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For a blog conveying the ideas of Mssr. Bastiat, I sure do have a dearth of his writings on here. My penance begins now.

A poor leper was living in solitude. No one wanted to touch anything he had touched. Reduced to providing entirely for himself, he dragged out a miserable existence. One day a great doctor cured him. Now our recluse was able to enjoy all the benefits of free trade. What a beautiful future was opening up before him! He entertained himself by imagining the excellent use which, thanks to his relations with other men, he would now be able to make of his physical strength. But then he had the misfortune to break both his arms. Alas! Now his lot was more dreadful. The journalists of this country, witnessing his misery, said, “Look at what free trade has reduced him to! Really, he was less to be pitied when he lived as a recluse.”

II.8.13

“Come now,” replied the doctor, “do you take no account of his two broken arms? Have they nothing to do with his sorry plight? His misfortune comes from having lost the use of his arms, and not at all from being cured of leprosy. He would be much more pitiable if he had the use of but one arm and were leprous into the bargain.”

That from Economic Sophisms, on his chapter on the post-hoc fallacy. Incidentally, a few paragraphs earlier, Bastiat makes an economic mistake himself – overlooking the possibility of moral hazard in insurance markets. Why do I like this passage so much? Because to this day, it describes a good many of the “concerns” people have with our modern commercial society. We are too stressed. We are slaves to our technology. We sometimes get a lead-infused toy from China. Someone might get cancer from benzene exposure. And so on.

2 Responses to “Thoughts from Frederic”

  1. Speedmaster says:

    Batiat’s writing are brilliant. Imagine how much better a place the world might be if every high school senior was required to read The Broken Window and the Candlemakers’ Petition?

  2. MR says:

    Batiat’s writing are brilliant. Imagine how much better a place the world might be if every high school senior was required to read The Broken Window and the Candlemakers’ Petition?

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