Review of Bastiat’s “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen”
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
Email This Post
Print This Post
Please help me welcome Lynn Badler as our newest blogger on Red Pills. I have known Lynn for about three years. I met Lynn via the Libertarian Party, of which she is a stalwart member. Lynn has run for office in California as well as Utah. In 2006 she campaigned for U.S. Representative against Rep. Bishop. Lynn, my wife, and I spent quite a few hours together passing out campaign literature during that campaign.
Lynn’s first offering on Red Pills is a review of Claude Frederick Bastiat’s booklet, “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen: The Unintended Consequences of Government Spending”. This can be purchased via Amazon.com or Mises.org. For those unfamiliar with Bastiat’s work please see HERE.
Here is Lynn’s review of “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen”:
At 47 pages, even modern Americans with the attention span of a few minutes can find the time to read this book.
On my refrigerator I have a comic from a few months ago when oil was $147 a barrel and gas was over $4.50 a gallon. It shows Mr. Average saying “no new drilling for oil…no new refineries…no nuclear power plants…of course with energy prices this high we’ve got to do something so our plan is blame the oil companies”.
That which is seen: high oil prices, high gas prices, high gas prices, Mr. Average American having trouble paying his bills because (among other things like taking on too much credit) it’s costing him so much more to commute to work.
That which is unseen: regulations prohibiting drilling for the United States own oil supply, regulations stopping nuclear power, heavily used efficiently by other industrialized countries, regulations prohibing processing of oil.
That which is seen: oil companies making huge profits…that which is unseen year after year when oil companies barely profitted at all because of low prices.
That which is seen: profitable companies of any type: that which is unseen the hard work and heavy expenses and RISK taken to produce those profits.
Written in the 1800’s, Bastiat’s book has rather quaint language. But when you get past that his message is as timely today as it was when France was becoming a socialist country. His message is basically that governments take citizens money by force and then supposedly use that money for services that are beneficial to society. Seen are the roads, theaters (or other government sponsered arts), sports stadiums for your favorite team, etc.
For private businesses what is seen is the profits they make.
But what is unseen are the costs. Taxpayers having money taken from (virtually at gunpoint or threat of jail) that they wished to spend on something else …perhaps toll roads that they prefer to use, or the arts THEY prefer to support, or the sport THEY wish to attend, or even engage in themselves. What is unseen are the costs of the private businesses and the fact that these businesses are successful and profitable because people VOLUNTARILY bought their products or voluntarily used their services.
So the government handouts to corn growers to use the corn for ethanol instead of food supposedly caused more energy. (In actual fact what was not seen is that it takes more energy to get energy out of corn than the corn supples!). Unseen were the food shortages and food price inflation that was to follow.
The government taxes oil to raise money for roads…and the roads are seen (as are the taxes which in some states are posted). What is unseen is the largesse the gas tax money supplies so that government can use it to subsidize railroads which lose money daily, or public transport that cannot pay for itself because not enough people want it.
Government jobs: seen are the jobs…unseen are the private jobs lost because as government jobs continue to increase benefits and wages beyond what private businesses can afford.. and the ever increasing debt that is mounting for our society.
Unintended consequences: that is the sum total of government’s actions.
The more money the government extracts from it’s people, the more government waste expands.Lynn Badler
To redpills.org home page.
This article, excluding the material cited or the material which is included herein but written by other authors or material covered by other copyrights, is copyright © 2007, by Lynn Badler. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute it electronically and in print, other than as part of a book and provided that mention of the author’s name is included. All other rights reserved.
Email This Post
Print This Post
