Part 1

Produced by David Widger

ECONOMIC SOPHISMS

By Frédéric Bastiat

Translated From the Fifth Edition of the French, by Patrick James Stirling, LLD., F.R.S.E.

Author Of "The Philosophy Of Trade," Etc.

Edinburgh: Oliver And Boyd, Tweeddale Court.

1873

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

Bastiat's two great works on Political Economy--the Sophismes Économiques, and the Harmonies Économiques--may be regarded as counterparts of each other. He himself so regarded them: "the one," he says, "pulls down, the other builds up." His object in the Sophismes was to refute the fallacies of the Protectionist school, then predominant in France, and so to clear the way for the establishment of what he maintained to be the true system of economic science, which he desired to found on a new and peculiar theory of value, afterwards fully developed by him in the Harmonies. Whatever difference of opinion may exist among economists as to the soundness of this theory, all must admire the irresistible logic of the Sophismes, and "the sallies of wit and humour," which, as Mr Cobden has said, make that work as "amusing as a novel."

The system of Bastiat having thus a destructive as well as a constructive object, a negative as well as a positive design, it is perhaps only doing justice to his great reputation as an economist to put the English reader in a position to judge of that system as a whole. Hence the present translation of the Sophismes is intended as a companion volume to the translation of the Harmonies.

It is unnecessary for me to say more here by way of preface, the gifted author having himself explained the design of the work in a short but lucid introduction.

P.J.S.

ECONOMIC SOPHISMS. FIRST SERIES.

INTRODUCTION.

My design in this little volume is to refute some of the arguments which are urged against the Freedom of Trade.

I do not propose to engage in a contest with the protectionists; but rather to instil a principle into the minds of those who hesitate because they sincerely doubt.

I am not one of those who say that Protection is founded on men's interests. I am of opinion rather that it is founded on errors, or, if you will, upon incomplete truths. Too many people fear liberty, to permit us to conclude that their apprehensions are not sincerely felt.

It is perhaps aiming too high, but my wish is, I confess, that this little work should become, as it were, the Manual of those whose business it is to pronounce between the two principles. Where men have not been long accustomed and familiarized to the doctrine of liberty, the sophisms of protection, in one shape or another, are constantly coming back upon them. In order to disabuse them of such errors when they recur, a long process of analysis becomes necessary; and every one has not the time required for such a process--legislators less than others. This is my reason for endeavouring to present the analysis and its results cut and dry.

But it may be asked, Are the benefits of liberty so hidden as to be discovered only by Economists by profession?

* The first series of the Sophismes Économiques appeared in the end of 1845; the second series in 1848.--Editor.

We must confess that our adversaries have a marked advantage over us in the discussion. In very few words they can announce a half-truth; and in order to demonstrate that it is incomplete, we are obliged to have recourse to long and dry dissertations.

This arises from the nature of things. Protection concentrates on one point the good which it produces, while the evils which it inflicts are spread over the masses. The one is visible to the naked eye; the other only to the eye of the mind. In the case of liberty, it is just the reverse.

In the treatment of almost all economic questions, we find it to be so.

You say, Here is a machine which has turned thirty workmen into the street.

Or, Here is a spendthrift who encourages every branch of industry.

Or, The conquest of Algeria has doubled the trade of Marseilles.

Or, The budget secures subsistence for a hundred thousand families.

You are understood at once and by all. Your propositions are in themselves clear, simple, and true. What are your deductions from them?