Frédéric Bastiat：Economic Sophisms, Excerpt 182

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 multiplies its branches of industry, I grant, but they become of diminished importance; it adopts, so to speak, a more complicated _industrial rotation_, but it is not so prolific, because its capital and labour have now to struggle with natural difficulties. A greater proportion of its circulating capital, which forms the wages fund, must be converted into fixed capital. What remains may have more varied employment, but the total mass is not increased. It is like distributing the water of a pond among a multitude of shallow reservoirs--it covers more ground, and presents a greater surface to the rays of the sun, and it is precisely for this reason that it is all the sooner absorbed, evaporated, and lost.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44145
Locator：Excerpt 182 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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