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Human Labor and National Labor
Mises Daily: Monday, October 22, 2012 by Frederic Bastiat
(http://mises.org/daily/author/123/Frederic-Bastiat)
[Included in The Bastiat Collection
(http://mises.org/document/6299/The-Bastiat-Collection) (2011),
this article
appeared in Economic Sophisms (1845).]
Machine breaking and the prohibition of foreign
commodities are two acts founded on the same doctrine.
We see men who clap their hands when a great invention is
introduced, and who nevertheless adhere to the
protectionist system. Such men are grossly inconsistent!
With what do they reproach free trade? With encouraging
the production by foreigners who are more skilled or more
favorably situated than we are, of commodities that, but
for free trade, would be produced at home. In a word,they accuse
free trade of being injurious to national labor?
For the same reason, should they not reproach machinery with
accomplishing by natural agents what
otherwise would have been done by manual labor, and so of being
injurious to human labor?
The foreign workman, better and more favorably situated than the
home workman for the production
of certain commodities, is, with reference to the latter, a
veritable economic machine, crushing him
by competition. In like manner, machinery, which executes a
piece of work at a lower price than a
certain number of men could do by manual labor, is, in relation
to these manual laborers, a veritable
foreign competitor, who paralyzes them by his rivalry.
If, then, it is politic to protect national labor against the
competition of foreign labor, it is not less so
to protect human labor against the rivalry of mechanical
labor.
Thus, every adherent of the system of protection, if he is
logical, should not content himself with
prohibiting foreign products; he should proscribe also the
products of the shuttle and the plough.
And this is the reason why I like better the logic of those men
who, declaiming against the invasion of
foreign merchandise, declaim likewise against the excess of
production that is due to the inventiv e
power of the human mind.
Such a man is Mr. de Saint-Chamans.
"One of the strongest arguments against free trade," he says,
"is the too extensive employment of
machinery, for many workmen are deprived of employment, either
by foreign competition, which
lowers the price of our manufactured goods, or by instruments,
which take the place of men in our
workshops."
Mr. de Saint-Chamans has seen clearly the analogy, or, we should
rather say, the identity, that obtains
between imports and machinery. For this reason, he proscribes
both; and it is really agreeable to have
to do with such intrepid reasoners, who, even when wrong, carry
out their argument to its logical
conclusion.
But here is the mess in which they land themselves: If it be
true, a priori, that the domain of
invention and that of labor cannot be simultaneously extended
but at each other's expense, it must be
in those countries where machinery most abounds in Lancashire,
for example that we should
expect to find the fewest workmen. And if, on the other hand, we
establish the fact that mechanical
power and manual labor coexist, and to a greater extent among
rich nations than among savages, the
conclusion is inevitable that these two powers do not exclude
each other.
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I cannot understand how any thinking being can enjoy a moment's
repose in presence of the following
dilemma: Either the inventions of man are not injurious to
manual labor, as general facts attest, since
there are more of both in England and France than among the
Hurons and Cherokees, and, that being
so, I am on a wrong road, though I know neither where nor when I
missed my way; at all events, I see
I am wrong, and I should commit the crime of treason to humanity
were I to introduce my error into
the legislation of my country!
Or else, the discoveries of the human mind limit the amount of
manual labor, as special facts appear to
indicate; for I see every day some machine or other superseding
20 or 100 workmen; and then I am
forced to acknowledge a flagrant, eternal, and incurable
antithesis between the intellectual and physicalpowers of man
between his progress and his present well-being; and in these
circumstances I am
forced to say that the Creator of man might have endowed him
with reason, or with physical strength,
with moral force, or with brute force; but that He mocked him by
conferring on him, at the same
time, faculties that are destructive of each other.
The difficulty is pressing and puzzling; but you contrive to
find your way out of it by adopting the
strange mantra: in political economy there are no absolute
principles.
In plain language, this means, "I know not whether it be true or
false; I am ignorant of what constitutes
general good or evil. I give myself no trouble about that. The
immediate effect of each measure upon
my own personal interest is the only law which I can consent to
recognize."
There are no principles! You might as well say there are no
facts; for principles are merely formulas
that classify such facts as are well established.
Machinery, and the importation of foreign commodities, certainly
produce effects. These effects may
be good or bad; on that there may be difference of opinion. But
what ever view we take of them, it is
reduced to a formula, by one of these two principles: Machinery
is a good; or, machinery is an evil:
Importations of foreign produce are beneficial; or, such
importations are hurtful. But to assert that
there are no principles, certainly exhibits the lowest degree of
abasement to which the human mind
can descend; and I confess that I blush for my country when I
hear such a monstrous heresy proclaimed
in the French Chambers, and with their assent; that is to say,
in the face and with the assent of the
elite of our fellow citizens; and this in order to justify their
imposing laws upon us in total disregardfor the real state of the
case.
But then I am told to destroy the fallacy by proving that
machinery is not hurtful to human labor, nor
the importation of foreign products to national labor.
A work like the present cannot well include very full or
complete demonstrations. My design is rather to
state difficulties than to resolve them; to excite reflection
rather than to satisfy doubts. No conviction
makes so lasting an impression on the mind as that which it
works out for itself. But I shall endeavor
nevertheless to put the reader on the right road.
What misleads the adversaries of machinery and foreign
importations is that they judge of them by
their immediate and transitory effects, instead of following
them out to their general and definite
consequences.
The immediate effect of the invention and employment of an
ingenious machine is t o render
superfluous, for the attainment of a given result, a certain
amount of manual labor. But its action does
not stop there. For the very reason that the desired result is
obtained with fewer efforts, the product
is handed over to the public at a lower price; and the aggregate
of savings thus realized by all
purchasers enables them to procure other satisfactions; that is
to say, to encourage manual labor in
general to exactly the extent of the manual labor w hich has
been saved i n the special branch of
industry which has been recently improved. So that the level of
labor has not fallen, while that of
enjoyments has risen.
Let us render this evident by an example.
Suppose there are used annually in this country 10 million hats
at 15 shillings each; this makes the sum
which goes to the support of this branch of industry 7,500,000
sterling. A machine is invented that
allows these hats to be manufactured and sold at 10 shillings.
The sum now wanted for t he support of
this industry is reduced to 5,000,000, provided the demand is
not augmented by the change. But the
