Sophisms of the Protectionists Part 37

We reply to this, that, according to learned physicians, the left side of the body has a natural weakness, which is very rea.s.suring for the future of labor.

Finally, Sire, consent to sign the law, and a great principle will have prevailed: _All wealth comes from the intensity of labor._ It will be easy for us to extend it, and vary its application. We will declare, for instance, that it shall be allowable to work only with the feet.

This is no more impossible (for there have been instances) than to extract iron from the mud of the Seine. There have even been men who wrote with their backs. You see, Sire, that we do not lack means of increasing national labor. If they do begin to fail us, there remains the boundless resource of amputation.

If this report, Sire, was not intended for publication, we would call your attention to the great influence which systems a.n.a.logous to the one we submit to you, are capable of giving to men in power. But this is a subject which we reserve for consideration in private counsel.

XVII.

SUPREMACY BY LABOR.

"As in a time of war, supremacy is attained by superiority in arms, can, in a time of peace, supremacy be secured by superiority in labor?"

This question is of the greatest interest at a time when no one seems to doubt that in the field of industry, as on that of battle, _the stronger crushes the weaker_.

This must result from the discovery of some sad and discouraging a.n.a.logy between labor, which exercises itself on things, and violence, which exercises itself on men; for how could these two things be identical in their effects, if they were opposed in their nature?

And if it is true that in manufacturing as in war, supremacy is the necessary result of superiority, why need we occupy ourselves with progress or social economy, since we are in a world where all has been so arranged by Providence that one and the same result, oppression, necessarily flows from the most antagonistic principles?

Referring to the new policy toward which commercial freedom is drawing England, many persons make this objection, which, I admit, occupies the sincerest minds. "Is England doing anything more than pursuing the same end by different means? Does she not constantly aspire to universal supremacy? Sure of the superiority of her capital and labor, does she not call in free compet.i.tion to stifle the industry of the continent, reign as a sovereign, and conquer the privilege of feeding and clothing the ruined peoples?"

It would be easy for me to demonstrate that these alarms are chimerical; that our pretended inferiority is greatly exaggerated; that all our great branches of industry not only resist foreign compet.i.tion, but develop themselves under its influence, and that its infallible effect is to bring about an increase in general consumption capable of absorbing both foreign and domestic products.

To-day I desire to attack this objection directly, leaving it all its power and the advantage of the ground it has chosen. Putting English and French on one side, I will try to find out in a general way, if, even though by superiority in one branch of industry, one nation has crushed out similar industrial pursuits in another one, this nation has made a step toward supremacy, and that one toward dependence; in other words, if both do not gain by the operation, and if the conquered do not gain the most by it.

If we see in any product but a cause of labor, it is certain that the alarm of the protectionists is well founded. If we consider iron, for instance, only in connection with the masters of forges, it might be feared that the compet.i.tion of a country where iron was a gratuitous gift of nature, would extinguish the furnaces of another country, where ore and fuel were scarce.

But is this a complete view of the subject? Are there relations only between iron and those who make it? Has it none with those who use it?

Is its definite and only destination to be produced? And if it is useful, not on account of the labor which it causes, but on account of the qualities which it possesses, and the numerous services for which its hardness and malleability fit it, does it not follow that foreigners cannot reduce its price, even so far as to prevent its production among us, without doing us more good, under the last statement of the case, than it injures us, under the first?

Please consider well that there are many things which foreigners, owing to the natural advantages which surround them, hinder us from producing directly, and in regard to which we are placed, _in reality_, in the hypothetical position which we examined relative to iron. We produce at home neither tea, coffee, gold nor silver. Does it follow that our labor, as a whole, is thereby diminished? No; only to create the equivalent of these things, to acquire them by way of exchange, we detach from our general labor a _smaller_ portion than we would require to produce them ourselves. More remains to us to use for other things.

We are so much the richer and stronger. All that external rivalry can do, even in cases where it absolutely keeps us from any certain form of labor, is to encourage our labor, and increase our productive power. Is that the road to _supremacy_, for foreigners?

If a mine of gold were to be discovered in France, it does not follow that it would be for our interests to work it. It is even certain that the enterprise ought to be neglected, if each ounce of gold absorbed more of our labor than an ounce of gold bought in Mexico with cloth. In this case, it would be better to keep on seeing our mines in our manufactories. What is true of gold is true of iron.

The illusion comes from the fact that one thing is not seen. That is, that foreign superiority prevents national labor, only under some certain form, and makes it superfluous under this form, but by putting at our disposal the very result of the labor thus annihilated. If men lived in diving-bells, under the water, and had to provide themselves with air by the use of pumps, there would be an immense source of labor.

To destroy this labor, _leaving men in this condition_, would be to do them a terrible injury. But if labor ceases, because the necessity for it has gone; because men are placed in another position, where air reaches their lungs without an effort, then the loss of this labor is not to be regretted, except in the eyes of those who appreciate in labor, only the labor itself.

It is exactly this sort of labor which machines, commercial freedom, and progress of all sorts, gradually annihilate; not useful labor, but labor which has become superfluous, supernumerary, objectless, and without result. On the other hand, protection restores it to activity; it replaces us under the water, so as to give us an opportunity of pumping; it forces us to ask for gold from the inaccessible national mine, rather than from our national manufactories. All its effect is summed up in this phrase--_loss of power_.

It must be understood that I speak here of general effects, and not of the temporary disturbances occasioned by the transition from a bad to a good system. A momentary disarrangement necessarily accompanies all progress. This may be a reason for making the transition a gentle one, but not for systematically interdicting all progress, and still less for misunderstanding it.

They represent industry to us as a conflict. This is not true; or is true only when you confine yourself to considering each branch of industry in its effects on some similar branch--in isolating both, in the mind, from the rest of humanity. But there is something else; there are its effects on consumption, and the general well-being.

This is the reason why it is not allowable to a.s.similate labor to war as they do.

In war, _the strongest overwhelms the weakest_.

In labor, _the strongest gives strength to the weakest_. This radically destroys the a.n.a.logy.

Though the English are strong and skilled; possess immense invested capital, and have at their disposal the two great powers of production, iron and fire, all this is converted into the _cheapness_ of the product; and who gains by the cheapness of the product?--he who buys it.

It is not in their power to absolutely annihilate any portion of our labor. All that they can do is to make it superfluous through some result acquired--to give air at the same time that they suppress the pump; to increase thus the force at our disposal, and, which is a remarkable thing, to render their pretended supremacy more impossible, as their superiority becomes more undeniable.

Thus, by a rigorous and consoling demonstration, we reach this conclusion: That _labor_ and _violence_, so opposed in their nature, are, whatever socialists and protectionists may say, no less so in their effects.

All we required, to do that, was to distinguish between _annihilated_ labor and _economized_ labor.

Having less iron _because_ one works less, or having more iron _although_ one works less, are things which are more than different,--they are opposites. The protectionists confound them; we do not. That is all.

Be convinced of one thing. If the English bring into play much activity, labor, capital, intelligence, and natural force, it is not for the love of us. It is to give themselves many comforts in exchange for their products. They certainly desire to receive at least as much as they give, and _they make at home the payment for that which they buy elsewhere_. If then, they inundate us with their products, it is because they expect to be inundated with ours. In this case, the best way to have much for ourselves is to be free to choose between these two methods of production: direct production or indirect production. All the British Machiavelism cannot lead us to make a bad choice.

Let us then stop a.s.similating industrial compet.i.tion with war; a false a.s.similation, which is specious only when two rival branches of industry are isolated, in order to judge of the effects of compet.i.tion. As soon as the effect produced on the general well-being is taken into consideration, the a.n.a.logy disappears.

In a battle, he who is killed is thoroughly killed, and the army is weakened just that much. In manufactures, one manufactory succ.u.mbs only so far as the total of national labor replaces what it produced, _with an excess_. Imagine a state of affairs where for one man, stretched on the plain, two spring up full of force and vigor. If there is a planet where such things happen, it must be admitted that war is carried on there under conditions so different from those which obtain here below, that it does not even deserve that name.

Now, this is the distinguis.h.i.+ng character of what they have so inappropriately called an _industrial war_.

Let the Belgians and English reduce the price of their iron, if they can, and keep on reducing it, until they bring it down to nothing. They may thereby put out one of our furnaces--kill one of our soldiers; but I defy them to hinder a thousand other industries, more profitable than the disabled one, immediately, and, as a necessary consequence of this very cheapness, resuscitating and developing themselves.

Let us decide that supremacy by labor is impossible and contradictory, since all superiority which manifests itself among a people is converted into cheapness, and results only in giving force to all others. Let us, then, banish from political economy all these expressions borrowed from the vocabulary of battles: _to struggle with equal arms, to conquer, to crush out, to stifle, to be beaten, invasion, tribute_. What do these words mean? Squeeze them, and nothing comes out of them. We are mistaken; there come from them absurd errors and fatal prejudices. These are the words which stop the blending of peoples, their peaceful, universal, indissoluble alliance, and the progress of humanity.

PART III.

SPOLIATION AND LAW.[16]

[Footnote 16: On the 27th of April, 1850, after a very curious discussion, which was reproduced in the _Moniteur_, the General Council of Agriculture, Manufactures and Commerce issued the following order:

"Political economy shall be taught by the government professors, not merely from the theoretical point of view of free trade, but also with special regard to the facts and legislation which control French industry."

It was in reply to this decree that Bastiat wrote the pamphlet _Spoliation and Law_, which first appeared in the _Journal des Economistes_, May 15, 1850.]

_To the Protectionists of the General Council of Manufactures:_

GENTLEMEN--Let us for a few moments interchange moderate and friendly opinions.

You are not willing that political economy should believe and teach free trade.

This is as though you were to say, "We are not willing that political economy should occupy itself with society, exchange, value, law, justice, property. We recognize only two principles--oppression and spoliation."

Can you possibly conceive of political economy without society? Or of society without exchange? Or of exchange without a relative value between the two articles, or the two services, exchanged? Can you possibly conceive the idea of _value_, except as the result of the _free_ consent of the exchangers? Can you conceive of one product being _worth_ another, if, in the barter, one of the parties is not _free_? Is it possible for you to conceive of the free consent of two parties without liberty? Can you possibly conceive that one of the contracting parties is deprived of his liberty unless he is oppressed by the other?