Frédéric Bastiat：Economic Sophisms, Excerpt 186

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, after she finds she can buy it cheaper from the baker? Do you resign the pen for the brush, to save your paying _tribute_ to the shoeblack? Does the entire economy of society not rest upon the separation of employments, the division of labour--in a word, upon _exchange?_ And what is exchange, but a calculation which we make with a view to discontinuing direct production in every case in which we find that possible, and in which indirect acquisition enables us to effect a saving in time and in effort?

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44145
Locator：Excerpt 186 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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