Economic Patriotism

By Ramesh Akkineni
from an article in Financial Express
The French must remember the folly of such thinking and actions by recalling the economic sophisms from French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), who propagated free market thinking, even if satirically. Representing the ‘Manufacturers of Candles, Lanterns ...and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting,’ he wrote an imaginary petition to Parliament.
“...You concern yourselves mainly with the fate of the producer. You wish to free him from foreign competition, that is, to reserve the domestic market for domestic industry. We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity for applying your...practice without theory and without principle.
We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a foreign rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own...the moment that he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us mercilessly...
We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all...openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses, to the detriment of the fair industries with which, we are proud to say, we have endowed the country, a country that cannot, without betraying ingratitude, abandon us today to so unequal a combat...if you shut off as much as possible all access to natural light...what industry in France will not ultimately be encouraged?
If France consumes more tallow, there will have to be more cattle and sheep, and, consequently, we shall see an increase in cleared fields, meat, wool, leather, and especially manure, the basis of all agricultural wealth.
If France consumes more oil, we shall see an expansion in the cultivation of the poppy, the olive, and the rapeseed. These rich, yet soil-exhausting, plants will come at just the right time to enable us to put to profitable use the increased fertility that the breeding of cattle will impart to the land.
Our moors will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees will gather from our mountains the perfumed treasures that today waste their fragrance, like the flowers from which they emanate. Thus, there is not one branch of agriculture that would not undergo a great expansion.
The same holds true for shipping. Thousands of vessels will engage in whaling and, in a short time, we shall have a fleet capable of upholding the honour of France...It needs but a little reflection, gentlemen, to be convinced that there is perhaps not one Frenchman...whose condition would not be improved by the success of our petition.”

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