Economic Sophisms

ABUNDANCE, SCARCITY.

...a syllogism A form of logical reasoning where a conclusion is drawn from two assumed premises. Bastiat is arguing that the logic used by protectionists is technically valid but misses crucial information. which is not false, but incomplete. Now, what is true in a syllogism is always and necessarily present to the mind. But incompleteness is a negative quality—an absent original: "datum" fact—which is very possible, and indeed very easy, to leave out of account.

Man produces in order to consume. He is at once a producer and a consumer. The reasoning which I have just explained considers him only from the first of these points of view. Had the second been taken into account, it would have led to an opposite conclusion. In effect, might it not be said:—

The consumer is richer in proportion as he purchases all things cheaper; and he purchases things cheaper in proportion to their abundance; therefore, it is abundance which enriches him. This reasoning, extended to all consumers, leads to the theory of plenty.

It is the notion of exchange imperfectly understood which leads to these illusions. If we consider our personal interest, we recognize distinctly that it is double. As sellers, we have an interest in original: "dearness" high prices, and consequently in scarcity; as buyers, we have an interest in cheapness, or what amounts to the same thing, in the abundance of commodities. We cannot, then, base our reasoning on one or the other of these interests before inquiring which of the two coincides and is identified with the general and permanent interest of mankind at large.

If man were a solitary animal, if he worked exclusively for himself, if he consumed directly the fruit of his labor—in a word, if he did not exchange—the theory of scarcity would never have appeared in the world. It is too evident that, in that case, abundance would be advantageous, from whatever quarter it came: whether from the result of his industry, from ingenious tools, from powerful machinery of his invention, or whether due to the fertility of the soil, the generosity original: "liberality" of nature, or even to a mysterious influx original: "invasion" of products brought by the waves and left by them upon the shore. No solitary man would ever have thought that, in order to encourage his labor and render it more productive, it was necessary to break in pieces the instruments which saved him effort, to neutralize the fertility of the soil, or give back to the sea the good things it had brought to his door. He would perceive at once that labor is...