"Not knowing economics means being blinded by the immediate effect of a phenomenon; knowing it means grasping in thought and foresight the entirety of its effects."
Frederic Bastiat
Discussion
Bastiat was based AF!
Unions and Tenure and Minimum Wage are great examples of this. Leftist ideas that seem like a good idea at the time to address immediate problems because they can’t do logical deductions to see second and third order effects and how these will have negative externalities.
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I just read „That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen“.
It’s like an early version of „Economics in One Lesson“ by Henry Hazlitt
My French sucks so I can’t read enough in context but it seems like he would have totally been a fish out of water in that time and place, telling all these people they’re wrong and why and his ideas still stand up going on 200 years later.
Gotta respect that.
Great satire on protectionism by Bastiat 😂
They must have thought he was a time traveler.
These ideas were so far ahead of those times.
Bear in mind back then, representative democracy was advanced. They sent their best and brightest to the capital to help backwaters who had no idea what was happening 3 counties over let alone across the continent.
That he nailed it was all down to Economics. What we call “Austrian Economics” today but which would have been purely old school back then.
Man I’d love to be dropped in to that time with him. Such a fucking Chad!
Yes, it's truly impressive how he grasped all of that so early on and could convey it so easily in his works. After reading "Human Action," I was already fascinated by how someone could write such an impressive and well-thought-out masterpiece. That led me to have a desire to delve into his precursors a bit. Bastiat's works are very impressive, especially when considering the time period!