JACQUES BONHOMME: If butter is dear, it is not because you pay high wages to the workmen, it is not even because you make exorbitant profits; it is solely because Paris is ill-adapted for that branch of industry; it is because you have wished to make in the town what should be made in the country, and in the country what should be made in the town. The people have not more employment—only they have employment of a different kind. They have no higher wages; while they can no longer buy com- modities as cheaply as formerly. THE PEOPLE: Hurrah for Cheapness! PETER: This man seduces you with fine words. Let us place the question before you in all its simplicity. Is it, or is it not true, that if we admit firewood, meat, and butter freely or at a lower duty, our markets will be inundated? Believe me there is no other means of preserving ourselves from this new species of invasion but to keep the door shut, and to maintain the prices of commod- ities by rendering them artificially scarce. A VERY FEW VOICES IN THE CROWD: Hurrah for Scarcity! JACQUES BONHOMME: Let us bring the question to the simple test of truth. You cannot divide among the people of Paris commodities that are not in Paris. If there be less meat, less fire- wood, less butter, the share falling to each will be smaller. Now there must be less if we prohibit what should be allowed to enter the city. Parisians, abundance for each of you can be secured only by general abundance. THE PEOPLE: Hurrah for Abundance! PETER: It is in vain that this man tries to persuade you that it is your interest to be subjected to unbridled competition. THE PEOPLE: Down with Competition! JACQUES BONHOMME: It is in vain that this man tries to make you fall in love with restriction. THE PEOPLE: Down with Restriction! PETER: I declare, for my own part, if you deprive the poor ranchers and pig-drivers of their daily bread, if you sacrifice them to theories, I can no longer be answerable for public order. Economic Sophisms—Second Series 397 Social Fallacies 2 Chap Eleven.qxd 7/6/2007 11:00 AM Page 397 Workmen, distrust that man. He is the agent of perfidious Nor- mandy, and is prompted by the foreigner. He is a traitor, and ought to be hanged! (The people preserve silence.) JACQUES BONHOMME: Parisians, what I have told you today, I told you twenty years ago, when Peter set himself to work the town dues for his own profit and to your detriment. I am not, then, an agent of Normandy. Hang me, if you will, but that will not make oppression anything else than oppression. Friends, it is neither Jacques nor Peter that you must kill, but liberty if you fear it, or restriction if it does you harm. THE PEOPLE: Hang nobody, and set everybody free. 398 The Bastiat Collection Social Fallacies 2 Chap Eleven.qxd 7/6/2007 11:00 AM Page 398 12 SOMETHING ELSE hat is restriction?” “It is partial prohibition.” “What is prohibition?” “Absolute restriction.” “So that what holds true of the one, holds true of the other?” “Yes; the difference is only one of degree. There is between them the same relation as there is between a circle and the arc of a circle.” “Then, if prohibition is bad, restriction cannot be good?” “No more than the arc can be correct if the circle is irregu- lar.” “What is the name which is common to restriction and pro- hibition?” “Protection.” “What is the definitive effect of protection?” “To exact from men a greater amount of labor for the same result.” “Why are men attached to the system of protection?” 399 “ W Social Fallacies 2 Chap Twelve.qxd 7/6/2007 11:00 AM Page 399 “Because as liberty enables us to obtain the same result with less labor, this apparent diminution of employment frightens them.” “Why do you say apparent?” “Because all labor saved can be applied to something else.” “To what?” “That I cannot specify, nor is there any need to specify it.” “Why?” “Because if the amount of satisfactions the country at present enjoys could be obtained with one-tenth less labor, no one can enumerate the new enjoyments that men would desire to obtain from the labor left disposable. One man would desire to be bet- ter clothed, another better fed, another better educated, another better amused.” “Explain to me the mechanism and the effects of protection.” “That is not an easy matter. Before entering on consideration of the more complicated cases, we must study it in a very simple one.” “Take as simple a case as you choose.” “You remember how Robinson Crusoe managed to make a plank when he had no saw.” “Yes; he felled a tree, and then, cutting the trunk right and left with his hatchet, he reduced it to the thickness of a board.” “And that cost him much labor?” “Fifteen whole days’ work.” “And what did he live on during that time?” “He had provisions.” “What happened to the hatchet?” “It was blunted by the work.” “Yes; but you perhaps do not know this: that at the moment when Robinson was beginning the work he perceived a plank thrown by the tide upon the seashore.” “Happy accident! He of course ran to appropriate it?” “That was his first impulse; but he stopped short, and began to reason thus with himself: If I get this plank, it will cost me only 400 The Bastiat Collection Social Fallacies 2 Chap Twelve.qxd 7/6/2007 11:00 AM Page 400 the trouble of carrying it, and the time needed to descend and remount the cliff.” “But if I form a plank with my hatchet, first of all, it will pro- cure me fifteen days’ employment; then my hatchet will get blunt, which will furnish me with the additional employment of sharp- ening it; then I shall consume my stock of provisions, which will be a third source of employment in replacing them. Now, labor is wealth. It is clear that I should ruin myself by getting the plank. I must protect my personal labor; and, now that I think of it, I can even increase that labor by throwing back the plank into the sea.” “But this reasoning was absurd.” “No doubt. It is nevertheless the reasoning of every nation that protects itself by prohibition. It throws back the plank that is offered in exchange for a small amount of labor in order to exert a greater amount of labor. Even in the labor of the Customhouse officials it discovers a gain. That gain is represented by the pains Robinson takes to render back to the waves the gift they had offered him. Consider the nation as a collective being, and you will not find between its reasoning and that of Robinson an atom of difference.” “Did Robinson not see that he could devote the time saved to something else?” “What else?” “As long as a man has wants to satisfy and time at his disposal, there is always something to be done. I am not bound to specify the kind of labor he would in such a case undertake.” “I see clearly what labor he could have escaped.” “And I maintain that Robinson, with incredible blindness, confounded the labor with its result, the end with the means, and I am going to prove to you. . . .” “There is no need. Here we have the system of restriction or prohibition in its simplest form. If it appears to you absurd when so put, it is because the two capacities of producer and consumer are in this case mixed up in the same individual.” “Let us pass on, therefore, to a more complicated example.” Economic Sophisms—Second Series 401 Social Fallacies 2 Chap Twelve.qxd 7/6/2007 11:00 AM Page 401 402 The Bastiat Collection “With all my heart. Some time afterwards, Robinson having met with Friday, they united their labor in a common work. In the morning they hunted for six hours, and brought home four bas- kets of game. In the evening they worked in the garden for six hours, and obtained four baskets of vegetables. “One day a canoe touched at the island. A good-looking for- eigner landed, and was admitted to the table of our two recluses. He tasted and commended very much the produce of the garden, and before taking leave of his entertainers, spoke as follows: “ ‘Generous islanders, I inhabit a country where game is much more plentiful than here, but where horticulture is quite unknown. It would be an easy matter to bring you every evening four baskets of game, if you will give me in exchange two baskets of vegetables.’ ” “At these words Robinson and Friday retired to consult, and the debate that took place is too interesting not to be reported in extenso. “FRIDAY: What do you think of it? “ROBINSON: If we accept the proposal, we are ruined. “F.: Are you sure of that? Let us consider. “R.: The case is clear. Crushed by competition, our hunting as a branch of industry is annihilated. “F.: What matters it, if we have the game? “R.: Theory! It will no longer be the product of our labor. “F.: I beg your pardon, sir; for in order to have game we must part with vegetables. “R.: Then, what shall we gain? “F.: The four baskets of game cost us six hours’ work. The foreigner gives us them in exchange for two baskets of vegetables, which cost us only three hours’ work. This places three hours at our disposal. “R.: Say, rather, which are subtracted from our exertions. There is our loss. Labor is wealth, and if we lose a fourth part of our time we shall be less rich by a fourth. “F.: You are greatly mistaken, my good friend. We shall have as much game, and the same quantity of vegetables, and three Social Fallacies 2 Chap Twelve.qxd 7/6/2007 11:00 AM Page 402 hours at our disposal into the bargain. This is progress, or there is no such thing in the world. “R.: You lose yourself in generalities! What should we make of these three hours? “F.: We would do something else. “R.: Ah! I understand you. You cannot come to particulars. Something else, something else—that is easily said. “F.: We can fish, we can ornament our cottage, we can read the Bible. “R.: Utopia! Is there any certainty that we should do either the one or the other? “F.: Very well, if we have no wants to satisfy we can rest. Is repose nothing? “R.: But while we repose we may die of hunger. “F.: My dear friend, you have got into a vicious circle. I speak of a repose which will subtract nothing from our supply of game and vegetables. You always forget that by means of our foreign trade nine hours’ labor will give us the same quantity of provi- sions that we obtain at present with twelve. “R.: It is very evident, Friday, that you have not been edu- cated in Europe, and that you have never read the Moniteur Industriel. If you had, it would have taught you this: that all time saved is sheer loss. The important thing is not to eat or consume, but to work. All that we consume, if it is not the direct produce of our labor, goes for nothing. Do you want to know whether you are rich? Never consider the enjoyments you obtain, but the labor you undergo. This is what the Moniteur Industriel would teach you. For myself, who have no pretensions to be a theorist, the only thing I look at is the loss of our hunting. “F.: What a strange turning upside down of ideas! But . . . “R.: No buts. Moreover, there are political reasons for reject- ing the interested offers of the perfidious foreigner. “F.: Political reasons! “R.: Yes, he only makes us these offers because they are advantageous to him. Economic Sophisms—Second Series 403 Social Fallacies 2 Chap Twelve.qxd 7/6/2007 11:00 AM Page 403 “F.: So much the better, since they are for our advantage like- wise. “R.: Then by this traffic we should place ourselves in a situa- tion of dependence upon him. “F.: And he would place himself in dependence on us. We should have need of his game, and he of our vegetables, and we should live on terms of friendship. “R.: System! Do you want me to shut your mouth? “F.: We shall see about that. I have as yet heard no good rea- son. “R.: Suppose the foreigner learns to cultivate a garden, and that his island should prove more fertile than ours. Do you see the consequence? “F.: Yes; our relations with the foreigner would cease. He would take from us no more vegetables, since he could have them at home with less labor. He would bring us no more game, since we should have nothing to give him in exchange, and we should then be in precisely the situation that you wish us in now. “R.: Improvident savage! You don’t see that after having anni- hilated our hunting by inundating us with game, he would anni- hilate our gardening by inundating us with vegetables. “F.: But this would only last so long as we were in a situation to give him something else; that is to say, so long as we found something else that we could produce with economy of labor for ourselves. “R.: Something else, something else! You always come back to that. You are at sea, my good friend Friday; there is nothing prac- tical in your views. “The debate was long prolonged, and, as often happens, each remained wedded to his own opinion. But Robinson possessing a great influence over Friday, his opinion prevailed, and when the foreigner arrived to demand a reply, Robinson said to him: “ ‘Stranger, in order to induce us to accept your proposal, we must be assured of two things: 404 The Bastiat Collection Social Fallacies 2 Chap Twelve.qxd 7/6/2007 11:00 AM Page 404 “ ‘The first is, that your island is no better stocked with game than ours, for we want to fight only with equal weapons. “‘The second is that you will lose by the bargain. For, as in every exchange there is necessarily a gaining and a losing party, we should be dupes, if you were not the loser. What have you got to say?’” “ ‘Nothing,’ replied the foreigner; and, bursting out laughing, he got back into his canoe.” “The story would not be amiss if Robinson were not made to argue so very absurdly.” “He does not argue more absurdly than the committee of the Rue Hauteville.” “Oh! the case is very different. Sometimes you suppose one man, and sometimes (which comes to the same thing) two men living in company. That does not tally with the actual state of things. The division of labor and the intervention of merchants and money change the state of the question very much.” “That may complicate transactions, but does not change their nature.” “What! you want to compare modern commerce with a sys- tem of barter.” “Trade is nothing but a multiplicity of barters. Barter is in its own nature identical with commerce, just as labor on a small scale is identical with labor on a great scale, or as the law of gravitation that moves an atom is identical with the same law of gravitation that moves a world.” “So, according to you, these arguments, which are so unten- able in the mouth of Robinson, are equally untenable when urged by our protectionists.” “Yes; only the error is better concealed under a complication of circumstances.” “Then, pray, let us have an example taken from the present order of things.” Economic Sophisms—Second Series 405 Social Fallacies 2 Chap Twelve.qxd 7/6/2007 11:00 AM Page 405 “With pleasure. In France, owing to the exigencies of climate and habits, cloth is a useful thing. Is the essential thing to make it, or to get it?” “A very sensible question, truly! In order to have it, you must make it.” “Not necessarily. To have it, someone must make it, that is certain; but it is not at all necessary that the same person or the same country that consumes it should also produce it. You have not made that stuff which clothes you so well. France does not produce the coffee on which our citizens breakfast.” “But I buy my cloth, and France her coffee. “Exactly so; and with what?” “With money.” “But neither you nor France produce the material of money.” “We buy it.” “With what?” “With our products, which are sent to Peru.” “It is then, in fact, your labor that you exchange for cloth, and French labor that is exchanged for coffee.” “Undoubtedly.” “It is not absolutely necessary, therefore, to manufacture what you consume?” “No; if we manufacture something else that we give in exchange.” “In other words, France has two means of procuring a given quantity of cloth. The first is to make it; the second is to make something else, and to exchange this something else with the for- eigner for cloth. Of these two means, which is the best?” “I don’t very well know.” “Is it not that which, for a determinate amount of labor, obtains the greater quantity of cloth?” “It seems so.” “And which is best for a nation, to have the choice between these two means, or that the law should prohibit one of them, on the chance of stumbling on the better of the two?” 406 The Bastiat Collection Social Fallacies 2 Chap Twelve.qxd 7/6/2007 11:00 AM Page 406 [...]... Persian, 70 Algeria, 37– 41, 96, 383 Anarchy, 217 Antagonism between buyer and seller, 18 2 Anti-Corn Law League, ix Antiquity See Greece; Rome Archimedes, 413 Army, 5–7 Arts, 11 16 , 10 5 of necessity and of luxury, 12 Australia, 12 2 Autarky, 249, 275 Authority See Government Bacon, Francis, 11 3, 11 8, 11 9 Balance of trade, 2 21 25, 259 Bargaining, 30 Barter, 12 8, 263, 353, 405 Bastiat, Claude Frédéric... Robert, 19 1–92 Business transactions, 20 4 31 Index Volume I.qxd 7/6/2007 11 :00 AM Page 432 432 Cabetists, 86 Caesar, 13 4 California, 12 0 Candlemakers, xiii, 227–32 Capital goods, 36 Capital, 248, 250 availability of, 36 consumed, 14 1, 16 2 defined, 14 7 displacement, 51 insecurity of, 16 6 instruments of labor, 15 4 interest and, 13 5ff labor and, 13 9, 16 7–68 loans, 34–35 money vs., 17 , 34–35, 14 7 national,... pressure of, 19 results, 32, 85 Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de, 78–80 Constituent Assembly, 9, 68 Constitutions, 10 0– 01 Consumers, 16 7–68 interest of, 17 9, 18 0– 81 Consumption law of, 205, 211 Contradictions, 30, 19 1, 19 2 in demands for government, 97 Convention, 82 Conventionality, 79 Corn, 14 7–49 Cost opportunity, xi Counterfactual method, xi Courier, Paul-Louis, 295 Credit, 34–37 free, 13 8, 16 1, 16 2 governmental,... arrest the fusion of nations, are inimical to their peaceful, universal, and indissoluble alliance, and retard the progress of the human race Index Volume I.qxd 7/6/2007 11 :00 AM Page 4 31 INDEX Abundance as poverty, 19 4 favoring consumers, 17 7 harming producers, 17 7 scarcity vs., 17 5–83, 19 2, 343–44 Accounts commercial, 223–24 Action, human See Individualism; Mankind Agriculture, 14 7–49, 19 4–95, 210 ,... productivity of, 15 1, 15 4 savings, 45 scarcity of, 16 4 sterile, 13 2, 15 2 tyranny of, 13 7 use of, 31 wage fund, 32, 33, 46 Capitalists as legislators, 358–59 parable of, and laborers, 13 9–40 privileged, 13 2 Carlier, Pierre, 59 Carpenters, 333–36 Carthage, 75 Castes, 98 Cato, 13 4 Cause and effect, 1 2 Cause obstacle and, 18 5–86 Chalmers, Thomas, xiii Champ-de-Mars, 17 Charity, 52, 62, 14 2 See also Wealth;... dearness and, 3 41 50 Chinese story, 3 61 65 Christianity, 312 Church of Scotland Free Kirk schism, xiii Classes, 13 9, 16 8 Classical studies, 69, 70, 78, 79 The Bastiat Collection Cobden, Richard, ix Collectivism, 50 See also Government Colonialism, 259– 61 Commerce, 19 – 21 operations of, 21 Communication, 34 Communism, 63, 208 Comparative advantage, 254–55, 336, 402 Competition, 211 , 213 , 346, 426 Competition... bringing them together.” If you are told that the Swiss have rich pasturages, which cost little: Reply: The advantage is ours, for they will demand a smaller amount of our labor in return for giving an impetus to our agriculture, and supplying us with provisions.” Social Fallacies 2 Chap Thirteen.qxd 412 7/6/2007 11 :00 AM Page 412 The Bastiat Collection If they tell you that the lands of the Crimea... that the cessation of injustice may occasion to the man who profits by it is as much as to say that a system of injustice, for no other reason than that it has had a temporary existence, ought to exist for ever.” Social Fallacies 2 Chap Thirteen.qxd 7/6/2007 11 :00 AM Page 416 Social Fallacies 2 Chap Fourteen.qxd 7/6/2007 11 :00 AM Page 417 14 THE RIGHT HAND REPORT ADDRESSED S AND THE TO THE LEFT KING1... repute They propose a law TO PROHIBIT YOUR FAITHFUL SUBJECTS FROM USING THEIR RIGHT HANDS Sire, we beseech you not to do us the injustice of supposing that we have adopted lightly and without due deliberation a 1Written in 18 47 417 Social Fallacies 2 Chap Fourteen.qxd 418 7/6/2007 11 :00 AM Page 418 The Bastiat Collection measure that at first sight may appear somewhat whimsical A profound study of the. .. agriculture, Reply: The basis of the people’s food is wheat This is the reason why a law that gives us, by agricultural labor, two quarters of wheat, when we could have obtained four quarters without such labor, and by means of labor applied to manufactures, is a law not for feeding, but for starving the people.” 409 Social Fallacies 2 Chap Thirteen.qxd 410 7/6/2007 11 :00 AM Page 410 The Bastiat Collection . Series 411 Social Fallacies 2 Chap Thirteen.qxd 7/6/2007 11 :00 AM Page 411 412 The Bastiat Collection If they tell you that the lands of the Crimea have no value, and pay no taxes, Reply: The profit. iron.” 410 The Bastiat Collection Social Fallacies 2 Chap Thirteen.qxd 7/6/2007 11 :00 AM Page 410 If you are told that it is indispensable that every great country should produce cloth, Reply: The. 7/6/2007 11 :00 AM Page 4 01 402 The Bastiat Collection “With all my heart. Some time afterwards, Robinson having met with Friday, they united their labor in a common work. In the morning they hunted