Protection and Communism

by Frédéric Bastiat

Do you wish to leave this dull algebra? So do I. To speak of facts, therefore, you will not deny that if the prohibitory system has contrived to do some good to the coal trade, it is only in raising the price of the coal. You will not, moreover, deny that this excess of price from 1822 to the present time has only occasioned a greater expense to all those who use this fuel—in other words, that it represents a loss. Can it be said that the producers of coal have received, besides the interest of their capital and the ordinary profits of trade, in consequence of the protection afforded them, an extra gain equivalent to that loss? It would be necessary that Protection, without losing those unjust and Communistic qualities which characterize it, should at least be neuter in the purely economic point of view. It would be necessary that it should at least have the merit of resembling simple robbery, which displaces wealth without destroying it. But you yourself affirm, at page 236, 'that the mines of Aveyron, Alais, Saint-Etienne, Creuzot, Anzin, the most celebrated of all, have not produced a revenue of four per cent, on the capital embarked in them.' It does not require Protection that capital in France should yield four per cent. Where, then, in this instance, is the profit to counterbalance the above-mentioned loss?

This is not all. There is another national loss. Since by the relative rising of the price of fuel, all the consumers of coal have lost, they have been obliged to limit their expenses in proportion, and the whole of national labour has been necessarily discouraged to this extent. It is this loss which they never take into their calculation, because it does not strike their senses.

Permit me to make another observation, which I am surprised has not struck people more. It is that Protection applied to agricultural produce shows itself in all its odious iniquity with regard to farmers, and injurious in the end to the landed proprietors themselves.

Let us imagine an island in the South Seas where the soil has become the private property of a certain number of inhabitants.

Let us imagine upon this appropriated and limited territory an agricultural population always increasing or having a tendency to increase.

This last class will not be able to produce anything directly of what is indispensable to life. They will be compelled to give up their labour to those who have it in their power to offer in exchange maintenance, and also the materials for labour, corn, fruit, vegetables, meat, wool, flax, leather, wood, &c.

The interest of this class evidently is, that the market where these things are sold should be as extensive as possible. The more it finds itself surrounded by the greatest quantity of agricultural produce, the more of this it will receive for any given quantity of its own labour.

Under a free system, a multitude of vessels would be seen seeking food and materials among the neighbouring islands and continents, in exchange for manufactured articles. The cultivators of the land will enjoy all the prosperity to which they have a right to pretend; a just balance will be maintained between the value of manufacturing labour and that of agricultural labour.

But, in this situation, the landed proprietors of the island make this calculation—If we prevent the workmen labouring for the foreigners, and receiving from them in exchange subsistence and raw materials, they will be forced to turn to us. As their number continually increases, and as the competition which exists between them is always active, they will compete for that share of food and materials which we can dispose of, after deducting what we require for ourselves, and we cannot fail to sell our produce at a very high price. In other words, the balance in the relative value of their labour and of ours will be disturbed. We shall be able to command a greater share in the result of their labour. Let us, then, impose restrictions on that commerce which inconveniences us; and to enforce these restrictions, let us constitute a body of functionaries, which the workmen shall aid in paying.

I ask you, would not this be the height of oppression, a flagrant violation of all liberty, of the first and the most sacred principles of property?