Harmonies of Political Economy: Translated from the Third French Edition, with a Notice of the Life and Writings of the AuthorBastiat, Frédéric
Philosophy
Harmonies of Political Economy: Translated from the Third French Edition, with a Notice of the Life and Writings of the Author
Bastiat, Frédéric
Economics
To this tract another is appended, to which he gives the quaint
title of ‹Maudit Argent!› in which he exposes the popular errors
which arise from confounding capital with money, and money with
inconvertible paper. In this little work, Bastiat of course could
not treat the subject systematically and in detail, as M. Michel
Chevalier has since done in his philosophical treatise ‹Sur la
Monnaie›;[9] but Bastiat’s tract contains many excellent passages.
The effect of an enlargement of the volume of currency on the value
of money, for instance, is thus happily illustrated:—
Ten men sat down to play a game, in which they agreed to stake
1000 francs. Each man was provided with ten counters—each counter
representing ten francs. When the game was finished, each received
as many times ten francs as he happened to have counters. One of the
party, who was more of an arithmetician than a logician, remarked
that he always found at the end of the game that he was richer in
proportion as he had a greater number of counters, and asked the
others if they had observed the same thing. What holds in my case,
said he, must hold in yours, for what is true of each must be true
of all. He proposed, therefore, that each should have double the
former number of counters. No sooner said than done. Double the
number of counters were distributed; but, when the party finally
rose from play they found themselves no richer than before. The
stake had not been increased, and fell to be proportionally divided.
Each man, no doubt, had double the number of counters, but each
counter, instead of being worth ten francs, was found to be worth
only five; and it was at length discovered that what is true of each
is ‹not› always true of all.
The pamphlets, ‹Baccalauréat et Socialisme›, and ‹Ce qu’on voit
et ce qu’on ne voit pas›, belong to the following year, 1850,
the last [p024] of the author’s life. In the first of these,
Bastiat complains of the monopoly of university degrees, and
the too exclusive addiction of his countrymen to classical
learning—especially Greek and Roman history—to which he attributes
much of that democratic and revolutionary fervour which was ever and
anon breaking out in France.
The second, ‹Ce qu’on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas›, is a masterpiece
worthy of the author of the ‹Sophismes›, and well deserves its second
title of “Political Economy in One Lesson.” The following extract
from the first chapter of this admirable little work will give the
reader some idea of the argument, and of Bastiat’s lively manner of
treating a subject in itself so dry and uninviting:—
«The Broken Pane.»
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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