Frédéric Bastiat

We are about to offer you an admirable opportunity of applying your--what shall we call it? your theory? No; nothing is more deceptive than theory;…

We are suffering from the intolerable competition of a foreign rival, placed, it would seem, in a condition so far superior to ours for the…

What we pray for is, that it may please you to pass a law ordering the shutting up of all windows, sky-lights, dormer-windows, outside and inside…

We trust, Gentlemen, that you will not regard this our request as a satire, or refuse it without at least previously hearing the reasons which we…

And, first, if you shut up as much as possible all access to natural light, and create a demand for artificial light, which of our French…

Our heaths will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees will, on the mountains, gather perfumed treasures, now wasting their…

But what shall we say of the manufacture of _articles de Paris?_ Henceforth you will behold gildings, bronzes, crystals, in candlesticks, in lamps,…

No poor _resinier_ from his heights on the seacoast, no coalminer from the depth of his sable gallery, but will rejoice in higher wages and increased…

Only have the goodness to reflect, Gentlemen, and you will be convinced that there is, perhaps, no Frenchman, from the wealthy coalmaster to the…

We foresee your objections, Gentlemen, but we know that you can oppose to us none but such as you have picked up from the effete works of the…

You have ceased to have any right to invoke the interest of the consumer; for, whenever his interest is found opposed to that of the producer, you…

But, again, you may say that the producer and consumer are identical. If the manufacturer gain by protection, he will make the agriculturist also a…

If you urge that the light of the sun is a gratuitous gift of nature, and that to reject such gifts is to reject wealth itself under pretence of…

If a Lisbon orange sells for half the price of a Paris orange, it is because natural, and consequently gratuitous, heat does for the one, what…

When an orange comes to us from Portugal, we may conclude that it is furnished in part gratuitously, in part for an onerous consideration; in other…

Now, it is precisely the _gratuitous half_ (pardon the word) which we contend should be excluded. You say, How can natural labour sustain competition…

Once more, when products such as coal, iron, corn, or textile fabrics, are sent us from abroad, and we can acquire them with less labour than if we…

At a time when everybody is bent on bringing about a saving in the expense of transport--and when, in order to effect this saving, we are forming…

It requires neither plans, estimates, preparatory study, engineers, mechanists, contractors, capital, shareholders, or Government aid!

Moreover--and this must undoubtedly recommend it to the public--it will not add a penny to the Budget, but the reverse. It will not increase the…

I soon perceived that it proceeds from this: That between Paris and Brussels _obstacles_ of many kinds exist. First of all, there is _distance_,…

Now, among these _obstacles_ there is one which we have ourselves set up, and at no little cost, too, between Brussels and Paris. There are men who…

You will then have done what is equivalent to constructing the Northern Railway without cost, and will immediately begin to put money in your pocket.

A Belgian product is worth at Brussels 20 francs, and the cost of carriage would raise the price at Paris to 30 francs. The same article made in…

In the first place, we impose a duty of 10 francs on the Belgian product, in order to raise its cost price at Paris to 40 francs; and we pay numerous…

20 francs, its price at Brussels. 10 " duty. 5 " reduced carriage by railway. Total, 35 francs, representing cost price at Paris.

20 francs, the price at Brussels. 5 " reduced duty. 10 " carriage by ordinary roads. Total, 35 francs, representing cost price at Paris.

And by this process we should have saved the 200 millions which the railway cost, plus the expense of Customhouse surveillance, for this last would…

But it will be said that the duty is necessary to protect Parisian industry. Be it so; but then you destroy the effect of your railway.

20 francs, the price at Brussels. 15 " protecting duty. 5 " railway carriage. Total, 40 francs, being the equalized price.

In sober earnestness, let me ask, is it not humiliating that the nineteenth century should make itself a laughing-stock to future ages by such…

A tariff, then, may be regarded in the same light as a marsh, a rut, an obstruction, a steep declivity--in a word, it is an _obstacle_, the effect of…

STULTA AND PUERA. There were, no matter where, two towns called Stulta and Puera. They completed at great cost a highway from the one town to the…

At the end of some centuries, knowledge having in the interim made great progress, the common sense of Puera enabled her to see that such…

On receiving this intimation, the inhabitants of Puera held a meeting. An old gentleman (they always suspected he had been secretly bought by Stulta)…

Do you desire to be in a situation to decide between liberty and protection? Do you desire to appreciate the bearing of an economic phenomenon?…

* I have translated the expression des prix absolus, nominal prices, or actual money prices, because the English economists do not, so far as I…

"The enhancement of price increases the expense of living, and _consequently_ the price of labour, and each man receives, in the enhanced price of…

It is evident that we could reverse this argument, and say--"If every one receives more as a producer, every one pays more as a consumer."

Again, to conclude that this vast apparatus leads to simple compensations, we must stick to the "consequently" of M. de Dombasle, and make sure…

But this question, which is one of the greatest interest and importance, will be examined in another place.* I return to the subject of _nominal…

In fact, in consequence of the fire, all things will be doubled in price, and the inventories of property, made before and after the destruction,…

All this is a jingling quibble, and not science. The truth, in plain terms, is this: that men consume cloth and corn by fire or by using them, and…

In the same way, restriction, while diminishing the abundance of things, may raise their price to such an extent that each party shall be,…

** To this view of the subject the author frequently reverts. It was, in his eyes, all important; and, four days before his death, he dictated this…

I shall never cease to say to them: Is it, or is it not, true that restriction, by impeding exchanges, by limiting the division of labour, by forcing…

"If fifteen millions' worth of commodities, sold to foreigners, are taken from the total production, estimated at fifty millions, the thirty-five…

In the same way, when we see our beardless scribblers, our novel-writers, reformers, fops, amateur contributors to newspapers, redolent of musk,…

Affectation is the besetting sin of our times. When a serious writer, in a spirit of philanthropy, refers to the sufferings of the working classes,…

Far from us be this cowardly indifference, which would not be justified even by the sentimental affectation which prompts it.

Workmen! your situation is peculiar! They make merchandise of you, as I shall show you immediately.... But no; I withdraw that expression. Let us…

In the meantime, let us inquire whether _injustice_ is not done you by fixing legislatively the people from whom you are to purchase the things you…

Is it true that protection, which admittedly makes you pay dearer for everything, and entails a loss upon you in this respect, raises…

One of your own class has put it forcibly, thus: When two workmen run after one master, wages fall; they rise when two masters run after one workman.

For the sake of brevity, allow me to make use of this formula, more scientific, although, perhaps, not quite so clear. The rate of wages depends on…

On the disposable capital of the nation. But does the law which says, We shall no longer receive such or such a product from abroad, we shall make it…

We point with pride to a certain manufacture. Is it established or maintained with capital which has fallen from the moon? No; that capital has…

A countryman was possessed of twenty acres of land, which he worked with a capital of £400. He divided his land into four parts, and established…

At length the countryman died, and his son, who succeeded him, said to himself, "My father was a dupe all his life. He purchased oil, and so paid…

Misled by such reasoning, the volatile youth changed his rotation of crops. His land he divided into twenty divisions. In one he planted olives, in…