Frédéric Bastiat：Economic Sophisms, Excerpt 133

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 encouraging the means of acquiring it, we would caution you against giving a death-blow to your own policy. Remember that hitherto you have always repelled foreign products, because they approximate more nearly than home products to the character of gratuitous gifts. To comply with the exactions of other monopolists, you have only _half a motive_; and to repulse us simply because we stand on a stronger vantage-ground than others would be to adopt the equation, + x + = -; in other words, it would be to heap _absurdity upon absurdity_.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44145
Locator：Excerpt 133 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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