Economic Sophisms

...the wine-casks that are wanted. By this means, the obstacle is lessened, and so are the earnings of the cooper a person who makes or repairs wooden barrels and casks. Let us maintain both at their former levels by law and ban the machinery.

To get to the root of this fallacy original: "sophism"—a clever but false argument, it is necessary only to reflect that human labor is not the end, but the means. It never remains unemployed. If one obstacle is removed, it battles another; and society is freed from two obstacles by the same amount of labor that was formerly required for the removal of one. If the labor of the cooper is made unnecessary in one area, it will soon take another direction. But how and from what source will it be paid original: "remunerated"? From exactly the same source from which it is paid at present; for when a certain amount of labor becomes available original: "disposable" by the removal of an obstacle, a corresponding amount of payment becomes available also. To argue that human labor will ever lack employment would be to argue that the human race will cease to encounter obstacles. In that case, labor would not only be impossible; it would be unnecessary original: "superfluous". We should no longer have anything to do because we would be all-powerful original: "omnipotent"; we would only have to issue a decree original: "fiat"—a formal authorization or command in order to ensure the satisfaction of all our desires and the supply of all our wants.*

III.

EFFORT, RESULT.

We have just seen that obstacles are placed between our wants and the satisfaction of those wants. We succeed in overcoming these obstacles, or in diminishing their force, by the employment of our abilities original: "faculties". We may say in a general way that industry is an effort followed by a result.

But what constitutes the measure of our prosperity or of our wealth? Is it the result of the effort? Or is it the effort itself? A relationship always exists between the effort employed—

• See later original: "post", chapter 14 of the second series of Economic Sophisms original: "Sophismes Économiques", and chapters 3 and 11 of the Economic Harmonies original: "Harmonies Économiques".