Economic Sophisms and “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen”. Bastiat Frédéric
particularly damaging because it misleads public opinion on a subject in which public opinion constitutes power and is taken as law.
Two sorts of books are therefore needed for these sciences: those that expound them and those that propagate them, those that reveal the truth and those that combat error.
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It seems to me that the inherent defect in the aesthetic form of this pamphlet, repetition, is what constitutes its principal usefulness.
In the subject I have discussed, each sophism doubtless has its own formula and range, but all have a common root, which is the overlooking of men’s interests as consumers. To show that this sophism is the originator of a thousand paths of error12 is to teach the general public to recognize it, understand it, and mistrust it in all circumstances.
After all, my intention is not exactly to lay the ground for deeply held convictions but to sow the seeds of doubt.
My hope is that when the reader puts the book down he will not exclaim, “I know”; please heaven, but that he might sincerely say, “I do not know!”
“I don’t know, because I am beginning to fear that there might be something illusory in the alleged mild effects of scarcity.” (Sophism I.)
“I am no longer so convinced of the supposed charms of obstacles to economic activity.” (Sophism II.)
“The effort which produces no result seems no longer to me to be as desirable as the result which requires no effort.” (Sophism III.)
“It could well be that the secret of commerce, unlike that of combat (according to the definition given by the fencing instructor in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme),13 does not consist in giving and not receiving.” (Sophism VI.)
“I understand that a good increases in value to the degree that it has been worked upon; but in an exchange, do two goods of equal value cease to be of equal value because one comes from a plough and the other from a Jacquard loom?”14 (Sophism XXI.)
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“I admit that I am beginning to find it strange that mankind might be improved by fetters or enriched by taxes; and frankly I would be relieved of a great burden and I would feel pure joy if it could be demonstrated to me, as the author of the Sophisms assures me, that there is no contradiction between well-being and justice, between peace and liberty, between the expansion of labor and the progress of knowledge.” (Sophisms XIV and XX.)
“Thus, without claiming to be satisfied with his arguments, which I don’t know if I should call reasons or paradoxes, I will explore further the works of the masters of economic science.”
Let us end this monograph on sophistry with a final and important thought:
The world is not sufficiently aware of the influence that sophistry exercises on it.
If I have to say what I think, when the right of the strongest was dethroned, sophistry handed empire to the right of the most subtle, and it would be difficult to say which of these two tyrants has been the most disastrous for the human race.
Men have an immoderate love for pleasure, influence, esteem, and power; in a word, for wealth.
And at the same time, they are driven by an immense urge to procure these things for themselves at the expense of others.
But these others, who are the general public, have no less an urge to keep what they have acquired, provided that they can and they know how to.
Plunder, which plays such a major role in the affairs of the world, has thus only two things which promote it: force and fraud,15 and two things which limit it: courage and enlightenment.
Force used for plunder forms the bedrock upon which the annals of human history rest. Retracing its history would be to reproduce almost entirely the history of every nation: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Medes, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Goths, the Francs, the Huns, the Turks, the Arabs, the Mongols, and the Tartars, not to mention the Spanish in America, the English in India, the French in Africa, the Russians in Asia, etc., etc.
But at least in civilized nations, the men who produce the wealth have become sufficiently numerous and strong to defend it. Is this to say that they
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are no longer dispossessed? Not at all; they are just as dispossessed as ever and, what is more, they mutually dispossess each other.
Only the thing which promotes it has changed; it is no longer by force but by fraud that public wealth can be seized.
In order to steal from the public, it is first necessary to deceive them. To deceive them it is necessary to persuade them that they are being robbed for their own good; it is to make them accept imaginary services and often worse in exchange for their possessions. This gives rise to sophistry. Theocratic sophistry, economic sophistry, political sophistry, and financial sophistry. Therefore, ever since force has been held in check, sophistry has been not only a source of harm, it has been the very essence of harm. It must in its turn be held in check. And to do this the public must become cleverer than the clever, just as it has become stronger than the strong.
Good public, it is with this last thought in mind that I am addressing this first essay to you, although the preface has been strangely transposed and the dedication is somewhat belated.16,17
Mugron, 2 November 1845
END OF THE FIRST PART
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Economic Sophisms Second Series 1
What industry asks of government is as modest as the plea of Diogenes to Alexander: “Get out of my sunlight.”
(Bentham)2
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