Thanks, seowulf. I am a fan of Bastiat and was not familiar with this essay on “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen.”
It’s brilliant. Unfortunately, the translation doesn’t read well and so a reader quickly tires of digesting the key points.
I now realize that Henry Hazlitt’s book — Economics in One Lesson is a better-written distillation of this Bastiat essay.
And here is a PDF of that:
https://leeconomics.com/Literature/Henry%20Hazlitt%20Economics%20in%20One%20Lesson.pdf
Thank you for the recommendation.
There are probably better translations around for Bastiat. Anyway, it seems people with common sense (and that’s all this is-no complicated economics) have always been with us.
Our problem, between the stupid and the grifters, is getting anyone to listen.
I just reread One Lesson the other day and had totally forgotten that Hazlitt kicks things off with the Broken Window. Amazing how easily you can cut down the argument that government spending stimulates the economy.