Frédéric Bastiat

As regarded his workmen, they had no more employment than formerly. There were five times more fields, but each field was five times smaller; they…

On a greater scale, this is exactly what takes place in the case of a nation which isolates itself by adopting a prohibitive _régime_. It…

But our business at present is not to compare, or pronounce between, the two systems; but to inquire which of the two is founded on experience.

"It is better to make things for yourself, although they cost you more than, the price at which you could buy them from others."

Visit your fields, your workshops, your forges, your warehouses; look above, below, and around you; look at what takes place in your own houses;…

Does the farmer make his own clothes? Does the tailor produce the corn he consumes? Does your housekeeper continue to have your bread made at home,…

It is not you, therefore, who are the men of _practice_, since you cannot point to a single human being who acts upon your principle.

But you will say, we never intended to make our principle a rule for individual relations. We perfectly understand that this would be to break up the…

Well, I affirm that this principle is still erroneous. The family, the commune, the canton, the department, the province, are so many agglomerations,…

We, then, are the men of practice and of experience; for we oppose to the restriction which you have placed exceptionally on certain international…

Our theory is so little opposed to practice that it is nothing else but _practice explained_. We observe men acting as they are moved by the instinct…

But on your side, you construct a _theory_ in the worst sense of the word. You imagine, you invent, a course of proceeding which is not sanctioned by…

"Governments should order the interests of consumers who are subject to their laws, in such a way as to be favourable to national industry.

"They should bring distant consumers under subjection to their laws, for the purpose of ordering their interests in a way favourable to national…

And if every sale to a foreign country is a _tribute received_, and a national profit, it is quite right and natural to create markets for our…

The father of the family has received but slender wages. His half-naked children shiver in the icy north wind; the fire is extinguished, and there is…

But if men are, on the one hand, irresistibly impelled towards what is for their profit, and if, on the other, they resist instinctively what is…

Now, what astonishes and confounds me is, that a publicist, a statesman, who sincerely holds an economical doctrine which runs so violently counter…

"How God could have willed that men should attain prosperity only through Injustice and War? How He could have willed that they should be unable to…

In practice, does a single exchange take place, out of a hundred, out of a thousand, out of ten thousand perhaps, which represents the direct…

Let us suppose a people shut out from external relations. A man, we shall suppose, produces wheat. He sends it to the _home_ market, and offers it…

The reply to this is, that if a nation cannot obtain what it has need of in the general market, it will no longer contribute anything to that market.…

Some years ago I happened to be at Madrid, and went to the Cortes. The subject of debate was a proposed treaty with Portugal for improving the…

for the canalisation of the Garonne would favour the invasion of Toulouse products, to the prejudice of Bordeaux, and the inundation of Bordeaux…

The railway from Paris to Bayonne should have a break at Bordeaux, for if goods and passengers are forced to stop at that town, profits will accrue…

But if Bordeaux has a right to profit by a gap in the line of railway, and if such profit is consistent with the public interest, then Angoulème,…

We cannot wonder enough at the facility with which men resign themselves to continue ignorant of what it is most important that they should know; and…

If you tolerate these exchanges, the foreigner will inundate you with his products: England with her textile fabrics, Belgium with coals, Spain…

If the theory of prohibition comes to prevail, or if the doctrine of free trade comes to triumph, one brief enactment will constitute our whole…

But if exchange does not possess a character which is peculiar to it,--if it is not governed by any natural law,--if, capriciously, it be sometimes…

This faith, then, which we repose in a principle, when the question relates only to our home transactions, why should we not retain, when the same…

Among the arguments which we hear adduced in favour of the restrictive _régime_, we must not forget that which is founded on _national independence_.

Remark this: A nation isolates itself looking forward to the possibility of war; but is not this very act of isolating itself the beginning of war?…

I am quite aware that I shall be reproached (it is the fashion of the day) with basing the fraternity of nations on men's personal interest--vile,…

When shall we be done with these puerile declamations? When will _tartuferie_ be finally banished from science? When shall we cease to exhibit this…

After all, it is singular enough to see sentiments of the most sublime self-denial invoked in support of spoliation itself. See to what this…

We see men who clap their hands when a great invention is introduced, and who nevertheless adhere to the protectionist _régime_. Such men are grossly…

The foreign workman, better and more favourably situated than the home workman for the production of certain commodities, is, with reference to the…

And this is the reason why I like better the logic of those men who, declaiming against the invasion of foreign merchandise, declaim likewise against…

M. de Saint-Chamans has seen clearly the analogy, or, we should rather say, the identity, which obtains between imports and machinery. For this…

If it be true, a priori, that the domain of invention and that of labour cannot be simultaneously extended but at each other's expense, it must be in…

I cannot convince myself how any thinking being can enjoy a moment's repose in presence of the following dilemma: Either the inventions of man are…

Or else, the discoveries of the human mind limit the amount of manual labour, as special facts appear to indicate; for I see every day some machine…

Machinery, and the importation of foreign commodities, certainly produce effects. These effects may be good or bad; on that there may be difference…

A work like the present cannot well include very full or complete demonstrations. My design is rather to state difficulties than to resolve them;…

The immediate effect of the invention and employment of an ingenious machine is to render superfluous, for the attainment of a given result, a…

The country manufactures ten millions of hats, of which the cost price was 15 shillings. The foreigner sends similar hats to our market, and…

And then there remains to each purchaser five shillings saved on each hat, or in all, £2,500,000, which will be spent on other enjoyments--that is to…

Then the aggregate labour of the country will remain what it was, and the additional enjoyments represented by £2,500,000 saved upon hats, will…

It is of no use to try to frighten us by a picture of the sufferings which, on this hypothesis, the displacement of labour will entail.

For, if the prohibition had never been imposed, the labour would have found its natural place under the ordinary law of exchange, and no displacement…

If, on the other hand, prohibition has led to an artificial and unproductive employment of labour, it is prohibition, and not liberty, which is to…

At all events, let no one pretend that because an abuse cannot be done away with, without inconvenience to those who profit by it, what has been…

It is said that the most advantageous of all branches of trade is that which supplies manufactured commodities in exchange for raw materials. For…

Commercial liberty is likely to have the fate of liberty in general; it will only find a place in the statute-book after it has taken possession of…

Some years ago three of the great towns of France--Lyons, Bordeaux, and Havre--united in a movement against the restrictive _régime_. All Europe…

"What course should an agricultural and manufacturing country take under such circumstances? Reserve its markets for the products of its own soil and…

"And for that purpose, restrain by duties, and, if necessary, prohibit importation of the products of the soil and industry of other nations." Such…

They demand that the home market should be reserved for home industry. That is the _design_ of the system of prohibition.

"Labour constitutes all the wealth of a people," he says; "to protect agricultural industry, and all agricultural industry; to protect…