"Frederick Bastiat - That Which Is Seen-That Which Is Not" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bastiat Frederick)

labour; it is as fertile, as productive a labour as any other kind
of labour in the nation. The theatres in France, you know, feed and
salary no less than 80,000 workmen of different kinds; painters,
masons, decorators, costumers, architects, &c., which constitute the
very life and movement of several parts of this capital, and on this
account they ought to have your sympathies." Your sympathies! say,
rather, your money.

And further on he says: "The pleasures of Paris are the
labour and the consumption of the provinces, and the luxuries of the
rich are the wages and bread of 200,000 workmen of every
description, who live by the manifold industry of the theatres on
the surface of the republic, and who receive from these noble
pleasures, which render France illustrious, the sustenance of their
lives and the necessaries of their families and children. It is to
them that you will give 60,000 francs." (Very well; very well. Great
applause.) For my part I am constrained to say, "Very bad! Very
bad!" Confining his opinion, of course, within the bounds of the
economical question which we are discussing.

Yes, it is to the workmen of the theatres that a part, at
least, of these 60,000 francs will go; a few bribes, perhaps, may be
abstracted on the way. Perhaps, if we were to look a little more
closely into the matter, we might find that the cake had gone
another way, and that these workmen were fortunate who had come in for
a few crumbs. But I will allow, for the sake of argument, that the
entire sum does go to the painters, decorators, &e.

This is that which is seen. But whence does it come? This is
the other side of the question, and quite as important as the
former. Where do these 60, francs spring from? and where would they go
if a vote of the Legislature did not direct them first towards the Rue
Rivoli and thence towards the Rue Grenelle? This is what is not
seen. Certainly, nobody will think of maintaining that the legislative
vote has caused this sum to be hatched in a ballot urn; that it is a
pure addition made to the national wealth; that but for this
miraculous vote these 60,000 francs would have been for ever invisible
and impalpable. It must be admitted that all that the majority can do,
is to decide that they shall be taken from one place to be sent to
another; and if they take one direction, it is only because they
have been diverted from another.

This being the case, it is clear that the taxpayer, who has
contributed one franc, will no longer have this franc at his own
disposal. It is clear that he will be deprived of some gratification
to the amount of one franc; and that the workman, whoever he may be,
who would have received it from him, will be deprived of a benefit
to that amount. Let us not, therefore, be led by a childish illusion
into believing that the vote of the 60,000 francs may add any thing
whatever to the well-being of the country, and to the national labour.