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What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen
by Frédéric Bastiat, December 1999
Have you ever heard anyone say: "Taxes are the best investment; they are a
life-giving dew. See how many families they keep alive, and follow in
imagination their indirect effects on industry; they are infinite, as
extensive as life itself."
The advantages that government officials enjoy in drawing their salaries
are what is seen. The benefits that result for their suppliers are also
what is seen. They are right under your nose.
But the disadvantage that the taxpayers try to free themselves from is what
is not seen, and the distress that results from it for the merchants who
supply them is something further that is not seen, although it should stand
out plainly enough to be seen intellectually.
When a government official spends on his own behalf one hundred sous more,
this implies that a taxpayer spends on his own behalf one hundred sous the
less. But the spending of the government official is seen, because it is
done; while that of the taxpayer is not seen, because -- alas! -- he is
prevented from doing it.
From Selected Essays on Political Economy by Frederic Bastiat, as reprinted
in the January 1975 issue of The Freeman.
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