In Defence Of Free Trade

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Earlier today, I finished reading The Worldly Philosophers. It is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. The following excerpt might tell you why: 



"When the Chamber of Deputies in the 1840s legislated higher duties on all foreign goods in order to benefit French industry, Bastiat turned out this masterpiece of economic satire: 

PETITION OF THE MANUFACTURERS OF CANDLES, STREET LAMPS, SNUFFERS, EXTINGUISHERS, AND THE PRODUCERS OF OIL, TALLOW, RESIN, ALCOHOL, AND GENERALLY EVERYTHING CONNECTED WITH LIGHTING

TO MESSIEURS AND THE MEMBERS OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES 

GENTLEMEN, 

We are suffering from the intolerable competition of a foreign rival, placed, it would seem, in a condition so far superior to our own for the production of light, that he absolutely inundates our national market with it a price fabulously reduced...This rival...is no other than the sun. 

What we pray for, is, that it may please you to pass a law ordering the shutting up of all windows, skylights, dormer-windows, outside and inside shutters, curtains, blinds, bull's-eyes: in a word of all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures. 

...If you shut up as much as possible all access to natural light and create a demand for artificial light, which, of our French manufacturers will not benefit by it?

...If more tallow is consumed, then there must be more oxen and sheep...if more oil is consumed, then we shall have extended cultivation of the poppy, of the olive...our heaths will be covered with resinous trees. 

Make your choice, but be logical; for as long as you exclude, as you do, iron, corn, foreign fabrics, in proportion as their prices approximate to zero, what inconsistency it would be to admit the light of the sun, the price of which is already zero during the entire day! 


A more dramatic - if fantastic - defense of free trade has never been written. "



Even if you have read Adam Smith, Keynes, and Schumpeter, this book will make you see them in different light. 

Thanks to Brian Arthur for recommending the book. 





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