Bastiat on the Political Religion of Mercantilism

What I call as political religion is a deeply held or entrenched belief in theory which is in reality signifies as massive self-contradiction, impractical, unrealistic or virtually utopian.

Yet such ideas have been popularly embraced by the vulnerable public primarily because of its “feel good” effects from what seems as “noble sounding” but spurious rhetoric.

Alternatively, what seems plausible—which are principally based on economic ignorance or self-interest from political redistribution or the interests of tax consumers (e.g. beneficiaries from welfare-warfare state,  political agents, captured interest such as private sector funded directly or indirectly by the state and etc…) or personal biases shaped by political ideology—does not square with  economic reality.

The great French classical liberal Frédéric Bastiat explodes on supposed moral high grounds of mercantilism (from Mises Institute) [bold emphasis mine]

The advocates of monopoly maintain that the facts are on their side, and that we have on our side only theory.

They flatter themselves that this long series of public acts, this old experience of Europe, which they invoke, has presented itself as something very formidable to the mind of Mr. Say; and I grant that he has not refuted it with his characteristic sagacity. For my own part, I am not disposed to concede to the monopolists the domain of facts, for they have only in their favor facts that are forced and exceptional; and we oppose to these, facts that are universal, the free and voluntary acts of mankind at large.

What do we say; and what do they say?

We say, "You should buy from others what you cannot make for yourself but at a greater expense."

And they say, "It is better to make things for yourself, although they cost you more than the price at which you could buy them from others."

Now, gentlemen, throwing aside theory, argument, demonstration — all which seem to affect you with nausea — which of these two assertions has on its side the sanction of universal practice? 

Visit your fields, your workshops, your forges, your warehouses; look above, below, and around you; look at what takes place in your own houses; note your own everyday acts; and say what is the principle that guides these laborers, artisans, and merchants; say what is your own personal practice.

Does the farmer make his own clothes? Does the tailor produce the corn he consumes? Does your housekeeper continue to have your bread made at home, after she finds she can buy it cheaper from the baker? Do you resign the pen for the brush to save your paying tribute to the shoeblack? Does the entire economy of society not rest upon the separation of employments, the division of labor — in a word, upon exchange? And what is exchange but a calculation which we make with a view to discontinuing direct production in every case in which we find that possible, and in which indirect acquisition enables us to effect a saving in time and in effort?

It is not you, therefore, who are the men of practice, since you cannot point to a single human being who acts upon your principle.

But you will say, we never intended to make our principle a rule for individual relations. We perfectly understand that this would be to break up the bond of society, and would force men to live like snails, each in his own shell. All that we contend is that our principle regulates de facto the relations that obtain between the different agglomerations of the human family.

Well, I affirm that this principle is still erroneous. The family, the commune, the canton, the department, the province, are so many agglomerations, which all, without any exception, reject practically your principle, and have never dreamt of acting on it. All procure themselves, by means of exchange, those things that it would cost them dearer to procure by means of production. And nations would do the same, did you not hinder them by force.

We, then, are the men of practice and of experience; for we oppose to the restriction you have placed exceptionally on certain international exchanges the practice and experience of all individuals and of all agglomerations of individuals, whose acts are voluntary and can consequently be adduced as evidence. But you begin by constraining, by hindering, and then you lay hold of acts that are forced or prohibited, as warranting you to exclaim, "We have practice and experience on our side!"

You inveigh against our theory, and even against theories in general. But when you lay down a principle in opposition to ours you perhaps imagine you are not proceeding on theory. Clear your heads of that idea. You, in fact, form a theory as we do; but between your theory and ours there is this difference:

Our theory consists merely in observing universal facts, universal opinions, calculations, and ways of proceeding that universally prevail; and in classifying these and rendering them coordinate, with a view to their being more easily understood.

Our theory is so little opposed to practice that it is nothing else but practice explained. We observe men acting as they are moved by the instinct of self-preservation and a desire for progress, and what they thus do freely and voluntarily we denominate political or social economy. We can never help repeating that each individual man is practically an excellent economist, producing or exchanging according as he finds it more to his interest to produce or to exchange. Each, by experience, educates himself in this science; or, rather, the science itself is only this same experience accurately observed and methodically explained.

But on your side you construct a theory in the worst sense of the word. You imagine, you invent, a course of proceeding that is not sanctioned by the practice of any living man under the canopy of heaven; and then you invoke the aid of constraint and prohibition. It is quite necessary that you should have recourse to force, for you desire that men should be made to produce those things that they find it more advantageous to buy; you desire that they should renounce this advantage, and act upon a doctrine that implies a contradiction in terms.

I defy you to take the doctrine, which you acknowledge would be absurd in the relations of individuals, and extend it, even in speculation, to transactions between families, communities, or provinces. By your own admission it is only applicable to international relations.

This is the reason why you are forced to keep repeating, "There are no absolute principles, no inflexible rules. What is good for an individual, a family, a province, is bad for a nation. What is good in detail — namely, to purchase rather than produce, when purchasing is more advantageous than producing — that same is bad in the gross. The political economy of individuals is not that of nations" — and other nonsense of the same kind.

And to what does all this tend? Look at it a little closer. The intention is to prove that we, the consumers, are your property! — that we are yours body and soul! — that you have an exclusive right over our stomachs and our limbs! — that it belongs to you to feed and clothe us on your own terms, whatever be your ignorance, incapacity or rapacity!

No, you are not men of practice; you are men of abstraction — and of extortion.

The path to hell is paved with good intentions. This so applies to the nirvana fallacy based doctrine called mercantilism, which in reality represents an instrument for political and economic repression.