Property · Law and Government

Author: (French) Bastiat
Translator: Fengfeng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: Bastiat possessed a 19th-century optimistic mindset, standing at the threshold of a globalized era and the dawn of liberalism's victory. Today, after experiencing various utopias, we have lost this optimism. We know that rational persuasion cannot make people abandon their illusions and misconceptions, because those who hold such fantasies and delusions do not do so out of ignorance of economics and law, but rather because they have desires for control and manipulation, and because they believe they are superior and can manipulate humanity. Bastiat had already revealed all this to us long ago. Even those who doubt Bastiat's extraordinary contributions as an economist would agree that he was a genius as a political commentator. Joseph Schumpeter once called him "the greatest economic journalist in history." To introduce the collection of his successful writings for the general public that you are holding now, we are quite willing to admit this. We can even agree with Schumpeter's criticism of Bastiat, saying that "he was not a theorist," but this is not enough to diminish his status. In the final days of his very brief writing career, he did attempt to provide a theoretical justification for his general concepts, but he ultimately failed to win the approval of the professional community. If a writer on public affairs had only published reviews for five years and, in the face of a rapidly progressing terminal illness, had managed to defend his arguments, which differed greatly from established doctrines, in just a few months, achieving such great success would truly be a miracle. However, one might ask whether it was merely his early death at the age of 49 that prevented him from achieving even greater accomplishments. Nevertheless, his eloquent writings certainly prove that he had insight into what was important and a natural talent for grasping the essence of things, which should have provided him with ample material to make a genuine contribution to science. The best example of this is the famous "What You See and What You Don't See" included in this book. Never has such a simple statement so clearly revealed the key problem of rational economic policy, and I would add that it also provides a decisive argument for economic freedom. It is precisely because he condensed these ideas into just a few words that I called him "genius" in the previous paragraph. The article he wrote around this statement clearly elucidates a whole system of free-market economic policies. Although this phrase was merely the title of the first article, it actually serves as an outline for the entire book. Bastiat repeatedly clarified its meaning in refuting the prevailing misconceptions of his time. As I will mention later, although the views he refuted have taken on more complex guises today, their essence has not fundamentally changed since Bastiat's time. However, first, I would like to say a few more words about the general meaning of his core ideas. It is evident that if we judge economic policies solely based on their immediate and predictably tangible effects, we will not only fail to achieve a sustainable order but will inevitably gradually lose freedom, thereby preventing the emergence of better outcomes than those our measures might produce. Freedom is crucial for individuals to fully utilize the specific environments and conditions they alone understand. Therefore, if we restrict their freedom to serve others in any way they choose, we can never know what beneficial actions we have already prevented. And all interventions are precisely such restrictions. Of course, these interventions always promise to achieve certain clear goals. Only when the government completely prevents some individuals' unknown but beneficial actions can such actions consistently yield the results anticipated in advance. The consequence is that if such decisions are made one after another, and are not constrained by a commitment to freedom as a universal principle, we will inevitably lose freedom in almost every aspect. Bastiat regarded the freedom of choice as a moral principle, and it is entirely correct that freedom should never be sacrificed for expediency. If freedom were only respected when specific harms could be clearly identified, then none of its aspects could be abolished. Bastiat delivered a forceful blow to the widely held misconceptions of his time. Today, few people use such arguments with the same naivety as they did then, but I urge readers not to delude themselves into thinking that these same fallacies have disappeared from contemporary economic discussions. They have merely appeared in more complex forms, making them harder to detect. If readers gradually recognize these numerous fallacies in their simpler manifestations, they will at least be more cautious when they see the same conclusions drawn from what appear to be more scientific arguments. A major feature of contemporary economics is the use of ever-evolving evidence to support utterly mistaken ideas. These ideas are particularly appealing because the theorems derived from them are either too pleasing or too convenient: spending is good, while saving is bad; waste is beneficial, and thrift harms the general public; it is better for money to be in the hands of the government than in the hands of the people; ensuring that everyone receives what they deserve is the government's duty, and so on and so forth. All these ideas are still very much in vogue in our time. The only difference is that when Bastiat refuted these views, he had the entire professional team of economists on his side to oppose the prevailing prejudices of interest groups. Today, however, the same views are advanced by a very powerful school of economics, using language so complex that even laypeople cannot understand it. Are there any points in these fallacies that people once thought Bastiat had definitively refuted and would never resurface? This is truly questionable. Let me give an example. In Bastiat's very famous economic allegory, "The Petition of the Candlemakers Against the Competition of the Sun," he satirically argues that windows should be banned from houses, because the prosperity of candlemakers would benefit everyone. Yet, in a rather well-known economics history textbook, a new footnote has been added to this article: "It must be noted that, according to Keynes's assumptions about insufficient employment and the multiplier theory, strictly speaking, the argument of the candlemakers is entirely valid." The attentive reader will notice that Bastiat refuted many of the familiar economic nostrums we see today, but it seems he did not anticipate a significant danger of our time. Although he also criticized the various absurdities about credit in his era, the straight-line inflation caused by government deficits was not a major threat in his time. In his view, increased spending would inevitably lead to higher taxes and fees. The reason is that, in his time, everyone who had once experienced a major inflation would never tolerate the continuous devaluation of money again. Therefore, if a reader feels superior after seeing the simple fallacies that Bastiat deemed necessary to refute, they should remember that, in some respects, people a hundred years ago were actually wiser than we are today.