interested in a thing is to say that this thing is intrinsically good), as though self-interest was not a necessary, eternal and indestructible motive to which Providence has entrusted human progress! As if we were all angels of disinterestedness? As if the public was not beginning to see, and with disgust, that this affected language is blackening the very pages for which the public is expected to pay so dearly.?? Oh, such affectation! This is really the disease of this century.

What! Because well-being and peace are closely allied, because God was pleased to establish this fine harmony in the moral world, you do not want me to admire and adore his decrees and accept with gratitude laws that make justice a condition of happiness? You do not want peace unless it is to the detriment of well-being, and freedom weighs heavy on you because it does not impose sacrifice on you? And, if self-sacrifice has such attraction for you, what stops you including it in your private actions? Society would be grateful to you if you did, for at least someone would reap the benefit from it, but to wish to impose it on humanity on principle is the height of absurdity, for the self-sacrifice of all is the sacrifice of all and constitutes misfortune raised to the status of a theory.

But thank heaven we can write and read a great number of these ranting speeches without the world ceasing to obey its driving force, which is self-interest, like it or not.

After all, it is rather strange to see sentiments of the most sublime self-denial invoked in support of plunder itself. This is what this ostentatious disinterestedness leads to! These men, who are so poetically delicate that they do not want peace itself if it is based on men's vile self-interests, are putting their hands into other people's pockets, especially those who are poor, for what article of the tariff protects the poor? Yes, sirs, do whatever you like with what belongs to you, but likewise let us do what we want with the fruit from the sweat of our brows, to use it ourselves or to trade it. Make speeches on self-renunciation, for that is fine, but at the same time at least be honest.139

136 Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877) was a lawyer, historian, politician, and journalist who served briefly as Prime Minister and Minster of Foreign Affairs in 1836 and 1840. After the 1848 revolution and the creation of the Second Empire he was elected deputy representing Rouen in the Constituent Assembly. See the glossary entry on "Thiers."

137 Henry John Temple, third viscount Palmerston (1784-1860) was a British politician and leader of the Whig party. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs (1830-41 and 1846-50) and then Prime Minister during the Crimean War (1854-56). He was a liberal interventionist who worked to limit French influence in world affairs. See the glossary entry on "Palmerston."

138 These two paragraphs are a nice summary of the views held by Richard Cobden and Bastiat regarding the link between free trade and peace. Cobden and Bastiat frequently corresponded on this topic (see CW, vol. 1 for details) and visited each other when they attended conferences organized by the Friends of Peace. See the glossary entries on "Richard Cobden," "Peace Congress (Paris August 1849," Appendix 6 "Bastiat's Speech on 'Disarmament and Taxes' (August 1849)," and Bastiat and the organized Peace Movement" in Appendix 1 "Further Aspects of Bastiat's Life and Thought."

139 (Paillottet's note) See the pamphlet entitled Justice and Fraternity in this volume (OC, vol. 4, p. 298, "Justice et fraternité"). Also see the introduction to Cobden and the English League followed by the Second Campaign of the League in volume 3. (OC, vol. 3, p. 1, "Introduction"; and p. 449, "Seconde campagne de la Ligue"). ["Justice and Fraternity" also appears in The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, in the volume titled "The Law," "The State," and Other Political Writings, pp. 000–00.]

XX. Human Labor and Domestic Labor [n.d.] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Travail humain, travail national" (Human Labor and Domestic Labor) [no date given] [1st published in book].
• Published as book or pamphlet: 1 ES1 st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 100-05.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

Smash the machines,140 reject foreign goods; these are two acts generated by the same doctrine.

We see men who clap when a great invention is revealed to the world and who nevertheless support protectionism. Such men are very inconsistent!

What is their objection to free trade? That it results in our having things made by foreigners who are more skillful or better situated than we, which otherwise we would produce ourselves. In a word, it is accused of damaging domestic labor.

By the same token, should these critics not be blaming machines for accomplishing through natural agents a production, which, without them, would fall to manual effort and consequently for damaging human labor?

Foreign workers who are better situated than French ones are veritable economic machines that crush the latter through their competition. Similarly, a machine that carries out an operation at a lower cost than a given number of hands is, with regard to this labor, a genuine foreign competitor that paralyzes them with its competition.

If therefore it is appropriate to protect domestic labor against competition from foreign labor, it is no less so to protect human labor against competition from mechanical labor.

So, if he has an ounce of logic in his brain, anyone who supports a protectionist regime should not stop at forbidding foreign products; he ought to forbid even more the products of the shuttle and the plough.

And this is why I much prefer the logic of those men who, speaking out against the invasion of goods from far distant lands, at least have the courage to speak out as well against over production due to the inventive power of the human mind.

One of these is M. de Saint-Chamans.141 "One of the strongest arguments," he says, "against free trade and the over use of machines, is that many workers are deprived of work either by foreign competition that closes factories down or by equipment that takes the place of men in the workshops." (On the Tax System, page 438.)142

M. de Saint-Chamans has accurately seen the analogy, let us go further, the identity existing between imports and machines. This is why he forbids them both; and truly, there is some pleasure in facing intrepid debaters, who, even when they are wrong, take their line of reasoning to its limit.

But look at the difficulty in store for them!

While it is a priori true that the domains of invention and labor can expand only at the expense of one another, it is in those countries in which there are the most machines, for example in Lancashire, that we ought to see the fewest workers. And if, on the contrary, we see in fact that machines and workers coexist to a greater degree in rich nations than in uncivilized ones, we have to conclude that these two forces are not mutually exclusive.

I cannot explain to myself how a thinking soul can have a moment's rest when faced with this dilemma:

Either the inventions of man do not damage his labor, as the general facts demonstrate, since there are more of both among the English and French than among the Hurons and Cherokees, and, in this case, I have gone wrong, although I do not know either where or how I have gone astray. I would be committing treason against humanity if I introduced my mistake into the legislation of my country.

Or the discoveries of the human mind reduce manual labor, as certain facts appear to indicate, since every day I see a machine being substituted for twenty or one hundred workers, in which case I am obliged to identify a flagrant, eternal, and incurable antithesis between man's intellectual and physical power, between his progress and his well-being. I cannot refrain from saying that the author of man was bound to give him the gift of either brain or brawn, either moral strength or brute force, and that in the event he has played a trick on him by conferring on him, simultaneously, mutually destructive powers.

This is a pressing difficulty. Well, do you know how to solve it? By this strange maxim:

In political economy, there are no absolute principles.

In common, intelligible parlance, this means:

"I do not know where truth or falsehood lies and am ignorant of what constitutes general good or evil. I do not let this trouble me. The immediate effect of each measure on my personal well-being is the sole law I agree to acknowledge."

There are no principles! This is as though you were saying: "There are no facts, for principles are only formulae that sum up an entire order of well-known facts."

Machines and imports certainly have effects. These effects are either good or bad. People can have differing opinions in this respect. But whichever one you adopt is formulated using one of these two principles: machines are good or machines are bad. Imports are advantageous or imports are harmful. But to say there are no principles is certainly the lowest degree of humiliation to which the human mind can descend, and I admit that I blush for my country when I hear such a monstrous heresy enunciated before the French Chambers with their assent, that is to say, before and with the assent of the elite of our fellow citizens, and all this to justify themselves for imposing on us laws in total ignorance.

But in the end, I will be told, destroy the sophism. Prove that machines do not damage human labor and that imports do not damage domestic labor.

In an essay of the present kind, such proofs could not be very detailed. My aim is rather to establish the difficulties than to solve them and to arouse reflection rather than to satisfy it. No convictions are ever firmly anchored in the human mind other than those that result from its own work. I will nevertheless endeavor to set it along this path.

What misleads the opponents of imports and machines is that they judge them by their immediate and transitory effects instead of going to their general and definitive consequences.143

The immediate effect of an ingenious machine is to render a certain amount of manual labor superfluous for a given result. However, its action does not in the slightest stop there. For the very reason that this given result is achieved with less effort, it is made available to the public at a lower price, and the sum of the savings thus realized by all purchasers enables them to satisfy other wants, that is to say, to encourage manual labor in general by precisely the amount saved by those manual laborers working in the recently improved industry. In short, the level of work has not decreased, although that of satisfaction has been increased.

Let us use an example to make this set of effects clearer.

Let us imagine that 10 million hats costing 15 francs are consumed in France. This provides the hat industry with a turnover of 150 million. A machine is invented that enables the hats to be sold at 10 francs. The turnover for this industry is reduced to 100 million assuming that consumption does not increase. However, the 50 million is not lost to human labor for all that. Having been saved by the purchasers of hats, it will be used to satisfy other needs and consequently to remunerate the entire industrial system by the same figure. With the 5 francs he has saved, Jean will buy a pair of shoes, Jacques a book, Jérôme an item of furniture, etc. The human labor, taken as a whole, will thus continue to be encouraged up to a level of 150 million; this sum will provide the same number of hats as before, plus all the other satisfactions corresponding to the 50 million that the machine will have saved. These satisfactions are the net product that France would have gained from the invention. This is a free gift, a tribute that man's genius has imposed on nature. We do not deny that, during the transformation, a certain mass of labor will have been displaced, but we cannot agree that it has been destroyed or even diminished.

This is also true for imports. Let us return to the hypothesis.

France manufactured 10 million hats at a cost price of 15 francs. Foreigners invaded our market, supplying us with hats at 10 francs. I say that domestic labor will not be decreased in the slightest.

For it will have to produce up to 100 million to pay for 10 million hats at 10 francs.

And then each purchaser will have 5 francs left that he has saved on each hat, or a total of 50 million that he will pay for other pleasures, that is to say, for other things produced by labor.

Therefore the total amount of labor will remain the same as it was and the additional pleasures, representing the 50 million saved on the hats, will be the net profit from the imports or from free trade.

And people must not try to terrify us with the picture of the suffering that, according to this reasoning, will accompany the displacement of labor.

For if protectionism had never occurred, labor would have rearranged itself in line with the laws of trade and no displacement would have taken place.144

If, on the other hand, protectionism has led to an artificial and unproductive structure of labor, it would be this, and not freedom, that is responsible for the inevitable displacement in the transition from bad to good.

Unless it is claimed that, because an abuse cannot be destroyed without upsetting those who benefit from it, its existence for just a moment ensures that it will last forever.

140 This is a reference to the Luddites who were members of a movement in the early 19th century in England who protested the introduction of mechanized weaving machines believing that that they would put handloom weavers out of work. They were active between 1811-13 before being suppressed by the government in a mass trial in 1813. They took their name from a weaver named Ned Ludd who smashed machines in 1779. See another reference to smashing machines (Luddism) in ES3 XXII "Disastrous Illusions" below pp. ??? See the glossary entry on "Luddites."

141 Auguste Saint-Chamans (1777-1860) was a deputy (1824-27) and a Councillor of State. He advocated protectionism and a mercantilist theory of the balance of trade. See the glossary entry on "Saint-Chamans."

142 Bastiat is referring to Saint-Chamans's Du système d'impôt (1820).

143 Bastiat is here stating in a more round about way what later he would come to call the "seen" and the "unseen" which he was to develop more explicitly in a pamphlet in July 1850: What is Seen and What is not Seen, or Political Economy in One Lesson, below pp. ???.

144 (Paillottet's note) See chapter XIV of the second series of Sophisms [see this volumme, "Something Else," pp. 000–00] and chapter VI of the Economic Harmonies (OC, vol. 6, chap. 6, p. 185, "Richesse").

XXI. Raw Materials [n.d.] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Matières premières" (Raw Materials) [no date given] [1st published in book].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 105-15.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

It is said: "The most profitable of all trades is the one in which manufactured goods are exchanged for raw materials. For the raw materials supply domestic labor."

And from this the following conclusion is drawn:

That the best customs law would be the one that did the most to facilitate the importation of raw materials and which would put the greatest number of obstacles in the path of goods which had undergone some level of manufacture.145

In political economy, there is no sophism so widespread as this one. It is the talk of not only the protectionist school but also and above all the allegedly liberal school, and this is a trying circumstance, for the worst thing for a good cause is not to be competently attacked but to be badly defended.

Commercial freedom will probably suffer the fate of all freedoms; it will be introduced into our laws only once it has gained possession of our minds. But if it is true that a reform has to be generally understood in order to be solidly established, it follows that nothing can delay it more than anything which misleads public opinion; and what is more likely to mislead it than articles that demand freedom by using the doctrines of monopoly to support them?

A few years ago, three large cities in France, Lyons, Bordeaux, and Le Havre, rose up against the protectionist regime.146 The country and the whole of Europe were moved at seeing what they took to be the flag of freedom being raised. Alas! It was still the flag of monopoly! A monopoly that was a little more sly and a lot more absurd than the one they seemed to want to overthrow. Thanks to the sophism which I will attempt to unveil, the petitioners did nothing more than reproduce the doctrine on the protection of domestic labor, while adding one more inconsistency to it.

What in fact is protectionism? Let us listen to M. de Saint-Cricq:147

"Labor constitutes the wealth of a people, since it alone creates the physical things that our needs call for, and universal prosperity consists in the abundance of such things." Such is the crux of the argument.

"But it is necessary for this abundance to be the product of the nation's activity. If it were the product of foreign activity, national output would come to a sudden stop." Here is the error. (See the preceding sophism.)148

"What therefore should an agricultural and manufacturing country do? Keep its market for the products of its own territory and industry." Here is the aim.

"And to do this, restrict through duties and prohibit if necessary the products of the territory and industry of other peoples." Here are the means.

Let us compare these arrangements with those of the petition from Bordeaux.

It divided goods into three classes.

"The first covers foodstuffs and raw materials that are devoid of any human labor. In principle, a wise economy would require this class to be exempt from taxes." Here, no labor, no protection.

"The second is made up of goods which have undergone some processing. This processing allows us to impose some duty on it." Here protection starts because, according to the petitioners, here begins domestic labor.

"The third covers finished goods which cannot be used in any way in domestic production; we consider these to be the most liable to taxes." Here labor, and protection with it, reach their peak.

As we can see, the petitioners claimed that foreign labor damages domestic labor. This is the error of the protectionist regime.

They demanded that the French market to be reserved for French labour; that is the aim of the protectionist regime.

They demanded that foreign labor be subject to restrictions and taxes. That is the means of the protectionist regime.

So what difference can we therefore discern between the petitioners from Bordeaux and the leader of the protectionist chorus?

Just one: the wider or narrower range of interpretation of the meaning of the word labor.

M. de Saint-Cricq extends it to everything. He therefore wants to protect everything.

"Labor constitutes the entire wealth of a nation," he says, "protecting agriculture, the entire agricultural sector, manufacturing, the entire manufacturing sector, this is the cry that will always echo around this Chamber."

The petitioners consider manufacturing alone as constituting labor; for this reason they accord only this sector the favor of protection.

"Raw materials are devoid of any human labor. In principle they should not be taxed. Manufactured goods can no longer be used for further productive activity in the domestic market; we consider them to be the most proper to be subject to taxes."

It is not a question here of examining whether protection for domestic labor is reasonable. M. de Saint-Cricq and the petitioners from Bordeaux agree on this point and we, as has been seen in previous chapters, differ from both in this respect.

The question is to know who is giving the proper meaning to the word labor, M. de Saint-Cricq or the petitioners from Bordeaux.

Well, on this terrain, it has to be said that M. de Saint-Cricq is right a thousand times, for the following is the dialogue that they might have with each other:

M. de Saint-Cricq: "You agree that domestic labor has to be protected. You agree that no foreign products can be introduced into our market without destroying an equal amount of our domestic production. The only thing is that you claim that there are a host of products that contain value, since they sell, and which are nevertheless devoid of any human labor. And you list, among other things, wheat, flour, meat, cattle, bacon, salt, iron, copper, lead, coal, wool, skins, seed, etc.

"If you prove to me that the value of these things is not due to labor, I will agree that they do not need to be protected.

"However, if I also demonstrate to you that there is as much labor involved in one hundred francs' worth of wool as in 100 francs' worth of cloth, you will have to admit that protection is due as much to the one as to the other.

"Now, why is this bag of wool worth 100 francs? Is it not because it is its cost price? And is its cost price anything other than what has to be paid in wages, earnings, and the costs of manpower, labor, and interest to all the laborers and capital providers who contributed to producing the object?"

The Petitioners: "It is true that you might be right with regard to wool. But is a sack of wheat, an ingot of iron, or a quintal of coal the product of labor? Is it not nature that has created them?"

M. de Saint-Cricq: "There is no doubt that nature has created the elements of all these things, but it is labor that has created their value. I myself was mistaken when I said that labor creates physical objects, and this flawed expression has led me into many other errors. It is not in man's power to create and to make something out of nothing, any more for manufacturers than for farmers; if by production we meant creation, all of our projects would be nonproductive and yours, as traders, more so than all the others, except perhaps for mine.

"A farmer, therefore, cannot claim to have created wheat, but he can claim to have created its value, by this I mean to have transformed into wheat, through his own labor and that of his servants, cow herders and harvesters, substances which did not resemble it in the slightest. In addition, what do the millers do who convert it into flour, or the bakers who bake it into bread?

"In order for men to be able to clothe themselves in woolen cloth, a host of operations is necessary. Before any human labor intervenes, the genuine raw materials of this product are air, water, heat, gaslight, and the salts that have to go to making it up. There are the raw materials that are genuinely devoid of any human labor, since they have no value and I do not envisage protecting them. However, an initial act of labor converts these substances into fodder, a second into wool, a third into yarn, a fourth into cloth, and a fifth into garments. Who would dare to say that everything in this operation is not labor, from the first cut of the plough that starts it to the last stitch that terminates it?

"And because, for greater speed and perfection in the accomplishment of the final operation, a garment, the labor is divided among several classes of industrious workers,149 do you want to establish, through arbitrary distinction, that the order of carrying out of this labor is the sole basis for their importance, so that the first does not even merit the appellation of labor and the last, labor par excellence, is the only one worthy of the favors of protection?"

The Petitioners: "Yes, we are beginning to see that wheat, is not, any more than wool, altogether devoid of any human labor, but at least the farmer has not, like the manufacturer, done everything himself or with the assistance of his laborers; nature has helped him and if there is labor, everything in wheat is not labor"

M. de Saint-Cricq: "But all its value is labor. I agree that nature has contributed to the physical forming of the grain. I even agree that this is exclusively its own work, but you must admit that I have forced it to do so through my labor, and when I sell you wheat, you have to note this clearly, I am not making you pay for the labor of nature but for mine.

"And, in your opinion, manufactured goods would not be the products of labor either. Are manufacturers not assisted by nature as well? Do they not use the weight of the atmosphere through their steam engines just as I use its humidity when plowing? Have they created the laws of gravity, the transmission of force or the nature of chemical bonding?"

The Petitioners: "Very well, we agree for wool, but coal is certainly the work and the sole work of nature. It is truly devoid of any human labor."

M. de Saint-Cricq: "Yes, nature has made coal but labor has created its value. Coal had no value for millions of years when it was buried and unknown one hundred feet underground. Men had to go to look for it: that is labor. It had to be taken to market: that is another form of labor and once again, the price you pay for it in the market is nothing other than payment for these jobs of extraction and transport."150

We can see that up to now M. de Saint-Cricq has won the argument; that the value of raw materials, like that of manufactured materials, represents the cost of production, that is to say, of the labor; that it is not possible to imagine an object that has value and that is devoid of any human labor; that the distinction made by the petitioners is futile in theory and that, as the basis of an unequal distribution of political favors it would be iniquitous in practice, since its result would be that one-third of French citizens who labor in factories would obtain the advantages of monopoly because they produce things through labor, while the other two-thirds, that is to say, the farming population, would be abandoned to face competition on the pretext that they produce things without laboring.

I am sure that people will insist and say that there is a greater advantage for a nation to import so-called raw materials, whether or not they are the product of labor, and export manufactured goods.

This is an opinion that is widely held.

"The more raw materials are abundant," says the petition from Bordeaux, "the more factories will increase in number and flourish vigorously."

"Raw materials", it says elsewhere, "leave a limitless scope for the work of the inhabitants of those countries into which they are imported."

"As raw materials," says the petition from Le Havre, "are the raw elements of labor, they have to be subjected to a different regime and imported immediately at the lowest customs rate."

This same petition wants protection for manufactured goods to be reduced not immediately, but after an undetermined period and not at the lowest rate, but at 20 percent.

"Among other articles whose low price and abundance are a necessity," says the petition from Lyons, "manufacturers include all raw materials."

All this is based on an illusion.

We have seen that all value represents labor. Now, it is very true that the process of manufacturing multiplies by ten or sometimes a hundred the value of a raw product, that is to say, it spreads out ten or a hundred times more income around the nation. This being so, the reasoning goes as follows: the production of a quintal151 of iron earns only 15 francs for all categories of contributors. The conversion of this quintal of iron into watch springs raises their various incomes to 10,000 francs and would you dare to say that it is not of more interest to the nation to ensure itself 10,000 francs' worth of labor than 15 francs' worth?

People forget that international trade does not function by weight or measure, any more than individual exchanges. You do not trade one quintal of iron for one quintal of watch springs, nor a pound of still greasy wool for a pound of cashmere wool, but a certain value of one of these things for an equal value of another. Well, to exchange equal value for equal value is to exchange equal labor for equal labor. It is therefore not true that a nation that gives 100 francs' worth of cloth or springs makes more than one that delivers 100 francs' worth of wool or iron.

In a country in which no law can be voted, no taxation imposed without the consent of those who are to be governed by this law or subjected to it, the public can be robbed only by being misled in the first place. Our ignorance is the raw material of any extortion that is exercised over us and we can be certain in advance that any sophism is the herald of plunder. Good people, when you see a sophism in a petition, put your hand over your pocket for it is certainly that which is being aimed at.

Shall we not therefore look at the secret thought that the ship owners of Bordeaux and Le Havre and the manufacturers of Lyons are hiding in this distinction between agricultural goods and manufactured goods?

"It is mainly in this first class (the one that includes raw materials, devoid of any human labor) that we find the principal maintenance of our merchant navy, say the petitioners of Bordeaux. In principle, a wise economy would require this class not to be taxed. . . . The second (goods which have undergone some processing) may be taxed. The third (goods which require no further modification) we consider to be the most taxable."

The petitioners from Le Havre say, "Considering that it is essential to reduce the tax on raw materials immediately to the lowest rate so that manufacturing industry may successively put to work the naval forces that provide it with its primary and essential means of the employment of its labor. . . ."

The manufacturers could not be any less polite to the ship owners. For this reason, the petition from Lyons requested the free entry of raw materials "to prove," as it said, "that the interests of manufacturing towns are not always in opposition to those of those on the coast."

No, but it has to be said that both, understood as the petitioners understand them, are totally opposed to the interests of the countryside, agriculture, and consumers.

This, sirs, is what you wanted to say! This is the aim of your subtle economic distinctions! You want the law to prevent finished goods from crossing the ocean in order for the much more expensive transport of raw and dirty materials, including a lot of waste, to provide more cargo for your merchant navy and put your shipping to greater use. This is what you call a wise economy.

What! Why do you not also ask for Russian pines to be shipped with their branches, bark, and roots? For Mexican gold in its mineral state and leather from Buenos Aires still attached to the bones of stinking carcasses?

Soon, I expect, railway shareholders, however small their majority in the Chambers, will pass a law forbidding the production in Cognac of the brandy drunk in Paris. Would not to decree by law the transport of ten casks of wine for one cask of brandy provide the essential income for their labor to manufacturers in Paris and at the same time set the powers of our locomotives into action?

For how long more will people close their eyes to such a simple truth?

The purpose of manufacturing, of shipping, and of labor is the general good, the public good. Creating industries that serve no purpose, encouraging superfluous transport and supporting unnecessary labor, not for the public good but at public expense, is to achieve a genuine contradiction in terms.152 It is not labor that is intrinsically desirable but consumption. Any labor that yields no output represents a loss. To pay sailors to carry useless refuse across the sea is as though they were being paid to make pebbles skim across the surface of the water.153 We therefore come to the conclusion that all economic sophisms, in spite of their infinite variety, have this in common: they confuse the means with the end and develop one at the expense of the other.154

145 This was in fact the purpose of the revision of French tariff policy which took place in the first years of the French Revolution with the law of August 1791. Most prohibitions on imported goods were abolished, tariffs were abolished on the primary products used by French manufacturers and food stuffs for consumers, and tariffs on foreign manufactured were lowered to 20-25% by value. See the glossary entry on "French Tariff Policy."

146 This took place in 1834 and Bastiat commented on their Petition in a local newspaper. See "Réflexions sur les pétitions de Bordeaux, Le Havre, et Lyon concernant les Douanes"). ["Reflections on the Petitions from Bordeaux, Le Havre, and Lyons Relating to the Customs Service" in The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, in the volume titled "The Law," "The State," and Other Political Writings, 1843–1850, pp. 1–9.

147 Pierre Laurent Barthélemy, comte de Saint Cricq (1772-1854) was a protectionist Deputy who became Director General of Customs (1815), president of the Trade Council, and then Minister of Trade and Colonies (1828-29). See the glossary entry on "Saint Cricq."

148 (Note by Paillottet. See this volume, "Human Labor, Domestic Labor," pp. 000–00.)

149 Here Bastiat uses the term coined by Charles Dunoyer, "industrieux" in the phrase "plusieurs classes d'industrieux" which we have translated as "several classes of industrious workers". See the glossary entry on "Industry."

150 (Bastiat's note) I do not explicitly mention the part of the payment that relates to the entrepreneur, the capital provider, etc., for several reasons: 1. Because if you look closely, you will see that this is always payment for advances or labor done previously; 2. Because, under the general term of labor, I include not only the wages of the worker but legitimate payment for all cooperation in the work of production; 3. Lastly and above all, because the production of manufactured goods is, just like that of raw materials, subject to interest and payments other than those for manual labor, and that the objection, which is futile in itself, would apply to the most ingenious spinning factory as much or even more than to the crudest form of agriculture.

151 The term "quintal" comes from the Latin and is a unit of measurement with 100 units. In the Old Regime this meant a quintal was 100 "livres" (or pounds). After the metrification introduced by the French Revolution a quintal came to mean 100 kilograms.

152 The term Bastiat uses is "une pétition de principe" (or in Latin "petitio principii") which is a philosophical expression to describe a type of logical fallacy. It means a "contradiction in terms" or "begging the question."

153 The phrase Bastiat uses is "pour faire ricocher des cailloux sur la surface de l'eau" which is an interesting early use of the term "ricochet" which Bastiat was to develop more fully later. Here he is referring to wasted labour not the flow on effects caused by economic activity. See the Appendices "Bastiat and the Ricochet Effect" and "The Sophism Bastiat never wrote: the Sophism of the Ricochet Effect."

154 (Paillottet's note) See the short article dated 1834 titled "Reflections on the Petitions from Bordeaux, Le Havre," etc. in the first volume (OC, vol. 1, p. 231, "Réflexions sur les pétitions de Bordeaux, Le Havre, et Lyon concernant les Douanes"). ["Reflections on the Petitions from Bordeaux, Le Havre, and Lyons Relating to the Customs Service" also appears in The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, in the volume titled "The Law," "The State," and Other Political Writings, 1843–1850, pp. 000–00.]

XXII. Metaphors [n.d.] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Métaphores" (Metaphors) [no date given] [1st published in book].
• Published as book or pamphlet: ES1 1st French edition 1846.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 5th ed., pp. 115-19.
• Previous translation: 1st English ed. 1846, 1st American ed. 1848, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

Sometimes sophisms expand and penetrate the entire fabric of a long and heavy theory. More often they contract, reduce in size, and become a principle, entirely hidden in one word.

God preserve us, Paul-Louis155 said, from cunning men and metaphors! And in fact, it would be difficult to say which of the two causes the most harm to our planet. It is the devil, you say; he puts in all of us, such as we are, the spirit of plunder in our hearts. Yes, but he leaves the repression of abuses completely up to the resistance of those that suffer from them. It is sophism that paralyses this resistance. The sword that malice places in the hands of attackers would be powerless if sophism did not shatter the shield on the arms of those under attack and Malebranche156 was right in inscribing the following sentence on the frontispiece of his book: Error is the cause of human misery.157

And look at what happens. Ambitious hypocrites have a sinister interest,158 for example, in sowing the seed of national hatred in the mind. This disastrous seed may develop and lead to general conflagration, cause civilization to stop, spill torrents of blood, and draw down the most terrible of all scourges on the country, invasion. In any case, before these events occur, these feelings of hatred diminish us in the eyes of other nations and reduce those people in France who have retained some vestige of a love of justice to blush for their country. These are certainly great evils, and in order for the public to be protected against the intrigues of those who want it to run the risk of such events, it would be enough for them to have a clear view of the matter. How does it happen that that this clear view is clouded? Through metaphor. The meaning of three or four words is altered, strained, and degraded and this says it all.

Take the word invasion itself.

A French ironmaster says: "May we be preserved from an invasion of iron from England." An English landlord exclaims: "Let us reject the invasion of wheat from France!" And they propose that the barriers between the two peoples be raised. Barriers constitute isolation, isolation leads to hatred, hatred to war and war to invasion. "What does it matter?" say the two sophists, "is it not better to be exposed to the risk of invasion than to accept certain invasion?" And the people believe them and the barriers remain.

And yet, what analogy is there between an exchange and an invasion? What similarity can be established between a warship which comes to vomit shells, fire, and devastation on our towns and a merchant ship that comes to offer us the opportunity of exchanging goods for other goods freely and voluntarily?

I would say the same for the word flood. This word normally has a negative meaning because the common characteristics of floods are to ravage fields and crops. If nevertheless they leave greater value on the land than they remove, as do the floods of the Nile, we ought to bless and deify them, following the example of the Egyptians. Well then, before railing against the floods of foreign goods, before erecting obstructive and costly obstacles in their path, do people ask themselves whether these are floods that ravage or those that fertilize? What would we think of Mehemet Ali159 if, instead of raising dams across the Nile at huge expense to extend the range of its floods, he spent his piastres digging a deeper bed for it so that Egypt would no longer be soiled by this foreign silt brought down from the Mountains of the Moon?160 We are showing precisely this degree of wisdom and reason when, with the support of millions, we wish to preserve our country . . . from what? From the benefits with which nature has endowed other climates.

Among the metaphors that conceal an entire and disastrous theory, there are none more commonly used than the one that uses the words tribute, tributary.

These words have become so commonplace that they have become synonyms of purchase and purchaser and the two sets of words are now used indiscriminately in place of one another.

However, there is as much distance between a tribute and a purchase as between a theft and an exchange, and I would as much like to hear it said that Cartouche161 had broken into my strong box and purchased a thousand écus, than to hear it said repeatedly to our deputies: "We have paid the tribute to Germany for a thousand horses that it has sold to us."

For what makes the action of Cartouche not a purchase is that he has not placed in my strong box, with my consent, an equivalent value to the one he has taken.

And what makes the payment of 500,000 francs that we have made to Germany not a tribute, is exactly because it has not received this money for no return but because it has delivered to us in exchange one thousand horses that we ourselves estimated were worth our 500,000 francs.

Should we therefore in all seriousness bring up such abuses of language again? Why not, since they are very seriously bandied about in both journals and books?

And let us not imagine that they slip out from a few writers whose ignorance extends to their use of language! For every one who refrains from this, I will quote you ten who indulge in it and who belong to the upper classes as well, such as Argout,162 Dupin,163 Villèle,164 and assorted peers, deputies, ministers, that is to say all men whose word is the law and whose most shocking sophisms are used as the basis for the country's administration.

A famous modern philosopher165 has added to the categories of Aristotle the sophism that consists in begging the question within a single word. He quotes several examples. He might have added the word tributary to his list. In effect, it is a question of knowing whether purchases made abroad are useful or harmful. They are harmful, you say. Why so? Because they make us tributaries of foreigners. This is certainly a word that begs the question under discussion.

How has this misleading trope slipped into the monopolists' rhetoric?

Écus leave the country to satisfy the rapacity of a victorious enemy. Other écus also leave the country to pay for goods. The analogy between the two cases is established, taking account only of the circumstance that causes their resemblance and disregarding the one by which they differ.

Nevertheless this circumstance, that is to say the non-reimbursement in the first case and the freely agreed reimbursement in the second, establishes between them a difference so great that it is actually not possible to classify them in the same category. To hand over 100 francs as a result of force to someone who has his hands around your neck or voluntarily to someone who is giving you the object of your desires are truly things that cannot be compared. It would be as true to say that throwing bread into the river is the same as eating it since the bread is in both cases destroyed. The fallacy of this reasoning, like that which is encompassed in the word tribute, would consist in establishing full similarity between two cases through their points of resemblance and disregarding what makes them differ.

155 Paul-Louis Courier de Méré (1773-1825) was a French artillery officer, translator of Greek literature, and liberal and anti-clerical polemicist during the Restoration. In 1819-1820 he wrote a series of letters to the liberal journal Le Censeur européen (edited by Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer) in which he chastised the liberals for not taking as much interest in the violation of the rights of ordinary peasants and farmers. See the glossary on Courier de Méré." Bastiat quotes from Courier's Pamphlet des pamphlets (1824), p. 8. The complete quote is: "God, I say to myself in a low voice, God, deliver us from the devil and figurative language! Doctors plan to kill me by wanting to cool [or refresh] my blood; the latter cripple me with the fear of writing with a poison pen; others let their fields lie fallow, and we have a shortage of wheat in the marketplace. Jesus, my Saviour, save us from metaphors." [Dieu, dis-je moi-même tout bas, Dieu, délivre-nous du malin et du langage figuré! Les médecins m'ont pensé tuer, voulant me rafraîchir le sang; celui-ci m'emprisonne de peur que je n'écrive du poison; d'autres laissent reposer leur champ, et nous manquons de blé au marché. Jésus, mon Sauveur, sauvez-nous de la métaphore."

156 Malebranche, Nicolas de (1638-1715). Malebranche was a Paris based theologian and Cartesian philosopher who wrote De la Recherche de la vérité (1674-75).

157 From Malebranche's "On the Senses," in Recherche de la Vérité, p. 1. "L'erreur est la cause de la misère des hommes; c'est le mauvais principe qui a produit le mal dans le monde; c'est elle qui a fait naître et qui entretient dans notre âme tous les maux qui nous affligent, et nous ne devons point espérer de bonheur solide et veritable qu'en travaillant sérieusement à l'éviter." (Error is the cause of mankind's miseries. It is wrong principles which have produced harm in the world. It has given birth and kept in our hearts all the harm which afflicts us. We ought not hope for solid and true happiness unless we seriously work to avoid it.)

158 The phrase "sinister interest" was often used by Jeremy Bentham to criticize the ruling elites who controlled British politics. Bastiat may well have been familiar with Bentham's theory of the ruling elites as he was familiar with his writings and used two quotations from Bentham as the opening quotes for both Series I and Series II of the Economic Sophisms. This is a typical example: "Under a government which has for its main object the sacrifice of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, to the sinister interest of the ruling one and the sub-ruling few, corruption and delusion to the greatest extent possible, are necessary to that object: waste, in so far as conducive to the increase of the corruption and delusion fund, a subordinate or co-ordinate object: war, were it only as a means and pretence for such waste, another object never out of view: that object, together with those others, invariably pursued, in so far as the contributions capable of being extracted from contributors, involuntary or voluntary, in the shape of taxes, or in the shape of loans, i. e. annuities paid by government by means of further taxes, can be obtained:—under such a government, by every penny paid into the Treasury, the means of diminishing the happiness of the greatest number receive increase;—by every penny which is prevented from taking that pernicious course, the diminution of that general happiness is so far prevented." From Principles of Judicial Procedure, With the Outlines of a Procedure Code, in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 2. CHAPTER XXIV.: SPECIAL JURIES. </title/1921/113753/2341232>.

159 Mehemet Ali (1769-1848) was an adventurer of Albanian origins who became pasha (or viceroy) of Egypt in 1804. He attempted to introduce many economic reforms inspired by European practices. See the glossary entry on "Ali".

160 The Nile River has two main tributaries, the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The White Nile has its origin in Lake Victoria in Uganda; the Blue Nile has its origin in Lake Tana in Ethiopia. Ancient geographers thought that the "Mountains of the Moon," located in east-central Africa, were the origins of the Nile River.

161 Cartouche, Louis Dominque (1693-1721). Cartouche was a notorious Parisian thief and outlaw who had the reputation of someone like Robin Hood for the English or Jesse James for the Americans.

162 Antoine Maurice Appolinaire, Comte d'Argout (1782-1858), was the Minister for the Navy and Colonies, then Commerce, and Public Works during the July Monarchy. In 1834 he was appointed Governor of the Bank of France. See the glossary on "d'Argout."

163 Charles Dupin (1784-1873) was a pioneer in mathematical economics and worked for the statistical office of France. In 1828 he was elected deputy for Tarn, was made a Peer in 1830, and served in the Constituent and then the National Assemblies during the Second Republic. See the glossary entry on "Dupin."

164 Jean-Baptiste, comte de Villèle (1773-1854) was the leader of the ultra-legitimists during the Restoration. He was minister of finance in 1821 and prime minister from 1822 until his resignation in 1828. He was instrumental in getting passed in 1825 an Indemnification Law for nobles who had been dispossessed during the Revolution, and a Law of Sacrilege for affronts to the Church.

165 Bastiat might have had in mind the work by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) where there is a discussion of "petitio principii" (begging the question). See the text on the Online Library of Liberty </title/360/61777/641525>.

You have considered it appropriate to circulate a letter which I had the honor of sending you and your reply to it. I do not reproach you for this. No doubt you assumed that at the elections we would meet in opposing camps, and if my letter revealed to you a man who professed mistaken and dangerous opinions, you had the right to warn the general public. I allow that you took this decision with this sole preoccupation with the general interest in mind. Perhaps it would have been more fitting to choose between absolute silence and total publicity. You have preferred something that is neither of [368] these, pompous yet hard to pin down scandalmongering about a letter of which I have not kept a copy and whose terms, consequently, I cannot explain nor defend. So be it. I have not the slightest doubt about the accuracy of the copyist responsible for reproducing it and that is enough for me.

However, sir, is this enough to achieve your aim, which is doubtless to enlighten the beliefs of the electors? My letter relates to a particular fact, followed by a political doctrine. I have scarcely touched on this fact, and this is simply explained, since I was addressing someone who was aware of the full circumstances. I sketched the doctrine as one can do in letter form. This is not enough detail for the general public, and since you have involved them in this matter, allow me to address them in my turn.

I find it too distasteful to introduce actual names into this debate to underline particular facts. Only the need to defend myself personally could make me decide to do this and I hasten to come to the major political question which is the subject of your letter, the conflicts of interest of a legislative mandate with work in the civil service.

I make it clear at the outset, I am not actually asking for civil servants to be excluded from the House; they are citizens and should be able to enjoy the rights of citizenship, but they should be admitted to it only as citizens and not as civil servants. If they wish to serve the nation over which the law reigns, they cannot be the executors of the law. If they wish to represent the general public which pays the government, they cannot be the salaried agents of that government. I consider that their presence in the Chamber be subordinated to a measure which I will indicate later; and I unhesitatingly add that, in my eyes at least, there are many more disadvantages in admitting them to the Chamber unconditionally than to excluding them unremittingly.

“Your thesis is truly immense (you say); if I were dealing a priori with the question of conflicts of interest, I would begin by castigating this tendency to suspiciousness, one which appears very illiberal to me.”

But sir, what is the body of our laws if not a series of precautionary measures against the dangerous tendencies of the human heart? What is the constitution? What are all these checks and balances and the counterbalancing of powers if not a system of barriers to possible and even fatal encroachments in the absence of any restraint? What is religion itself, at least in one of its essential aspects, if not a source of grace intended by Providence to remedy native and therefore foreseen weakness in our nature? If you would remove from our symbols, charters, and law codes all that which has been [369] placed there by what you call suspicion and I call prudence, you would make the task of legislators very easy, but make the fate of men quite precarious. If you believe man to be infallible, burn the laws and charters. If you consider him to be fallible, in that case, when it is a matter of conflicts of interest or even a particular law, the question is not to know whether it is founded on suspicion but whether that suspicion is an impartial, reasonable, enlightened one, in other words on a prediction unfortunately justified by the indelible infirmity of men’s hearts.

This reproach made to suspicious tendencies has so often been directed against anyone who petitions for parliamentary reform that I feel obliged to repel it with some insistence. When we are very young and have just escaped from the atmosphere of Greece and Rome, where the university compels us to absorb our initial impressions, it is true that the love of liberty is too often mistaken in us with impatience in the face of any rules, of any government, and consequently with a puerile aversion to public office and civil servants. For my part, age and reflection have totally cured me of this aberration. I acknowledge that, except in instances of abuse, whether in public or private life, each person provides society with similar services. In one case, he satisfies the need for food and clothing, in another the need for order and security. I therefore do not take up arms against public office or suspect any civil servant individually. I have esteem for very many of them and I am a civil servant myself,24 although one of very modest rank. If others have pleaded the cause of conflicts of interest under the influence of a narrow and bitter jealousy or of an alarmist version of democracy, I can pursue the same goal without associating myself with these sentiments. Of course, without exceeding the boundaries of reasonable caution, it is permissible to take account of man’s passions or rather the nature of things.

However, sir, although public office and private industry have in common that both render similar services to society, it cannot be denied that they differ in one circumstance which it is essential to note. Each person is free to accept or refuse the services of private industry and receive them insofar as they suit him and to discuss their price. On the other hand, anything that concerns public office is regulated in advance by law and removed from our free will. It prescribes for us the quantity and quality we have to consume (pardon this rather too technical language) as well as the remuneration that [370] will be attached. For this reason, it would seem that it is up to those for whom and at whose expense this type of service is established to approve at least the law which determines its particular purpose, its scope, and the salaries involved. If the field of hairdressing were regulated by law, if we left to wig makers the job of making the law, it is likely (and I would not at all wish to ruffle the feelings of wig makers, nor to display a tendency to illiberal suspiciousness but simply to base my reasoning on the knowledge we have of the human heart), it is likely, I repeat, that we would soon be inordinately well groomed, indeed to the point of tyranny and the emptying of our purses. In the same way, when the electors have laws passed which regulate the provision of public safety and the salaries thereby entailed, or those of any other governmental product, by civil servants who earn their living from this work, it would seem to me to be indisputable that these electors run the risk of being administered and taxed beyond all reasonable measure.

Obsessed by the idea that we are prey to illiberal suspiciousness, you add: “In periods of intolerance, we would have said to candidates, ‘You must not be either a Protestant or a Jew’; these days, we say, ‘Do not be a civil servant.’ ”

In that case we would have been absurd, whereas now we are being rational. Jews, Protestants, and Catholics, regulated by the same laws and paying the same taxes, are voted for by us as equals. How can a religious creed be a motive justifying exclusion for anyone among us? However, with regard to those who apply the law and earn a living from taxation, the prohibition against voting for them is not at all arbitrary. Administrative authority itself acts in accordance with this principle and thus demonstrates that it is common sense. M. Lacave-Laplagne does not have the accounts audited by the accountants. It is not him personally, it is the very nature of these two orders of functions that causes conflicts of interest. Would you not find it laughable for the minister to base it on religious creed, the length of the nose, or the color of hair? The analogy you offer is of this nature.

“I think that you need very serious, patently clear, and proven reasons for asking that an exception should be made of someone. In general, this idea is bad and retrograde.”

Do you mean to satirize the Charter? It lays down that anyone who does not pay five hundred francs of taxes should be excluded on the simple conjecture that anyone who is not rich is not independent. Am I not aligning myself with its spirit when, since I have only one vote to allocate and am obliged to reject all the candidates except for one, I include among those I [371] reject one who perhaps has financial resources but who, since he has gained them from the minister, seems to me to be more dependent than if he had none?

“I am in favor of the progressive adage sunt favores ampliandi, sunt odia restringenda.”25

Sunt favores ampliandi! Ah, sir, I very much fear that under this dispensation there are too many people. Be that as it may, I ask whether deputation has been created for the deputies or for the general public? If it is for the general public, show me how they benefit by delegating civil servants. I can well see that this tends to expand the budget, but not without restricting the resources of taxpayers.

Sunt odia restringenda! Useless functions and expenditure, these are the odia that need to be restricted. Tell me how, therefore, we can expect this of those who carry out the first and gobble up the second?

In any case, there is one point on which we agree. This is on the extension of electoral rights.26 Unless you classify these among the odia restringenda, you have to include them in the number of the favores ampliandi, and your generous aphorism tells us that electoral reform can count on you.

“I have confidence in the workings of our institutions (in particular, I dare say, in the one which is the subject of this correspondence). I believe it to be conducive to the production of morality. This condition of society lies essentially in the electors; it is summed up in its representatives, it passes through the votes of majorities, etc.”

This is certainly a most touching picture, and I like this morality which rises from the base to the summit of the edifice. I could trace a less optimistic picture and show the political immorality that descends from the summit to the base. Which of the two would be more true to life? What! The disorderly placement of the voting and execution of laws and the voting and control of the budget in the same hands produces morality? Logically, I have difficulty understanding this. Evidentially, I have even greater difficulty.

You invoke the adage Quid leges sine moribus?27 I am doing nothing else. I have not called the law to account but the electors. I have uttered the hope [372] that they will get themselves represented by deputies whose interests are in harmony with and not in opposition to theirs. This is very much a matter of mores. The law does not forbid us to elect civil servants but it does not oblige us to do so either. I do not hide the fact that it would seem to me to be reasonable for it to contain a few precautions in this respect. In the meantime, let us take them ourselves: Quid leges sine moribus?

I said, “Whether right or wrong, it is a deep-seated idea of mine that deputies are the controllers of power.”

You jeered at the words whether right or wrong. So be it. I give way to you on this. Let us substitute this sentence: I may be mistaken, but I have the conviction that deputies are the controllers of power.

“What power?” you ask. Obviously executive power. You say: “I acknowledge only three powers: the king, the Chamber of Peers, and the Chamber of Deputies.”

If we return to abstract principles, I will be forced to differ in opinion from you, as I fundamentally acknowledge only one power: national power. All the others are delegated, and it is because executive power is delegated that the nation has the right to control it. And it is in order that this control is not derisory that the nation, in my humble opinion, would be wise not to place in the same hands both power and control. Assuredly it is free to do so. It is free to draw down on itself, as it does, various impediments and taxes. In this it seems to me unwise and even less wise to complain about the result. You think that I hold a serious grudge against the government; not at all, I admire it and find it very generous, when the general public is so obliging, to limit itself to a budget of 1.4 to 1.5 billion. For the last thirty years taxes have scarcely doubled. This is something to be surprised at and it should be acknowledged that the avidity of the taxman has remained well below the rashness of the taxpayers.

You find the following thought vague: “The mission of deputies is to delineate the arena in which power should be exercised.” “This arena,” you say, “is clearly delineated; it is the Charter.”

I have to say that, in the Charter, I do not know of a single clause which relates to the question. It must clearly be the case that we do not understand each other, so I will endeavor to explain my thoughts.

A nation may be more or less subject to government. In France and under the dispensation of the Charter, there are a multitude of services which may leave the scope of private industry and be entrusted to public authority and vice versa. In past times, spirited arguments were held to find out in which [373] of these two modes of activity the railway system would remain. Even more heated is the question concerning to which of these two education should belong. One day, perhaps, the same doubts will arise with regard to religions. There are countries, such as the United States, in which the state does not interfere and they are all the better for this. Elsewhere, in Russia or Turkey, for example, the contrary system has prevailed. In the British Isles, as soon as the conflict over freedom of trade is settled in favor of the latter, another conflict is in the offing in favor of the voluntary system in religious matters or the disestablishment of the established church. I mentioned freedom of trade; in our country, the government has made itself, through variations in tariffs, the regulator of industry. Sometimes it favors agriculture over manufacturing and sometimes manufacturing over agriculture, and it has even the singular pretension to make all the sectors of production prosper at the expense of each other. It is exclusively the government that operates the carrying of mail, the handling of snuff and tobacco, etc., etc.

There is therefore a division to be made between private activity and collective or governmental activity. On the one hand, many people are inclined to increase the attributions of the state indefinitely. The most eccentric visionaries, such as Fourier, come together on this point with the most practical of the men of state, such as M. Thiers. According to these powerful geniuses, the state must, under their supreme management, naturally, be the great administrator of justice, the great pontiff, the great teacher, the great engineer, the great industrialist, and the people’s great benefactor. On the other hand, many sound minds espouse the opposite view; there are even those who go so far as to want the government to be limited to its essential functions, which are to guarantee the security of people and property, to prevent and repress violence and disorder, to ensure for all the free exercise of their faculties and the proper reward for their efforts. It is already not without some danger, they say, that the nation entrusts to a hierarchically organized body the redoubtable responsibility for the police force. This is indeed necessary, but at least the nation should refrain from giving this body more jurisdiction over moral, intellectual, or economic life, if it does not wish to be reduced to the status of so much property or of a mere thing.

And it is for this reason that there is a Charter. And it is for this reason that in this Charter there is Article 15: “All tax laws must be first passed by the Chamber of Deputies.” For, note this well, every invasion by public authority into the field of private activity implies a tax. If the government claims that it will take over education, it will need paid teachers and therefore [374] a tax. If it aspires to subjecting our moral life to some religion or other, it will need clergy and therefore a tax. If it has to operate the railways and canals, it will need capital and therefore a tax. If it has to make conquests in Africa and Oceania, it will need armies, a navy, and therefore a tax. If it has to weight the profits of various industries through the action of tariffs, it will need a customs service and therefore a tax. If it is responsible for providing work and bread for all, it will need taxes and even more taxes.

However, for the very reason that, according to our national law, the nation is not the property of its government and that it is for the nation and not the government that religion, education, industry, the railways, etc., exist, it is up to the nation, not the government, to decide which services should be entrusted to or removed from government. Article 15 of the Charter gives the nation the means to do this. It just needs to refuse a tax to acquire liberty by this very action.

But if it abandons to the state and its agents, to executive power and its instruments, the task of establishing this great divide between the fields of collective and private industry, if in addition it delivers Article 15 of the Charter to it, is it not likely that the nation will shortly afterward be administered to death, that an indefinite number of functions will be created to substitute forced service for voluntary service in each sector and also the taxes to finance these functions? And is it possible to perceive any end to this series of encroachments and taxes which are mutually necessary, for, without wishing to attack individuals nor exaggerate man’s dangerous leanings, can we not state that it is in the nature of any constituted and organized body to try to expand and absorb all forms of influence, power, and wealth?

Well, sir, the meaning of the sentence you found vague is this: when the nation nominates deputies, part of the mission it gives them is to circumscribe the government’s sphere of action, to establish the limits which this action must not exceed and to remove from it any means of taking over the liberties the nation intends to retain, through a perspicacious use of Article 15 of the Charter. It will inevitably fail in this objective if it abandons this restrictive power to the very people in whom there resides the force for expansion that needs to be contained and restricted. May you, sir, not find the commentary less clear than the text.

Finally, there is in my letter another sentence which must lead me into lengthy explanation, since it appears to have shocked you particularly and it is this:

“From the moment the deputies have the possibility of becoming ministers, it is a simple fact that those who are ambitious seek to carve themselves out a route to the minister’s position through systematic opposition.”

Here, sir, I am no longer blaming those who occupy office, but, on the contrary, those who seek it; not civil servants but clearly those who wish to supplant them. I hope that in your eyes this will be irrefutable proof that I am not imbued with any bitter jealousy of a particular individual or class.

Up to now, I have dealt with the question of the eligibility of civil servants to become deputies and, adopting the taxpayers’ point of view, I have tried to prove that they could scarcely (to use the expressions you quote with such insistence) hand over control to those being controlled without risking both their wealth and liberty.

The passage I have just quoted leads me to discuss the eligibility of deputies for public office and envisage the relationship of this wide-ranging question with government itself. In this way, the loop of the forms of conflicts of interest will come full circle.

Yes, sir, I regard the eligibility of deputies for public office, in particular in government, as essentially destructive of all effectiveness, stability, and consistency of governmental action. I do not think it possible to imagine a combination more adverse to the interests of the monarch and those who represent him or a pillow more lumpy for the king’s head or those of his ministers. Nothing in the world seems more likely to me to arouse the spirit of partisanship, fan the flames of factions, corrupt all the sources of information and publicity, distort the action of the tribune and press, mislead public opinion after having aroused it, hinder administration, foment national hatred, provoke external war, wear out and scorn those in government, discourage and corrupt those being governed, and, in a word, throw out of alignment all the springs of the representative system. As far as I am concerned, I know of no social plague that compares with this. Since this side of the question has never been discussed or even noticed by the partisans of parliamentary reform, as far as I know, since in all their draft laws, if Article 1 raises the principle of conflicts of interest, Article 2 swiftly creates exceptions in favor of governments and their ministries, embassies, and all of what are known as high political positions, I am obliged to develop my thoughts at some length.

Above all, I must reject your preemptively seeking to define my argument out of court. You state that my case contradicts the Charter. Not at all. The [376] Charter does not prohibit a conscientious deputy from refusing a portfolio or prudent electors from selecting candidates from those who renounce this illogical pluralism. If it is not farsighted, it does not prohibit us from being farsighted. That having been said, I continue:

One of the predecessors of the current prefect of the Landes did me the honor of paying me a visit. The elections were close and conversation turned naturally to conflicts of interest and in particular on deputies’ noneligibility for government office. Like you, the prefect was astonished that I dared to profess a doctrine which appeared to him, as to you, to be excessively rigid, impractical, etc.

I told him: “I think, sir, that you would do justice to the General Council of the Landes by acknowledging that you found a highly independent spirit there with no personal and systematic opposition. The measures you put forward are examined on their own merit. Each member votes for or against, depending on whether he considers them good or bad. Each person takes account of the general interest as he perceives it and perhaps local or personal interest, but there is no one who can be suspected of rejecting a useful proposal from you just because it comes from you.”

“Never,” said the prefect, “has the notion crossed my mind.”

“Well, let us imagine that a regulation in the following terms were to be introduced into the law governing these councils: ‘If a measure proposed by the prefect is rejected, he will be dismissed. The Council member who raised the opposition will be appointed as prefect and he will be able to distribute all the leading positions, such as general tax collection, the management of direct and indirect contributions, etc., in the département to his chance companions.’

“I ask you, is it not probable or even certain that such an article would completely change the spirit of the Council? Is it not certain that this Chamber, in which independence and impartiality currently reign, would be transformed into an arena of intrigue and faction? Is it not likely that ambition would be fueled in line with the sustenance offered it? And whatever good opinion you have of the virtue of Council members, do you think that they will avoid succumbing to this test? In any case, would it not be highly imprudent to attempt this dangerous experiment? Can we doubt that each of your proposals would become a battlefield of personal strife, that they would no longer be examined for their relevance to the public good but solely from the point of view of the opportunities they would create for the parties? [377] And now, you surely agree that there are newspapers in the département. It is clear that belligerent militants would not fail to attract them to their cause and their entire polemics would be infused with the passions engulfing the Council. And when election day arrives, corruption and intrigue, fanned by the flames of attack and defense, will know no limits.”

“I confess,” said the prefect to me, “that in such a state of affairs, I would not wish to retain my office, even for twenty-four hours.”

Well, sir, is not this fictional constitution of a general council which so frightened a prefect the genuine constitution of the Chamber? What difference is there? Just one. The arena is vaster, the theater higher, the battlefield wider, the feeding of passion more exciting, the prize for the combat more coveted, the questions used as the text or pretext for the combat more burning, more difficult, and therefore more apt to mislead the sentiments and judgment of the multitude. It is disorder organized on the same model but on a vaster scale.

Men have filled their minds with politics, that is to say, they have dreamed of grandeur, influence, wealth, and glory. Suddenly the winds of election blow them into the legislative enclosure, and what does the constitution of the country say to them? To one it says: “You are not rich. The minister needs to swell his ranks; all the positions are in his gift and none of them is forbidden to you by law. The decision is yours.” To a second it says: “You feel you have talent and daring. There is the ministerial bench. If you remove them, the place is yours. The decision is yours.” To a third: “Your soul is not up to this level of ambition but you promised your electors to oppose the government. However, there is still an avenue to the region of power open to you; here is a party leader, link your fortune to his.”

Then, invariably, this muddle of mutual accusations begins, these outrageous efforts to attract the power of transitory popularity to one’s side, this ostentatious display of unachievable principles when one is on the attack and abject concessions when one is on the defensive. These are just traps and countertraps, mines and countermines. You can see the most disparate elements forming alliances and the most natural alliances dissolving. People bargain, stipulate, sell, and buy. Here the party spirit enters into a coalition, there subterranean ministerial cunning causes another to fail. Any event that arises, even if it bears in its wake general conflagration, is always seized upon by the assailants if it offers ground on which the boarding ladders can rest. The public good or general interest is just words, pretexts, or means. The essential [378] point is to draw from a question the power which will help one party to overthrow the government and walk over the body. Ancona,28 Tahiti,29 Syria,30 Morocco,31 fortifications, or visiting rights are all good pretexts. All that is needed is the proper arrangements for putting them into practice. At this point we are drenched in the eternal stereotyped lamentations; internally, France is suffering, anxious, etc., etc.; externally, France is humiliated, scorned, etc., etc. Is this true, is it untrue? No notice is taken. Does this measure bring us into conflict with Europe? Does it oblige us to maintain five hundred thousand troops on constant alert? Will it stop the march of civilization? Will it create obstacles for future administrations? This is not what it is all about; just one thing is of interest, the fall and the triumph of two names.

And do not think that this sort of political perversity pervades only base souls in the Chamber, those hearts consumed by low ambition or the prosaic lovers of highly paid positions. No, it also and above all attacks elite souls, noble hearts, and powerful intellects. To quell and subdue them, it just has to awaken in the secret depths of their consciences, in place of the following trivial thought: You will achieve your dreams of wealth, another no less attractive: You will achieve your dreams of public good.

We have a remarkable example of this. There is not in France a man’s head on which as many accusations, verbal abuses, and flagrant insults have been heaped as on that of M. Guizot. If the language used by the parties contained bloodier epithets than turncoat, traitor, or apostate, they would not have been spared him. However, there is one reproach that I have never [379] heard formulated or even insinuated against him, that of having used parliamentary success to boost his personal wealth. I acknowledge that he pushes probity to the point of self-sacrifice. I accept that he will never seek personal triumph other than the better to ensure the triumph of his principles. This is, moreover, a form of ambition that he has formally admitted.

So, we have seen this austere philosopher and man of principle in opposition. What did he do there? Everything that might suggest a thirst for power. For example, he displayed democratic views that are not his own, he adopted a mantle of fierce patriotism of which he does not approve, he caused embarrassment to his country’s government, he contrived obstacles to the most important negotiations, he fomented coalitions, and he formed leagues with any individuals, even enemies of the throne, provided that they were enemies of some minister. Being out of office, he opposed matters he would have supported within office. He supported the direction of the batteries of Ancona against M. Molé, just as M. Thiers directs the batteries of Morocco against him. In short, he conjured up a ministerial crisis with all his determination and might and deliberately created for his own future government the difficulties that result from such precedents. That is what he did, and why? Because in the Charter there is an Article 46, a tempting serpent which told him:

“You will be equal to the gods; achieve power, by whatever route, and you will be the savior of the country!” And so the deputy, beguiled, made speeches, set out doctrines, and carried out acts which his conscience condemned, but he said to himself: “This is necessary to reach office; once I have reached it, I will adopt once more my genuine philosophy and true principles.”

Is there any need for further examples? My God, the history of the war for portfolios is the entire history of parliament.

I am not attacking anyone in particular; I am attacking the institution. If the prospect of power is offered to deputies, it is impossible for the Chamber to be other than a battlefield.

Let us see what is happening in England. In 1840 the government was on the point of bringing about free trade. However, there was one man in the opposition, imbued with the doctrines of Smith,32 a man who couldn’t sleep at the thought of Canning’s and Huskisson’s glory, who wished at all costs to be the instrument of this vast revolution. It was going to be accomplished [380] without him. What did he do? He declared himself the protector of protection. He aroused every shred of ignorance, prejudice, and egoism in the country. He rallied the terrified aristocracy and aroused the popular classes who were so easy to mislead. He combated his own principles in Parliament and on the hustings. He ousted the reforming government. He came to office with the express mission of closing the ports of Great Britain to foreign goods. As a result, a deluge of ills, unprecedented in the annals of history and which the Whigs had hoped to avert, swamped England. Production stopped; inactivity desolated both town and country, escorted by its two faithful satellites, crime and illness. Everyone with intellect or heart rose up against this frightful oppression and Mr. Peel, in betrayal of his party and the majority, came to Parliament to admit: “I made a mistake, I was wrong, I renounce protection and give my country free trade.” No, he was not mistaken. He was as much of an economist in 1840 as he was in 1846. But he wanted glory and for that he delayed the triumph of truth, through countless calamities, for six years.

There are therefore very few deputies whom the prospect of positions and portfolios does not cause to swerve from the line of rectitude in which their constituents hope to see them walk. It would not be so bad if the harm did not go beyond the walls of the Palais Bourbon! But, as you know, sir, the two armies who dispute power carry their battlefield outside. The warlike masses are everywhere; only the leaders are in the Chamber and it is from there that they issue orders. They are fully aware that, to reach the center of the fort, they have to conquer the outer works, the newspapers, popularity, public opinion, and electoral majorities. It is thus fatal for all these forces, to the extent that they enroll under the banner of one of the line commanders, to become imbued and permeated with the same insincerity. Journalism, from one end of France to the other, no longer discusses the measures; it pleads their cause and not from the point of view of whether they contain good or evil points in themselves but from the sole viewpoint of the help they can temporarily provide to one or the other leader. It is well known that there are few eminent journalists whose future will not be affected by the outcome of this portfolio war. What policy is the prime minister pursuing in Texas,33 Lebanon, Tahiti, Morocco, or Madagascar? It does not matter. [381] The progovernment press has a single motto, È sempre bene;34 while the opposition press espouses what the old woman in the satire had written on her petticoat for us to see: Argumentabor.35

It would need a more experienced pen than mine to recount all the harm done in France by the partisan press, who (mark my words, this is the core of my thesis) disseminate their views solely to serve a particular deputy who wants to become a minister. You have access to the king, sir, I don’t like to involve him in these discussions. However, I am able to say, since this is the opinion held by Europe, that he has contributed to maintaining world peace. But perhaps you have witnessed what sweat in the form of moral exertions is needed to wrench out of him this success worthy of the acclaim of nations. What is the reason for all this sweat, these problems, this resistance to such a noble task? Because at a given moment, peace was not supported by public opinion. And why was it not supported? Because it did not suit certain newspapers. And why did it not suit certain newspapers? Because it was unwelcome to a particular deputy. And why finally was it unwelcome to this deputy? Because peace was the policy of the ministers, and therefore war was necessarily that of those deputies who wished to become ministers. Indubitably, this is the root of the evil.

Shall I make mention of Ancona, the fortifications of Paris, Algiers, the events in 1840, visiting rights, tariffs, anglophobia, and so many other questions in which journalism led public opinion astray, not because it was itself led astray but because this was part of a coldly premeditated plan whose success was of importance to a particular ministerial alliance?

I prefer to quote here the admissions that were themselves proclaimed by journalism in the most widely distributed of its outlets, La Presse (17 November 1845).

“M. Petetin describes the press as he sees it, as he prefers to dream it. In all good faith does he believe that, when Le Constitutionnel, Le Siècle, etc., attack M. Guizot, when in turn Le Journal des débats confronts M. Thiers, these broadsheets are campaigning uniquely on philosophical grounds, for truth as provoked by the interior needs of conscience? To define the press in these terms is to paint it as one imagines it, not as it really is. It does not cost us anything to state this, since while we are journalists, we are less so by vocation than by circumstance. Every day we see newspapers in the service of [382] human passion, rival ambition, ministerial alliances, parliamentary intrigue, and political calculations of every hue, the most violently opposed and the least noble, and we see them closely involved in this. However, we rarely see them in the service of ideas, and when by chance a newspaper happens to espouse an idea, this is never on its own merits, it is always as a ministerial instrument with which to defend or attack. He who is penning these lines is speaking from experience. Every time he has attempted to draw journalism out of the rut of party politics and introduce it to the field of ideas and reforms, to the path of wholesome applications of economic science to public administration, he found himself alone and had to acknowledge that outside the narrow circle traced by the assembled letters of four or five names, there was no possibility of discussion. There was no policy. What good does it do to deny this evil? Does it stop it existing? When newspapers do not ally themselves with special interests, they ally themselves with passions and when these are themselves examined closely, in the majority of cases these passions are merely selfish interests. This is the truth of the matter.”

What, sir, are you not scandalized, not appalled by this terrible admission? Or do you still have some doubt as to the cause of a situation so fraught with humiliation and peril? It is not I who am speaking. It is not a misanthropist, a republican, or a seditionist. It is the press itself that has unveiled its secret and is telling you to what depths this institution whose morality inspires such confidence in you has reduced it. The place where laws are supposed to be debated has been transformed into a battlefield. The destiny of the country, war and peace, justice and iniquity, order and anarchy count for nothing, absolutely nothing in themselves; they are instruments of combat that are taken up and put down according to one’s own imperatives. What does it matter that at each turn of this impious struggle upheaval is experienced throughout the country? It has scarcely returned to calm when the armies change position and the combat is once more engaged with even more fervor.

Finally, do I have to demonstrate the existence of partisan spirit, this insidious worm, this devouring cancer which draws its life and strength from the eligibility of deputies for executive power, within the electoral college? I am not speaking here of opinions, passions, and political errors. I am not even speaking of the faintheartedness or venality of certain consciences; it is beyond the power of the law to make men perfect. I am targeting only the passions and vices which directly result from the cause I am discussing, which is linked to the portfolio war engaged in within the Chambers [383] and waged over the entire range of the newspapers. Is it really so difficult to calculate its effect on the electoral body? And when, day after day, the tribune and press make a point of preventing anything but false glimmers, false judgments, false quotations, and false assertions reaching the public, is it possible to have any confidence in the verdict pronounced by the grand national jury thus misled, circumvented, and impassioned? What is it called upon to judge? Its own interests. Never does anyone speak of these to it, for ministerial battle is waged at Ancona, Tahiti, in Syria, wherever the public is not to be found. And what does it know of what is going on in these far-off regions? Only what it is told by orators and writers who, on their own admission, do not utter a single word either orally or in writing that is not inspired by the intense desire for personal success.

And then, suppose I wished to raise the veil that covers not only the errors but the turpitudes of the electoral urn! Why does the elector ensure that his vote is so valued, require it to be sought, and consider it as a valuable object of commerce? Because he knows that this vote contains the fortune of the fortunate candidate who is soliciting it. Why, for his part, is the candidate so flexible, so crawling, so generous with his promises, and so little concerned with any shred of dignity? Because he has ulterior motives, because the position of deputy is a stepping-stone for him, because the constitution of the country enables him to see in the distance, should he succeed, intoxicating prospects, positions, honors, wealth, power, and this golden cloak which hides all shame and absolves all base acts.

So, where are we now with all this? Where are the electors now? How many of them dare to remain and show themselves to be honest? How many will honestly deposit a ballot in the urn which faithfully expresses their political beliefs? Oh! They would be afraid of being seen as idiots and dupes. They are careful to trumpet loudly the bargain they have made of their vote and they will be seen to deposit their own ignominy at the door of the church rather than to cast doubt on their deplorable cunning. If there are still a few virtues that have survived this major shipwreck, these are negative virtues. They believe nothing, hope for nothing, and keep themselves from being contaminated, in the words of some poet or another:

• A calm indifference
• is the surest of virtues.36

They let things happen, that is all. In the meantime, ministers, deputies, and candidates sink under the burden of promises and undertakings. And what is the result? This. The government and the Chamber change roles. “Do you wish to let me dispose of all jobs?” say the deputies. “Do you wish to let me decide on the laws and the budget?” reply the ministers. And each abandons the office for which he is responsible for one which does not concern him. I ask you, is this representative government?

But it does not stop there. There are other things in France than ministers, deputies, candidates, journalists, and electors. There is the general public, thirty million men who are being accustomed to being counted for nothing. They do not see this, you may say, and proof of this is their indifference. Ah, do not become confident in this seeming blindness. While they do not see the cause of the evil, they see its effects, the budget constantly increasing, their rights and titles trampled underfoot, and all favors becoming the price of electoral bargains from which they are excluded. Please God that they learn to link their suffering to its true cause, for irritation is growing in their hearts. They are seeking the means of enfranchising themselves and woe to the country if they make a mistake. They are seeking, and universal suffrage is taking hold of all minds. They are seeking, and communism is spreading like wildfire. They are seeking, and while you are drawing a veil over the hideous wound, who can count the errors, the theories, or illusions in which they think they have found a remedy for their ills and a brake against your injustices?

In this way, everyone is suffering from a state of affairs so profoundly illogical and vicious. However, if the full extent of the evil is appreciated somewhere, it must be at the summit of the social scale. I cannot believe that such statesmen as M. Guizot, M. Thiers, or M. Molé can be in contact with all these turpitudes for so long without having learned to recognize them and calculate their terrifying consequences. It is not possible for them to have been in turn in the ranks, facing systematic opposition, assailed by personal rivalry, and forced to struggle against artificial obstacles placed in their way by the urge to topple them, without saying to themselves that things would be different, administrative authority would be more steady, and the task of government much lighter if deputies could not become ministers.

Oh! If ministers were to deputies what prefects are to general councillors, if the law eliminated in the Chamber those prospects which foment ambition, I consider that a calm and fruitful destiny would be open to all the elements of the social body. The depositories of power might well still [385] encounter errors and passions but never these subversive alliances for which any means are permitted and whose only aspiration is to overthrow one cabinet after another with the support of a fallacious and transitory unpopularity. Deputies could not have interests other than those of their constituents. Electors would not be made to prostitute their votes to selfish views. The press, freed from any links with leaders of parties which would no longer exist, would fulfill its proper role of enlightening public opinion and providing it with a mouthpiece. The people, wisely administered with consistency and economy, and who are happy or who cannot hold the authorities responsible for their sufferings, would not let themselves be beguiled with the most dangerous utopias. Finally the king, whose thoughts would no longer be a mystery to anyone, would hear during his lifetime the judgment that history reserves for him.

I am not unaware, sir, of the objections that may be made to parliamentary reform. There are disadvantages to it. But, my goodness, everything has its disadvantages. The press, civil liberty juries, and the monarchy have theirs. The question is never to see whether a reformed institution has disadvantages, but whether that institution without reform does not have even greater ones. And what calamities might emanate from a Chamber of taxpayers that are not equal to those which are disseminated over the country by a Chamber of ambitious deputies who are fighting each other for the possession of power?

It is said that such a Chamber would be too democratic, driven by passions that are too popular. It would represent the nation. Is it in the nation’s interest to be badly administered, invaded by foreigners, such that justice is not rendered?

The strongest objection, unceasingly repeated, is that the Chamber would lack enlightenment and experience.

There is a lot to say on this subject, However, if the exclusion of civil servants gives rise to dangers, if it appears to violate the rights of honorable men who are also citizens, if it circumscribes the liberty of electors, would it not be possible, while opening the gates of the Palais Bourbon to the agents of government, to circumscribe their presence with precautions dictated by the most elementary prudence?

You are not expecting me to formulate a draft law at this point. However, I consider that public good sense would approve a measure drafted in terms of this sort:

“All French citizens, without distinction of profession, are eligible (except [386] for exceptional cases in which a high official position would imply direct influence on voting, such as that of prefect, etc.).

“All deputies would receive suitable, uniform remuneration.

“Elected civil servants would resign their functions for the period of their mandate. They would not receive payment. They may neither be dismissed nor promoted. In a word, their life in the administration would be totally suspended and start again only once their legislative mission has expired.

“No deputy may be called upon to fill a public position.”

Finally, far from admitting, as Messrs. Gauguier, Rumilly, Thiers, and others have done, that exceptions would be made on the principle of conflict of interest in favor of ministries, embassies, and all those functions known as political positions, it is exactly those that I wish to exclude, mercilessly and in the first place, since it is clear to me that it is the aspiring ambassadors and ministers who upset the world. Without wishing in the least to offend the leaders of parliamentary reform who put forward exceptions like these, I dare to say that they do not perceive or wish to perceive the millionth part of the evils that result from the eligibility of deputies for public office, that their so-called reform does not reform anything, and that it is just an underhand measure, one that is limited, with no social purchase, dictated by a narrow sentiment of base and unjust jealousy.

But, you say, what about Article 46 of the Charter? I have no answer to this. Is the Charter made for us or are we made for the Charter? Is the Charter the final expression of human wisdom? Is it a sacred Koran descended from heaven, whose effects may not be examined however disastrous they may be? Should we say: Let the country perish rather than change a comma in the Charter? If this is so, I have nothing to say, other than: Electors! The Charter does not forbid your using your vote for deplorable purposes, but it does not order you to do so either. Quid leges sine moribus?37

In ending this all too long letter, I should reply to what you tell me of your personal position. I will refrain from doing so. You consider that the reform, if it takes place, cannot affect you since you do not depend on responsible power but in fact on irresponsible power. Good for you! The legislature has decided that this position does not lead to legal incapacity. It is up to the electors to decide whether this does not constitute the clearest imaginable form of moral incapacity.

On 28 March 1831, Bastiat was appointed a justice of the peace of Mugron County.

“Favors ought to be extended; disagreeable things ought to be restricted.”

Reference to a proposed electoral reform intended to widen the electorate by lowering the required level of tax payment and admitting candidates exercising certain professions previously restricted.

“What are laws without customs?”

In order to stop disturbances in the papal states, Pope Gregory XVI called upon Austria for assistance. On 28 June 1832, Austrian troops entered Bologna, Italy. For reasons of diplomatic balance, a French garrison was sent to the seaport of Ancona, about 120 miles southeast of Bologna. The garrison remained in Ancona until 1838.

In 1842 Tahiti was a French protectorate. Following incidents with English ships, Admiral Dupetit-Thouars transformed it into a territory of “direct sovereignty.” This created tension between London and Paris. The latter disavowed the admiral on 24 February 1844.

France supported Mehmet Ali, pasha of Egypt, over Syria, part of the Ottoman Empire. England and Russia supported the sultan.

A brief conflict arose between France and Morocco in 1844 because Morocco refused to sign the Treaty of Tangiers, allowing cruisers of the signatory states to control merchant ships in order to ascertain the absence of slaves. This “right of search” did not fail to raise trouble between France and England for a while, as English cruisers, outnumbering those of other nations, exerted a de facto policing of the seas.

Adam Smith.

In 1844 the U.S. Congress accepted the entrance of Texas into the Union. The French and English governments had advised the Texas governor against it.

“It is always good.”

“I shall prove it.”

Source unknown.

See note 27, p. 371.

IX. Theft by Subsidy291 [January 1846] (final draft)↩

• Original title, place and date of publication: "Le vol à la prime" (Theft by Subsidy) [Journal des Économistes, January 1846, T. XIII, pp. 115-120].
• Published as book or pamphlet: 1st French edition of ES2 alone 1848. 1st edition combined ES1 & ES2 1851.
• Location in Paillottet's edition: Oeuvres complètes (1st ed. 1854-55), Vol. 4: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I. (1854), 2nd ed., pp. 189-98.
• Previous translation: 1st American ed. 1848, 1st British ed. 1873, FEE ed. 1964. See "Note on the Publishing History."

People find my small volume of Sophisms too theoretical, scientific and metaphysical. So be it. Let us try a mundane, banal and, if necessary, brutal style. Since I am convinced that the general public are easily taken in as far as protection is concerned, I wanted to prove it to them. They prefer to be shouted at. So let us shout:

Midas, King Midas has ass's ears!292

An explosion of plain speaking often has more effect than the politest circumlocutions. Do you remember Oronte and the difficulty that the Misanthropist293, as misanthropic as he is, has in convincing him of his folly?

Alceste: We risk playing the wrong character.

Oronte: Are you trying to tell me by that that I am wrong in wanting …

Alceste: I am not saying that, but …

Oronte: Do I write badly?

Alceste: I am not saying that, but in the end …

Oronte: But can I not know what there is in my sonnet …?

Alceste: Frankly it is fit to be flushed away.

Frankly, my good people, you are being robbed. That is plain speaking but at least it is clear.

The words, theft, to steal and thief seem to many people to be in bad taste.294 Echoing the words of Harpagon to Elise295, I ask them: Is it the word or the thing that makes you afraid?

"Whosoever has fraudulently taken something that does not belong to him is guilty of theft." (Penal Code, Article 379).

To steal: To take something furtively or by force (The Dictionary of the Academy).

Thief: A person who exacts more than is due to him. (Ditto)296

Well, is not a monopolist who, through a law he has drafted, obliges me to pay him 20 fr. for something I can buy elsewhere for 15, fraudulently taking away 5 fr. that belongs to me?

Is he not taking it furtively or by force?

Is he not exacting more than is due to him?

He withdraws, takes or exacts, people will say, but not furtively or by force, which is what characterizes theft.

When our tax forms show a charge of 5 fr. for the subsidy that is withdrawn, taken or exacted by the monopolist, what can be more furtive, since so few of us suspect it? And for those who are not taken in by it, what can be more forced, since at the first refusal we have the bailiffs at our heels?

Anyway let monopolists rest assured. Theft by subsidy or tariff does not violate the law, although it transgresses equity as much as highway robbery does; this type of theft, on the contrary is carried out by law. This makes it worse but does not lead to the magistrate's court.

Besides, whether we like it or not, we are all robbers and robbed in this connection. It is useless for the author of this volume to cry thief when he makes a purchase, the same could be shouted at him when he sells297; if he differs considerably from his fellow countrymen, it is only in this respect: he knows that he loses more than he gains in this game, and they do not know this; if they did, the game would cease in a very short time.

What is more, I do not boast that I am the first to give this situation its real name. More than sixty years ago, Smith said:298

"When businessmen get together, we can expect a conspiracy to be woven against the pockets of the general public."

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices."299 Should we be surprised at this, since the general public pays no attention to it?

Well then, an assembly of businessmen officially has discussions under the authority of the General Councils.300 What goes on there and what is decided upon?

Here is a highly abridged version of the minutes of a meeting.

A SHIP OWNER: Our fleet is on the ropes (aggressive interruption). This is not surprising because I cannot build without iron. I can certainly find it at 10 fr. on the world market but, according to the law, French ironmasters force me to pay them 15 fr.; therefore 5 fr. is being taken from me. I demand the freedom to buy wherever I like.

AN IRONMASTER: On the world market, I can find transport at 20 fr. By law, ship owners demand 30 for this; they are therefore taking 10 fr. from me. They are looting me, so I loot them, and everything is just fine.

A STATESMAN: The ship ship-owner's conclusion is very rash. Oh! Let us cultivate the touching unity which gives us our strength; if we remove one iota of the theory of protectionism, the entire theory will go by the board.

THE SHIP OWNER: But protection has failed us; I repeat that the fleet is on the ropes.

A SAILOR: Well then! Let us raise a surtax and let ship owners who take 30 from the public for freight take 40.

A MINISTER: The government will push the excellent device of the surtax to the limit, but I am afraid that it will not be enough.301.

A CIVIL SERVANT: You are all worrying about nothing. Does our salvation lie only in tariffs, and are you forgetting taxation? If consumers are generous, taxpayers are no less so. Let us burden them with taxes, and let ship owners be satisfied. I propose a subsidy of 5 fr. to be taken from public taxes to be handed over to builders for each quintal of iron they use.

Mixed cries: Hear! Hear! A farmer: Let me have a subsidy of 3 fr. per hectoliter of wheat! A weaver: Let me have a subsidy of 2 fr. per meter of cloth! etc. etc.

THE CHAIRMAN: This is what has been agreed. Our meeting has given birth to the system of subsidies and this will be its eternal gory. What industry will be able to make a loss in the future, since we have two very simple means of changing losses into profits: Tariffs and subsidies? The meeting is at an end."

Some supernatural vision must have shown me in a dream the next apparition of the subsidy (who knows even whether I had not put the thought into the mind of Mr. Dupin302) when I wrote the following words a few months ago:

"It seems obvious to me that protection, without changing either its nature and effects, might have taken the form of a direct tax levied by the State and distributed as indemnity subsidies to privileged industries."

And, after comparing protectionist duties with subsidies:

"I admit frankly my preference for the latter system. It seems to me to be more just, more economic and fairer. More just because if society wants to give handouts to a few of its members, everyone has to contribute; more economic because it would save a great deal of collection costs and would cause a great many obstructions to disappear and finally, fairer since the public would see clearly how the operation worked and what they were being made to do."303

Since the opportunity has so kindly been offered to us, let us examine theft by subsidy. What can be said of it applies just as well to theft by tariffs, and while theft by tariffs is slightly better disguised, direct filching304 will help us understand indirect filching. The mind moves forward in this way from the simple to the compound.

What then! Is there no type of theft that is simpler still? Oh, yes, there is highway robbery: all it needs is to be legalized, monopolized or, as we say nowadays, organized.305

Well, this is what I have read in a traveler's account306:

"When we arrived in the kingdom of A, all branches of production claimed to be in difficulty. Agriculture wailed, manufacturing complained, commerce grumbled, shipping groused and the government did not know whom to listen to. First of all, it thought of levying heavy taxes on all those who were discontented and handing out the product of these taxes to them after taking its share: that would have been a lottery, just as in our beloved Spain. There are a thousand of you, the State will take one piastre from each of you; it then subtly pilfers 250 piastres and distributes 750 in lots that vary in size between the players. Forgetting that he has given a whole piastre, the upright Hidalgo who receives three-quarters of a piastre, cannot contain his joy and runs off to spend his fifteen reals in the bar. This would have been similar to what is happening in France. Be that as it may, as barbarous as this country was, the government did not think that its inhabitants were stupid enough to accept such strange forms of protection, so it thought up the following scheme.

The country was criss-crossed with roads. The government measured them accurately and said to the farmers: "Everything that you can steal from passers-by between these two posts is yours; let it serve as a subsidy , protection and motivation for you." It then assigned to each manufacturer and ship owner a section of road to exploit in accordance with this formula:

Dono tibi et concedo 307 [I give to you and I grant]
Virtutem et puissantiam [virtue and power]
Volandi [to steal]
Pillandi [to plunder]
Derobandi [to filch]
Filoutandi [to swindle]
Et escroquandi [to defraud]
Impune per totam istam [At will, along this whole]
Viam [road] 308

"Well, it so happened that the natives of the kingdom of A. are now so familiar with this regime and so accustomed to take account only of what they steal and not of what is stolen from them, so essentially inclined to regarding pillage only from the point of view of the pillager, that they see the tally of all individual thefts as profits to the nation and refuse to abandon a system of protection outside of which, they say, there is no form of production capable of surviving."

Are you astounded? It is not possible, you say, that an entire nation should agree to see what the inhabitants steal from one another as an increase in wealth.

Why not? We are certainly convinced of this in France, and every day we organize and perfect here the mutual theft that goes under the name of subsidies and protective tariffs.

Even so, let us not exaggerate. Let us agree that viewed from the angle of the method of collection and taking account of the collateral circumstances, the system in the kingdom of A. might be worse than ours, but let us also say that as far as the principles and necessary effects are concerned, there is not an atom of difference between all these types of theft that are legally organized to provide additional profit to producers.

Note that if highway robbery has several disadvantages as to its execution, it also has advantages that are absent from theft by tariffs.

For example: with highway robbery, an equitable share can be given to all the producers. This is not so for customs duties. These by their very nature are powerless to protect certain sectors of society, such as artisans, merchants, men of letters, lawyers, soldiers, odd-job men, etc. etc.

It is true that theft by subsidy also provides opportunities for an infinite number of subdivisions, and from this angle it is no less perfect than highway robbery. On the other hand, however, it often leads to such strange, idiotic results that the native inhabitants of the kingdom of A. might very justifiably laugh at them.

What the person robbed loses in highway robbery is gained by the robber. At least the object stolen remains in the country. However, under the sway of theft by subsidy, what is taken from the French is often given to the Chinese, the Hottentots, the Kaffirs or the Algonquins, in the following way:

A piece of cloth is worth one hundred francs in Bordeaux. It is impossible to sell it below this price without making a loss. It is impossible to sell it for more because competition between merchants prevents this. In these circumstances, if a Frenchman comes forward to obtain this cloth, he has to pay one hundred francs or do without it. But if an Englishman comes along, then the government intervenes and says to the seller: "Sell your cloth and I will see that you are given twenty francs by the taxpayers. The merchant, who does not want nor is able to obtain more than one hundred francs for his cloth, hands it over to the Englishman for 80 francs. This sum, added to the 20 francs, produced from the theft by subsidy, makes his price exactly. It is exactly as though taxpayers had given 20 francs to the Englishman on condition that he buys French cloth at a discount of 20 francs, at 20 francs below production cost and 20 francs below what it costs us ourselves. Therefore, theft by subsidy has this particular characteristic, that those robbed are in the country that tolerates it and the robbers are spread out over the surface of the globe.

It is truly miraculous that the following proposition continues to be held as proven: Anything that an individual steals from the whole is a general profit. Perpetual motion, the philosopher's stone or the squaring of the circle have fallen into oblivion, but the theory of Advancement through theft is still in fashion. However, a priori, we might have thought that of all forms of childishness, this is the least viable.

There are some who tell us: "Are you then in favor of laissez passer?309 Economists of the outdated school of Smith and Say? Do you therefore not want work to be organized?"310 Well, Sirs, organize work as much as you like. We, for our part, will see that you do not organize theft.

A greater number repeat: "Subsidies and tariffs have all been used excessively. They have to be used without being abused. Wise freedom combined with a moderate form of protection is what is being claimed by serious and practical men.311 Let us beware of absolute principles.312

According to the Spanish traveler, this is precisely what was being said in the kingdom of A. "Highway robbery", said the wise men, " is neither good not bad; it all depends on the circumstances. It is just a question of weighting things correctly and paying us, the civil servants, for the work involved in this moderation. Perhaps too much latitude has been given to pillage and perhaps not enough. Let us look at, examine and weigh in the balance the accounts of each worker. To those who do not earn enough, we will give an extra length of road to exploit. To those who earn too much, we will reduce the hours, days or months of pillage."

Those who said these things acquired a great reputation for moderation, prudence and wisdom. They never failed to attain the highest positions in the State.

As for those who said: "Let us repress all injustices as well as the lesser forms of injustice. Let us not tolerate theft, half-theft or quarter-theft", these were taken for ideologues, boring dreamers always repeating the same thing. The people, in any case, find their reasoning too easy to understand. How can you believe what is so simple?

291 (Paillottet's note) Taken from the issue of Le Journal des Economistes dated January 1846.

292 This might also be translated as "The Emperor has no clothes!" King Midas was ruler of the Greek kingdom of region Phrygia (in modern day Turkey) sometime on the 8th century BC. According to legend, after he had been granted the power to turn anything he touched into gold, he became disillusioned and retired to the country where he fell in love with Pan's flute music. In a competition between Pan and Apollo to see who played the best music King Midas chose Pan's flute over Apollo's lyre. Apollo was so incensed at the tin ears of Midas he turned them into the ears of a donkey.

293 This is a scene, in highly truncated form, from Molière's play The Misanthrope (1666), Act I Scene II. Alceste is a misanthrope who is trying to tell Oronte, a foolish nobleman, that his verse is poorly written and worthless. After many attempts at avoiding the answer with circumlocutions Alceste finally says that "Franchement, il est bon à metre au cabinet" (frankly, it is only good to be thrown into the toilet). Théatre complet de J.-B. Poquelin de Molière, publié par D. Jouast en huit volumes avec la preface de 1682, annotée par G. Monval, vol. 4 (Paris: Librairie des bibliophiles, 1882), p. 86. See the glossary entry on "Molière."

294 Bastiat uses a variety of words in his attempt to speak plainly and brutally in this chapter. Here is a list with our preferred translation for each: "dépouiller"(to dispossess), "spolier" (to plunder), "voler" (to steal), "piller" (to loot or pillage), "filouter" (filching); and variants such as "le vol de grand chemin" (highway robbery). See "Plain Speaking" in the "Note on the Translation" for details.

295 From Molière's play L'Avare (The Miser) (1668). The miserly moneylender, Harpagon, asks his daughter, Elise, who wishes to get away from the family by marrying Valère, whether she fears the fact of marriage or the word "marriage". She is more concerned about her father not taking into account their love for each other but only financial concerns. Théatre complet de J.-B. Poquelin de Molière, publié par D. Jouast en huit volumes avec la preface de 1682, annotée par G. Monval, vol. 6 (Paris: Librairie des bibliophiles, 1892), Act I, Scene IV, p. 23. See the glossary entry on "Molière."

296 Bastiat provides an accurate but somewhat truncated definition from the 6th edition of 1835 of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française. The full definition of "to steal" is "Prendre furtivement ou par force la chose d'autrui, pour se l'approprier" (to take furtively or by force something belonging to another in order to appropriate it for oneself); and of "thief", definition 1 "Celui, celle qui a volé, ou qui vole habituellement" (someone who has stolen or who steals habitually) (not quoted by Bastiat), or definition 2 "Celui qui exige plus qu'il ne devrait demander" (someone who demands more than he ought to demand). See Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (Paris: Didot frères, 1835. 6e édition). Online at The ARTFL Project. Dictionnaires d'autrefois. <https://portail.atilf.fr/dictionnaires/onelook.htm>.

297 (Bastiat's note) Since he owns some land, which provides him with a living, he belongs to the class of the protected. This circumstance should disarm critics. It shows that, where he uses harsh expressions, it is against the thing itself and not against people's intentions. [DMH - letter in vol. 1 where FB expresses doubt about justice of his family's land holdings???] [Letter to Paillottet, 11 october, 1850, OC vol. 1, p. 280.]

298 Adam Smith (1723-1790) was a leading figure in the Scottish Enlightenment and one of the founders of modern economic thought with his work The Wealth of Nations (1776). An important French edition of the Wealth of Nations was published by Guillaumin with notes and commentary by leading French economists such as Blanqui, Garnier, Sismondi, and Say and appeared in 1843. See the glossary entry on "Smith."

299 This is a colourful but not accurate translation by Bastiat of Smith's well-known comment about what people in the same business do when they get together: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices." It comes from Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. I ed. R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, vol. II of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981). I.x.c., Part II: Inequalities occasioned by the Policy of Europe. </title/220/217407/2313110>. However, Smith on a couple of occasions did refer to governments taking money out of the pockets of taxpayers as the following quotation shows: "Those modes of taxation, by stamp–duties and by duties upon registration, are of very modern invention. In the course of little more than a century, however, stamp–duties have, in Europe, become almost universal, and duties upon registration extremely common. There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people." From Wealth of Nations, V. ii. h, Appendix to articles i and ii: Taxes upon the Capital Value of Lands, Houses, and Stock. </title/200/217522/2316719>. This might be another example of Bastiat quoting from memory and conflating two different passages by Smith.

300 The General Councils for Commerce (1802), Manufacturing (1810), and Agriculture (1819) were set up within the Ministry of the Interior to bring together commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural elites to advise the government and to comment on legislation. Their membership came from either members of the chambers of commerce and industry or by appointment by the minister concerned. See the glossary entry on "General Councils."

301 (Bastiat's note) Here is the text: "I will again quote the customs laws dated 9th and 11th June last, whose object is in the main to encourage long-distance shipping by increasing the surtaxes attached to foreign flags on several articles. Our customs laws, as you know, are generally aimed at this object and gradually, the surtax of 10 francs, established by the law dated 28th April 1816 and often inadequate, is disappearing to give way to … more effective protection, which is in closer harmony with the relatively high cost of our shipping." This word disappearing is priceless. (The opening speech of Mr. Cunin-Gridaine, in the meeting on 15th December 1845). [DMH - We have not been able to find the source of this reference.] Laurent Cunin-Gridaine (1778-1859) was a very successful textile manufacturer who was Minister for Trade from 1840 to 1848 and a strong supporter of protection for the textile industry. See the glossary entry on "Cunin-Gridaine."

302 Charles Dupin (1784-1873) was a pioneer in mathematical economics and worked for the statistical office of France. In 1828 he was elected deputy for Tarn, was made a Peer in 1830, and served in the Constituent and then the National Assemblies during the Second Republic. See the glossary entry on "Dupin."

303 (Bastiat's note) Chapter V of the first series of Economic Sophisms, pages 49 and 50.

304 Here Bastiat uses more of a slang word, "le filoutage" from the verb "filouter" (to filch, swipe, or rob). We translate it here as "filching".

305 Bastiat is referring to one of the commonly used socialist slogans of the mid-1840s, namely "organization" (the organization of labor advocated by Blanc) and "association" (cooperative living and working arrangements advocated by Fourier). See the glossary entry on "Association and Organization."

306 This is invented by Bastiat in order to display one of his cleverest parodies which is a parody of Molière's parody of 17th century doctors. See the glossary entry on "Molière."

307 This pseudo latin is partly made from French words. We provide a translation in brackets.

308 Bastiat is making a parody of Molière's parody of the granting of a degree of doctor of medicine in the last play he wrote Le malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid, or the Hypocondriac) (1673). Molière had a very low opinion of the practice of 17th century medicine with its purges and use of leeches. The play ends with an elaborate dance of doctors and apothecaries (and would be doctors) in which a new doctor is inducted into the fraternity. Most of the dialog is in Latin, including the swearing in of the new doctor (Bachelierus) by Praeses who says: "Ego, cum isto boneto / Venerabili et doctor, / Don tibi et concedo / Virtutem et puissanciam / Medicandi, / Purgandi, / Seignandi, / Perçandi, / Taillandi, / Coupandi, / Et occidendi / Impune per total terram." This might be loosely translated as (thanks to Arthur Goddard's excellent translation in the FEE edition, p. 194): "I give and grant you / Power and authority to / Practice medicine, / Purge, / Bleed, / Stab, / Hack, / Slash, / and Kill / With impunity / Throughout the whole world." See Théatre complet de J.-B. Poquelin de Molière, publié par D. Jouast en huit volumes avec la preface de 1682, annotée par G. Monval, vol. 8 (Paris: Librairie des bibliophiles, 1883), Third Interlude, p. 286. See the glossary entry on "Molière."

309 This is the second half of the Physiocrats' policy advice to the government, "laissez-faire, laissez-passer" (let us be free to do what we will and to be free to go wherever we will) See the glossary entries on the "Physiocrats," "Laissez-faire," "Adam Smith," and "Jean-Baptiste Say."

310 The rallying cry of many socialists in the 1840s was that workers and factories be "organized" by the state and not be left to the uncertainties of the free market. See the glossary entry on "Association and Organization."

311 See also ES3 XI "The Specialists" below, pp. ???

312 See also ES1 XVIII "The are no Absolute Details" above, pp. ???