This exerpt is the introduction of Bastiat’s Economic Sophisms (1845).
My design in this little
volume is to refute some of the arguments that are urged against the freedom
of trade.
I do not propose to
engage in a contest with the protectionists; but rather to instill a principle
into the minds of those who hesitate because they sincerely doubt.
I am not one of those who
say that protection is founded on men's interests. I am of the opinion rather
that it is founded on errors, or, if you will, upon incomplete truths. Too many
people fear liberty to permit us to conclude that their apprehensions are not
sincerely felt.
It is perhaps aiming too
high, but my wish is, I confess, that this little work should become, as it
were, the manual of those whose business it is to pronounce between the two
principles. Where men have not been long accustomed and familiarized to the
doctrine of liberty, the fallacies of protection, in one shape or another,
are constantly coming back upon them. In order to disabuse them of such
errors when they recur, a long process of analysis becomes necessary; and
everyone has not the time required for such a process — legislators less than
others. This is my reason for endeavoring to present the analysis and its
results cut and dried.
But it may be asked: Are
the benefits of liberty so hidden as to be discovered only by professional
economists?
We must confess that our
adversaries have a marked advantage over us in the discussion. In very few
words they can announce a half-truth; and in order to demonstrate that it is
incomplete, we are obliged to have recourse to long and dry dissertations.
This arises from the
nature of things. Protection concentrates on one point the good which it
produces, while the evils it inflicts are spread over the masses. The one is
visible to the naked eye; the other only to the eye of the mind. In the case
of liberty, it is just the reverse.
In the treatment of
almost all economic questions we find it to be so.
You say: Here is a
machine that has turned 30 workmen onto the street.
Or: Here is a spendthrift
who encourages every branch of industry.
Or: The conquest of
Algeria has doubled the trade of Marseilles.
Or: The budget secures
subsistence for 100,000 families.
You are understood at
once and by all. Your propositions are in themselves clear, simple, and true.
What are your deductions from them?
Machinery is an evil.
Luxury, conquests, and
heavy taxation are productive of good.
And your theory receives
wide support in that you are in a situation to support it by reference to undoubted
facts.
On our side, we must
decline to confine our attention to the cause and its direct and immediate
effect. We know that this very effect in its turn becomes a cause. To judge
correctly of a measure, then, we must trace it through the whole chain of
effects to its final result. In other words, we are forced to reason upon it.
But then clamor gets up:
You are theorists, metaphysicians, idealists, utopian dreamers,
doctrinarians; and all the prejudices of the popular mind are roused against
us.
What, under such
circumstances, are we to do? We can only invoke the patience and good sense
of the reader, and set our deductions, if we can, in a light so clear that
truth and error must show themselves plainly, openly, and without disguise;
and that the victory, once gained, may remain on the side of intervention or
on that of freedom.
And here I must set down
an essential observation.
Some extracts from this
little volume have already appeared in the Journal des Economistes.
In a criticism, in other
respects very favorable, from the pen of Viscount de Romanet,
he supposes that I demand the suppression of customs. He is mistaken. I
demand the suppression of the protectionist system. We don't refuse taxes to
the government, but we desire, if possible, to dissuade the governed from
taxing one another. Napoleon said that "the customhouse should not be
made an instrument of revenue, but a means of protecting industry." We
maintain the contrary, and we contend that the customhouse ought not to
become in the hands of the working classes an instrument of reciprocal
rapine, but that it may be used as an instrument of revenue as legitimately
as any other. So far are we — or, to speak only for myself, so far am I —
from demanding the suppression of customs, that I
see in that branch of revenue our future anchor of safety. I believe our
resources are capable of yielding to the Treasury immense returns; and, to
speak plainly, I must add that, seeing how slow is the spread of sound
economic doctrines, and so rapid the increase of our budgets, I am disposed
to count more upon the necessities of the Treasury than on the force of
enlightened opinion for furthering the cause of commercial reform.
You ask me, then: What is
your conclusion? And I reply, that here there is no need to arrive at a
conclusion. I combat fallacies; that is all.
But you rejoin that it is
not enough to pull down — it is also necessary to build up. True; but to
destroy an error is to build up the truth that stands opposed to it.
After all, I have no
repugnance to declare what my wishes are. I desire to see public opinion led
to sanction a law of customs conceived nearly in these terms —
Articles of primary
necessity to pay a duty, ad valorem, of 5 percent. Articles of
convenience, 10 percent.
Articles of luxury, 15 to
20 percent.
These distinctions, I am
aware, belong to an order of ideas that are quite foreign to political
economy strictly so called, and I am far from thinking them as just and
useful as they are commonly supposed to be. But this subject does not fall
within the compass of my present design.
