Conflict of Principles [Included in The Bastiat Collection
(2011), this article appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845).]
There is one thing that confounds me, and it is this. Sincere
publicists, studying the economy of society from the producer's
point of view, have laid down this double formula: "Governments
should order the interests of consumers who are subject to their
laws, in such a way as to be favorable to national industry."
"They should bring distant consumers under subjection to their
laws, for the purpose of ordering their interests in a way
favorable to national industry." The first of these formulas
gets the name of protection; the second we call outlets, or the
creating of markets, or vents, for our produce. Both are founded
on what we call the balance of trade: "A nation is impoverished
when it imports; enriched when it exports." For if every
purchase from a foreign country is a tribute paid and a national
loss, it follows, of course, that it is right to restrain, and
even prohibit, importations