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[Included in The Bastiat Collection (2011), this article appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845).] Do you desire to be in a situation to decide between liberty and protection? Do you desire to appreciate the impact of an economic phenomenon? Inquire into its effects upon the abundance or scarcity of commodities, and not upon the rise or fall of

[Included in The Bastiat Collection (2011), this article appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845).] Let us inquire whether injustice is not done you by fixing legislatively the people from whom you are to purchase the things you have need of — bread, meat, linens, or cloth; and in dictating, if I may say so, the artificial scale of prices which you

[Included in The Bastiat Collection (2011), this article appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845).] As advocates of free trade, we are accused of being theorists, and of not taking practice sufficiently into account. “What fearful prejudices were entertained against Mr. Say,” says Mr. Ferrier, by that long train of distinguished administrators, and

[Included in The Bastiat Collection (2011), this article appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845).] There is one thing that confounds me, and it is this. Sincere publicists, studying the economy of society from the producer’s point of view, have laid down this double formula: “Governments should order the interests of consumers who are subject to

[Included in The Bastiat Collection (2011), this article appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845).] We cannot wonder enough at the facility with which men resign themselves to continue ignorant of what it is most important that they should know; and we may be certain that such ignorance is incorrigible in those who venture to proclaim this axiom:

[ Included in The Bastiat Collection (2011), this article appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845) .] Among the arguments we hear adduced in favor of the restrictive regime we must not forget that which is founded on national independence. “What should we do in case of war,” it is said, “if we are placed at the mercy of England for iron and coal?”

[Included in The Bastiat Collection (2011), this article appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845).] Machine breaking and the prohibition of foreign commodities — are two acts founded on the same doctrine. We see men who clap their hands when a great invention is introduced, and who nevertheless adhere to the protectionist system. Such men are grossly

[Included in The Bastiat Collection (2011), this article appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845).] A fallacy sometimes expands, and runs through the whole texture of a long and elaborate theory. More frequently, it shrinks and contracts, assumes the guise of a principle, and lurks in a word or a phrase. “May God protect us from the devil and from

[Included in The Bastiat Collection (2011), this article appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845).]   It is said that the most advantageous of all branches of trade is that which supplies manufactured commodities in exchange for raw materials. For these raw materials are the aliment and support of national labor. Hence the conclusion is drawn that the

[ The Bastiat Collection (2011); originally from the second series of Economic Sophisms (1848)] I imagine I hear the reader say, “Well, now, was I wrong in accusing political economists of being dry and cold? What a picture of humanity! Spoliation is a fatal power, almost normal, assuming every form, practiced under every pretext, against law and