Economic Sophisms

...to all producers in their various fields. The shipowner derives his profits from the obstacle called distance; the agriculturist original: "agriculturist"—a farmer or someone who studies the science of farming from that called hunger; the manufacturer of cloth from that called cold; the schoolmaster lives upon ignorance; the lapidary a person who cuts, polishes, or engraves precious stones upon vanity; the attorney on cupidity original: "cupidity"—excessive greed; the notary upon possible bad faith,—just as the physician lives upon the diseases of men. It is quite true, therefore, that each profession has an immediate interest in the continuation, and even the expansion, of the special obstacle which it is its business to combat.

Observing this, theorists arrive and, building a system based on their own personal feelings, tell us: Want is wealth, labor is wealth, and obstacles to material prosperity are prosperity itself. To multiply obstacles is to support industry.

Then statesmen intervene. They have the control of the public’s power; and what could be more natural than to use it to develop and multiply obstacles, since this is seen as developing and multiplying wealth? They say, for example: "If we prevent the importation of iron from places where it is abundant, we place an obstacle in the way of it being obtained. This obstacle, keenly felt at home, will induce men to pay in order to be set free from it. A certain number of our fellow citizens will devote themselves to combating it, and this obstacle will make their fortune. The greater the obstacle is—that is, the scarcer, the more inaccessible, the more difficult to transport, the more distant the mineral becomes from the place where it is to be used—the more hands will be engaged in the various branches of this industry." Exclude, then, foreign iron; create an obstacle, for by doing so you create the labor which is to overcome it.

The same reasoning leads to the proscription original: "proscription"—the act of banning or forbidding something of machinery.

Here, for instance, are men who are in want of casks for the storage of their wine. This is an obstacle; and here are other men whose business it is to remove that obstacle by making the casks that are wanted. It is fortunate, then, that this obstacle should exist, since it gives employment to a branch of national industry and enriches a certain number of our fellow citizens. But then we have ingenious machinery invented for felling the oak, cutting it up into staves, and forming them into...