{"id":19584,"date":"2016-04-06T11:11:49","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T16:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19584"},"modified":"2016-04-06T11:12:15","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T16:12:15","slug":"the-triumph-of-the-invisible-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19584","title":{"rendered":"The Triumph of the Invisible Hand"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"wrapper entry-header page-header\">\n<div class=\"title-with-sep single-title\">\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cobdencentre.org\/2016\/04\/the-triumph-of-the-invisible-hand\/\" target=\"_blank\">THE TRIUMPH OF THE INVISIBLE HAND<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<div class=\"grids\">\n<div class=\"grid-8 column-1\">\n<div class=\"single-box clearfix entry-content\">\n<blockquote><p>\u201cBy virtue of exchange, one man\u2019s prosperity is beneficial to all others.\u201d&#8230;Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>It remains one\u00a0<\/strong>of the most powerful metaphors in economics. In 1850 Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat gave the world the story of the broken window. The son of a shopkeeper accidentally breaks a pane of glass in the shop. A crowd gathers at the scene. Pretty soon, the onlookers jump to the conclusion that it\u2019s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Admittedly, the shopkeeper is out of pocket by the cost of a window. But the glazier just summoned will reap the benefit. Where would poor glaziers be in a world without broken windows ? Imagine all the good uses to which the glazier can put his new-found windfall from repairing the damage. Think what he could buy. All that new money circulating through the economy. Perhaps we might all be better off if more windows got broken on a regular basis ?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStop there !\u201d cries Bastiat, addressing the crowd directly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour theory is confined to that\u00a0<strong><em>which is seen<\/em><\/strong>; it takes no account of that\u00a0<strong><em>which is not seen<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hence the title of Bastiat\u2019s essay: \u2018That which is seen, and that which is not seen\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The six francs paid to the glazier for effecting his repairs are what is seen. The crowd can speculate to its heart\u2019s content to what luxurious end those francs might be expended. But what is not seen is what the shopkeeper might have done with those six francs if he had not had to pay them to the glazier in the first instance. He would, perhaps, have bought some new shoes, or a book for his library.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo break, to spoil, to waste, is not to encourage national labour; or, more briefly, destruction is not profit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE TRIUMPH OF THE INVISIBLE HAND \u201cBy virtue of exchange, one man\u2019s prosperity is beneficial to all others.\u201d&#8230;Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat. It remains one\u00a0of the most powerful metaphors in economics. In 1850 Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat gave the world the story of the broken window. The son of a shopkeeper accidentally breaks a pane of glass in the shop. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13312,7380,13311,439],"class_list":["post-19584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-broken-window-fallacy","tag-cobden-centre","tag-federic-bastiat","tag-invisible-hand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19584"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19586,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19584\/revisions\/19586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}