Economic Sophisms and “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen”. Bastiat Frédéric
for farmers; if by production we meant creation, all of our projects would be nonproductive and yours, as traders, more so than all the others, except perhaps for mine.
“A farmer, therefore, cannot claim to have created wheat, but he can claim to have created its value, by this I mean to have transformed into wheat, through his own labor and that of his servants, cow herders, and harvesters, substances which did not resemble it in the slightest. In addition, what do the millers do who convert it into flour, or the bakers who bake it into bread?
“In order for men to be able to clothe themselves in woolen cloth, a host of operations is necessary. Before any human labor intervenes, the genuine raw materials of this product are air, water, heat, gaslight, and the salts that
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have to go to making it up. There are the raw materials that are genuinely devoid of any human labor, since they have no value and I do not envisage protecting them. However, an initial act of labor converts these substances into fodder, a second into wool, a third into yarn, a fourth into cloth, and a fifth into garments. Who would dare to say that everything in this operation is not labor, from the first cut of the plough that starts it to the last stitch that terminates it?
“And because, for greater speed and perfection in the accomplishment of the final operation, a garment, the labor is divided among several classes of industrious workers,5 do you want to establish, through arbitrary distinction, that the order of carrying out of this labor is the sole basis for their importance, so that the first does not even merit the appellation of labor and the last, labor par excellence, is the only one worthy of the favors of protection?”
The Petitioners: “Yes, we are beginning to see that wheat is not, any more than wool, altogether devoid of any human labor, but at least the farmer has not, like the manufacturer, done everything himself or with the assistance of his laborers; nature has helped him and if there is labor, everything in wheat is not labor.”
M. de Saint-Cricq: “But all its value is labor. I agree that nature has contributed to the physical forming of the grain. I even agree that this is exclusively its own work, but you must admit that I have forced it to do so through my labor, and when I sell you wheat, you have to note this clearly, I am not making you pay for the labor of nature but for mine.
“And, in your opinion, manufactured goods would not be the products of labor either. Are manufacturers not assisted by nature as well? Do they not use the weight of the atmosphere through their steam engines just as I use its humidity when plowing? Have they created the laws of gravity, the transmission of force, or the nature of chemical bonding?”
The Petitioners: “Very well, we agree for wool, but coal is certainly the work and the sole work of nature. It is truly devoid of any human labor.”
M. de Saint-Cricq: “Yes, nature has made coal, but labor has created its value. Coal had no value for millions of years when it was buried and unknown one hundred feet underground. Men had to go to look for it: that is labor. It had to be taken to market: that is another form of labor, and once
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again, the price you pay for it in the market is nothing other than payment for these jobs of extraction and transport.”6
We can see that up to now M. de Saint-Cricq has won the argument; that the value of raw materials, like that of manufactured materials, represents the cost of production, that is to say, of the labor; that it is not possible to imagine an object that has value and that is devoid of any human labor; that the distinction made by the petitioners is futile in theory and that, as the basis of an unequal distribution of political favors it would be iniquitous in practice, since its result would be that one-third of French citizens who labor in factories would obtain the advantages of monopoly because they produce things through labor, while the other two-thirds, that is to say, the farming population, would be abandoned to face competition on the pretext that they produce things without laboring.
I am sure that people will insist and say that there is a greater advantage for a nation to import so-called raw materials, whether or not they are the product of labor, and export manufactured goods.
This is an opinion that is widely held.
“The more raw materials are abundant,” says the petition from Bordeaux, “the more factories will increase in number and flourish vigorously.”
“Raw materials,” it says elsewhere, “leave a limitless scope for the work of the inhabitants of those countries into which they are imported.”
“As raw materials,” says the petition from Le Havre, “are the raw elements of labor, they have to be subjected to a different regime and imported immediately at the lowest customs rate.”
This same petition wants protection for manufactured goods to be reduced not immediately, but after an undetermined period and not at the lowest rate, but at 20 percent.
“Among other articles whose low price and abundance are a necessity,” says the petition from Lyons, “manufacturers include all raw materials.”
All this is based on an illusion.
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We have seen that all value represents labor. Now, it is very true that the process of manufacturing multiplies by ten or sometimes a hundred the value of a raw product, that is to say, it spreads out ten or a hundred times more income around the nation. This being so, the reasoning goes as follows: the production of a quintal of iron earns only 15 francs for all categories of contributors. The conversion of this quintal of iron into watch springs raises their various incomes to 10,000 francs, and would you dare to say that it is not of more interest to the nation to ensure itself 10,000 francs’ worth of labor than 15 francs’ worth?
People forget that international trade does not function by weight or measure, any more than individual exchanges. You do not trade one quintal of iron for one quintal of watch springs, nor a pound of still greasy wool for a pound of cashmere wool, but a certain value of one of these things for an equal value of another. Well, to exchange equal value for equal value is to exchange equal labor for equal labor. It is therefore not true that a nation that gives 100 francs’ worth of cloth or springs makes more than one that delivers 100 francs’ worth of wool or iron.
In a country in which no law can be voted, no taxation imposed without the consent of those who are to be governed by this law or subjected to it, the public can be robbed only by being misled in the first place. Our ignorance is the raw material of any extortion that is exercised over us, and we can be certain in advance that any sophism is the herald of plunder. Good people, when you see a sophism in a petition, put your hand over your pocket, for it is certainly that which is being aimed at.
Shall we not therefore look at the secret thought that the shipowners of Bordeaux and Le Havre and the manufacturers of Lyons are hiding in this distinction between agricultural goods and manufactured goods?
“It is mainly in this first class (the one that includes raw materials, devoid of any human labor) that we find the principal maintenance of our merchant navy,” say the petitioners of Bordeaux. “In principle, a wise economy would require this class not to be taxed.… The second (goods which have undergone some processing) may be taxed. The third (goods which require no further modification) we consider to be the most taxable.”
The petitioners from Le Havre say, “Considering that it is essential to reduce the tax on raw materials immediately to the lowest rate so that manufacturing industry may successively put to work the naval forces that provide it with its primary and essential means of the employment of its labor.…”
The manufacturers could not be any less polite to the shipowners. For this
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reason, the petition from Lyon requested the free entry of raw