What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Éconimiques" Designed for the American Reader by Frédéric Bastiat
page 82 of 142 (57%)
page 82 of 142 (57%)
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expenses: and thus if everybody pays as consumer, everybody also
receives as producer." All this is nonsense, and not science. The simple truth is, that whether men destroy their corn and cloth by fire, or by use, the effect is the same as regards price, but not as regards riches, for it is precisely in the enjoyment of the use, that riches--in other words, comfort, well-being--exist. Restriction may in the same way, while it lessens the abundance of things, raise their prices, so as to leave each individual as rich, _numerically speaking_, as when unembarrassed by it. But because we put down in an inventory three bushels of corn at $1, or four bushels at 75 cents, and sum up the nominal value of each inventory at $3, does it thence follow that they are equally capable of contributing to the necessities of the community? To this truthful and common-sense view of the phenomenon of consumption it will be my continual endeavor to lead the protectionists; for in this is the end of all my efforts, the solution of every problem. I must continually repeat to them that restriction, by impeding commerce, by limiting the division of labor, by forcing it to combat difficulties of situation and temperature, must in its results diminish the quantity produced by any fixed quantum of labor. And what can it benefit us that the smaller quantity produced under the protective system bears the same _nominal value_ as the greater quantity produced under the free trade system? Man does not live on _nominal values_, but on real articles of produce; and the more abundant these articles are, no matter what price they may bear, the |
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