Frédéric Bastiat：Economic Sophisms, Excerpt 44

As an agriculturist, M. Bugeaud directs all his efforts to two ends,--to save labour, and obtain cheap bread. When he prefers a good plough to a bad one; when he improves his pastures; when, in order to pulverize the soil, he substitutes as much as possible the action of the atmosphere for that of the harrow and the hoe; when he calls to his aid all the processes of which science and experiment have proved the efficacy,--he has but one object in view, viz., to diminish _the proportion of effort to result_. We have indeed no other test of the ability of a cultivator, and the perfection of his processes, than to measure to what extent they have lessened the one and added to the other. And as all the farmers in the world act upon this principle, we may assert that the effort of mankind at large is to obtain, for their own benefit undoubtedly, bread and all other products cheaper, to lessen the labour needed to procure a given quantity of what they want.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44145
Locator：Excerpt 44 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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