Sophisms of the Protectionists

by Frédéric Bastiat

One of your own class has energetically said: "When two workmen run after a master, wages fall; when two masters run after a workman, wages rise."

Allow me, in more laconic phrase, to employ a more scientific, though perhaps a less striking expression: "The rate of wages depends upon the proportion which the supply of labor bears to the demand."

On what depends the demand for labor?

On the quantity of disposable national capital. And the law which says, "such or such an article shall be limited to home production and no longer imported from foreign countries," can it in any degree increase this capital? Not in the least. This law may withdraw it from one course, and transfer it to another; but cannot increase it one penny. Then it cannot increase the demand for labor.

While we point with pride to some prosperous manufacture, can we answer, from whence comes the capital with which it is founded and maintained? Has it fallen from the moon? or rather is it not drawn either from agriculture, or navigation, or other industry? We here see why, since the reign of protective tariffs, if we see more workmen in our mines and our manufacturing towns, we find also fewer sailors in our ports, and fewer laborers and vine-growers in our fields and upon our hillsides.

I could speak at great length upon this subject, but prefer illustrating my thought by an example.

A countryman had twenty acres of land, with a capital of 10,000 francs. He divided his land into four parts, and adopted for it the following changes of crops: 1st, maize; 2d, wheat; 3d, clover; and 4th, rye. As he needed for himself and family but a small portion of the grain, meat, and dairy-produce of the farm, he sold the surplus and bought oil, flax, wine, etc. The whole of his capital was yearly distributed in wages and payments of accounts to the workmen of the neighborhood. This capital was, from his sales, again returned to him, and even increased from year to year. Our countryman, being fully convinced that idle capital produces nothing, caused to circulate among the working classes this annual increase, which he devoted to the inclosing and clearing of lands, or to improvements in his farming utensils and his buildings. He deposited some sums in reserve in the hands of a neighboring banker, who on his part did not leave these idle in his strong box, but lent them to various tradesmen, so that the whole came to be usefully employed in the payment of wages.

The countryman died, and his son, become master of the inheritance, said to himself: "It must be confessed that my father has, all his life, allowed himself to be duped. He bought oil, and thus paid tribute to Province, while our own land could, by an effort, be made to produce olives. He bought wine, flax, and oranges, thus paying tribute to Brittany, Medoc, and the Hiera islands very unnecessarily, for wine, flax and oranges may be forced to grow upon our own lands. He paid tribute to the miller and the weaver; our own servants could very well weave our linen, and crush our wheat between two stones. He did all he could to ruin himself, and gave to strangers what ought to have been kept for the benefit of his own household."

Full of this reasoning, our headstrong fellow determined to change the routine of his crops. He divided his farm into twenty parts. On one he cultivated the olive; on another the mulberry; on a third flax; he devoted the fourth to vines, the fifth to wheat, etc., etc. Thus he succeeded in rendering himself independent, and furnished all his family supplies from his own farm. He no longer received any thing from the general circulation; neither, it is true, did he cast any thing into it. Was he the richer for this course? No, for his land did not suit the cultivation of the vine; nor was the climate favorable to the olive. In short, the family supply of all these articles was very inferior to what it had been during the time when the father had obtained them all by exchange of produce.

With regard to the demand for labor, it certainly was no greater than formerly. There were, to be sure, five times as many fields to cultivate, but they were five times smaller. If oil was raised, there was less wheat; and because there was no more flax bought, neither was there any more rye sold. Besides, the farmer could not spend in wages more than his capital, and his capital, instead of increasing, was now constantly diminishing. A great part of it was necessarily devoted to numerous buildings and utensils, indispensable to a person who determines to undertake every thing. In short, the supply of labor continued the same, but the means of paying becoming less, there was, necessarily, a reduction of wages.