[HN Gopher] Candlestick Makers' Petition (1845)
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Candlestick Makers' Petition (1845)
Author : 1cvmask
Score : 57 points
Date : 2021-10-20 16:39 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (bastiat.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (bastiat.org)
| advisedwang wrote:
| Classic all or nothing thinking.
|
| You must pick between producer and consumer, and no balance can
| be struck.
|
| If any regulation is bad, we have to get rid of all regulation.
|
| If growth is good, we have to grow at any cost.
| freeopinion wrote:
| Coincidentally, David Ricardo's argument against England's Corn
| Laws a generation earlier (again dealing with import
| restrictions) gave birth to the economic theory of comparative
| advantage.
|
| A simple example of this argument does lead to all or nothing
| and makes a very strong mathematical argument that anything
| else would be disadvantageous.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Major parallels with the parable of the broken window, which it
| turns out is also from Bastiat:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| It's there too[1], in the full version.
|
| 1: http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
| elmomle wrote:
| While satirical discourses can make for fun reading, they often
| obscure the complexity of the issue at hand and need to be taken
| with a heaping pile of salt. Here is a counter-analogy to the one
| advanced in this letter:
|
| Imagine a world where each nation is essentially a person (this
| isn't strictly necessary, but the intuition to follow comes more
| easily when we think of our own lives, where we have a great deal
| more experience). Now let's say that Carla is a more efficient
| farmer, miner, and homebuilder than I, and that she has agreed to
| help me with those matters in exchange for some of my money. In a
| world where all people are benevolent and will provide stable
| help in perpetuity, this is a fine bargain; but in any other case
| it requires much more scrutiny. My money reserves are finite, but
| my need for food and resources stretches into the temporal
| horizon. Then I need to very carefully evaluate whether my
| sources of revenue are sufficient and sufficiently stable to
| sustain this agreement; I need to have a good backup plan if
| Carla can't come through for me in a time of need; and further, I
| need to be very assured that Carla and I won't come into later
| conflict in which she would be advantaged by suddenly withholding
| her goods and services.
|
| This isn't to argue entirely in favor of domestic self-
| sufficiency; there's plenty of evidence that an interdependent
| web of trade correlates with greater international stability and
| peace, which (all else being equal) seems good. The point,
| however, is that the issue is really very nuanced. How sure are
| you that your dependence on another nation is a safe and stable
| dependency? What's the damage, and how quickly can you adapt, if
| the status quo changes? Those questions are entirely irrelevant
| when discussing the sun's impact on producers of light--the sun
| is (on our timescale) stable and has no motives. So while this
| bit of writing may be a good counterpoint to some minor point in
| the debate in which it's situated, it really seems overly
| reductive in the broader context of international trade.
| SkittyDog wrote:
| > Imagine a world where each nation is essentially a person...
|
| I gonna stop you right there, pardner.
|
| The _first_ objection to protectionist legislation is that it
| benefits certain people in our country (the producers of X) by
| _hurting the interests of other people in our same country_.
|
| Because you've analogized an entire country as a single person,
| your analogy is by definition incapable of addressing this
| problem.
| penteract wrote:
| I can see 2 interpretations of that objection, and I'm not
| sure which one you mean.
|
| I agree that protectionist legislation harms some individuals
| within the country enacting it.
|
| If you're arguing that the analogy does not take the harms
| into account then I disagree with you - the analogy collects
| all benefits and harms into the same person - if Carla is a
| more efficient homebuilder, then not trading with her results
| in having a worse home (or more time being spent on it).
|
| If you're arguing that people have a right to free trade and
| depriving them of that right cannot be offset by gains to
| others, then I think you should state this more clearly, as
| I'm not sure it's less controversial than the somewhat
| utilitarian philosophy implicit in the analogy.
| Green_man wrote:
| The point about cost ("My money reserves are finite...") seems
| to be addressed by Carla's superior productivity. To pay
| someone in your own country would definitionally cost more than
| paying someone in a more productive country (assuming identical
| output, ignoring shipping cost, etc). I think your analogy of 1
| nation == 1 person is obscuring complexity as well. A country
| with a market economy couldn't simply _do_ something, they'd
| have to pay for it (with incentives, taxation, debt, etc.),
| even if they aren't trading with another country. In terms of
| your analogy, if you want to do your own "farming, mining, and
| homebuilding", then you'd have to pay "yourself" more than
| you'd pay Carla, or accept inferior output.
|
| These points make me consider that what you mean by "money
| reserves" refers not to actual currency, but to something like
| trade deficit. If this is the case, can/should nations make
| decisions about their economies and trade policies based on
| projections of trade deficits?
| gaoshan wrote:
| This reminds me of today's politicians opposing green energy.
| Some of the same sorts of arguments only our folks aren't doing
| it satirically.
| pwned1 wrote:
| I recently had the privilege of visiting Bastiat's grave in Rome.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| In his final work ( _Harmonies economiques_ , 1850) Bastiat
| claims that the basis of economic liberty is economic harmony.
| Interesting, because this connects the philosophy of capitalism
| to the philosophy of Communist China (to advance a "harmonious
| society"). Sure, why not? Here is Bastiat:
|
| "The conclusion of the Economists is for Liberty. But in order
| that this conclusion should take hold of men's minds and hearts,
| it must be solidly based on this fundamental principle, that
| interests, left to themselves, tend to harmonious combinations,
| and to the progressive preponderance of the general good."
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| And, in 1851, Abraham Lincoln's chief economic advisor, Henry
| Charles Carey, published his own book on economic harmony.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Charles_Carey
|
| Carey used harmony to refer to many phenomena, like how
| increased worker wages leads to benefits for owners. It's
| lovely stuff. This systems-level beauty seems absent from
| contemporary economic schools of thought.
| voldacar wrote:
| IMHO, there is a particular clarity of thought in Bastiat's
| writing that makes him superior to Anglosphere classical liberal
| authors, at least as far as economics is concerned.
| tomcam wrote:
| This prose is incredibly good in its English form. Is it due to
| an excellent translator, or Bastiat's clarity that made the
| translation easy?
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| There's a third option, at least, that the translator has not
| translated the nuance of the French and so [inadvertently?]
| simplified the writing.
|
| My French isn't really good enough to tell, but the semi-
| gratuite appeared to me as if it's probably an untranslated
| pun.
|
| Thankfully they link the source which says "you'll get a
| _demi-gratuite_ ". My best guess is that a _gratuite_ is a
| reference to schooling as it may be from a period where
| schooling was starting to be given for free. So it 's a burn,
| "you'll get a half-free/be half educated". After in brackets
| it says something like " _pardon pour le mot_ ", but I
| suspect this is read in the French as "sorry for the pun"
| (motte-juste sp? = pun??) and the meaning in vernacular
| English is then [if I'm right!] definitely "shall I call you
| an ambulance for that burn".
|
| As a UK-ian I enjoyed the reference to Perfidious Albion
| (though note the capitalisation, as it's all a name in UK we
| capitalise it all but that's not French practice for such a
| term; this is changing in UK English though).
|
| So, yeah, great read though, either way.
|
| (FWIW I don't think any of this catches much light on the
| implicit question of my first paragraph.)
| jvm wrote:
| Evergreen
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