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

this is what is not seen.

The road is begun. A thousand workmen come every morning, leave
every evening, and take their wages -this is certain. If the road
had not been decreed, if the supplies had not been voted, these good
people would have had neither work nor salary there; this also is
certain.

But is this all? does not the operation, as a whole, contain
something else? At the moment when M. Dupin pronounces the emphatic
words, "The Assembly has adopted," do the millions descend
miraculously on a moon-beam into the coffers of MM. Fould and
Bineau? In order that the evolution may be complete, as it is said,
must not the State organise the receipts as well as the expenditure?
must it not set its taxgatherers and tax-payers to work, the former to
gather, and the latter to pay? Study the question, now, in both its
elements. While you state the destination given by the State to the
millions voted, do not neglect to state also the destination which the
taxpayer would have given, bat cannot now give, to the same. Then
you will understand that a public enterprise is a coin with two sides.
Upon one is engraved a labourer at work, with this device, that
which is seen; on the other is a labourer out of work, with the
device, that which is not seen.

The sophism which this work is intended to refute, is the
more dangerous when applied to public works, inasmuch as it serves
to justify the most wanton enterprises and extravagance. When a
railroad or a bridge are of real utility, it is sufficient to
mention this utility. But if it does not exist, what do they do?
Recourse is had to this mystification: "We must find work for the
workmen."

Accordingly, orders are given that the drains in the
Champ-de-Mars be made and unmade. The great Napoleon, it is said,
thought he was doing a very philanthropic work by causing ditches to
be made and then filled up. He said, therefore, "What signifies the
result? All we want is to see wealth spread among the labouring
classes."

But let us go to the root of the matter. We are deceived by
money. To demand the cooperation of all the citizens in a common work,
in the form of money, is in reality to demand a concurrence in kind;
for every one procures, by his own labour, the sum to which he is
taxed. Now, if all the citizens were to be called together, and made
to execute, in conjunction, a work useful to all, this would be easily
understood; their reward would be found in the results of the work
itself.

But after having called them together, if you force them to
make roads which no one will pass through, palaces which no one will