![]() Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Here’s Bastiat’s famous quote on legal plunder (now frequently referred to as “crony capitalism”): Not only will more young women be employed, but each of them will earn more, for all of them together will be unable to satisfy the demand.ģ. Such bustling about! Such activity! Such animation! Each dress will busy a hundred fingers instead of ten. Yes, we may picture a touching scene of prosperity in the dressmaking business. ![]() Twenty times, thirty times as many embroiderers, pressers and ironers, seamstresses, dressmakers and shirt-makers, will not suffice to meet the national demand. …as soon as all right hands are either cut off or tied down, things will change. In 1845, as a solution to counteract job losses in some French domestic industries (like textiles) due to free trade, Bastiat proposed to the King of France that he “forbid all loyal subjects to use their right hands.” Bastiat predicted that: We ask you to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, skylights, dormer-windows, outside and inside shutters, curtains, blinds in a word, of all openings, holes, chinks, clefts, and fissures, by or through which the light of the sun has been in use to enter houses, to the prejudice of the meritorious manufactures with which we flatter ourselves that we have accommodated our country - a country that, in gratitude, ought not to abandon us now to a strife so unequal.Ģ. The moment he shows himself, our trade leaves us - all consumers apply to him and a branch of native industry, having countless ramifications, is all at once rendered completely stagnant. This rival, who is none other than the sun, wages war mercilessly against us. We are suffering from the intolerable competition of a foreign rival, placed, it would seem, in a condition so far superior to ours for the production of light that he absolutely inundates our national market with it at a price fabulously reduced. ![]() Here’s an excerpt from that famous 1845 essay (emphasis added): One of Bastiat’s most famous and important writings was “ The Candlemakers’ Petition,” which is such a clear and convincing satirical attack on trade protectionism that it often appears in textbooks on economics and international trade. Today marks the 216th anniversary of the birth of the great French classical-liberal economist Frédéric Bastiat (born June 29, 1801) whom economist Joseph Schumpeter called the “most brilliant economic journalist who ever lived.” Celebrating Bastiat’s birthday has become an annual tradition at CD, and below I present some of my favorite quotes from the great liberty-loving, influential French economist.ġ.
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