Economic Sophisms

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

Bastiat’s two great works on Political Economy—the Economic Sophisms original: "Sophismes Économiques" and the Economic Harmonies original: "Harmonies Économiques"—may be regarded as counterparts of each other. He himself viewed them in this way: “the one,” he says, “pulls down, the other builds up.” His objective in the Sophisms was to refute the fallacies of the Protectionist school A school of thought advocating for government taxes on imported goods to protect domestic industries., which was then dominant in France. By doing so, he hoped to clear the way for the establishment of what he maintained to be the true system of economic science. He intended to base this system on a new and unique theory of value, which he later fully developed in the Harmonies. Whatever difference of opinion may exist among economists regarding the soundness of this theory, all must admire the irresistible logic of the Sophisms and the “bursts of wit and humor” which, as Mr. Cobden Richard Cobden (1804–1865), a British manufacturer and statesman famous for his successful campaign against the Corn Laws. has said, make that work as “amusing as a novel.”