How to Work More or Less; F. Bastiat

Now here is a footnote to that story that is not gener ally known. Just as Robinson was striking the first blow with his axe, he saw a plank thrown by the tide upon the seashore. His first impulse was to run and get it, but then he stopped and reasoned as follows: If I get that plank, it will cost me only the time and trouble of going down to the water's edge and carrying it back up the cliff. But if I make a plank with my axe, I shall give myself 15 days of labor. In addition, I shall also dull my axe, which means that I shall have the job of sharpening it. Also, I shall have to replace the proTranslated by Dean Russell from Selected Warks of Frederic Bastiat, Volume 1. Paris: Guillaumin, 1863. pp. 243-244. [335 ] visions that I consume during my labor. Now everybody knows that labor is wealth. So it is clear that I would be doing a disservice to myseH if I accepted that free plank. I must make sure that I always have work to do. Now that I think of it, I can even make additional work for myseH by going down and kicking that plank back into the seal Now you might think that Robinson>s reasoning was absurd. Nevertheless, it is the same reasoning that is followed by every nation that uses tariffs and other re strictions against trade in an effort to make more jobs at home. The nation rejects the foreign plank that is offered in exchange fora little work, in order to insure more work by manufacturing its own plank at home.

Such a nation even sees a gain in the labor of the custom house officials-much like Robinson's decision to return to the sea the present it had given him. If you think of a nation as a collective being, you can't find an atom of difference between the reasoning of the tariff advocates in real life and the reasoning of Robinson Crusoe in this fable. [336 ] CAPITALISM AND OUR CULTURE THE CURRENT revival of interest in religion in America has been variously interpreted. At the very least, it means that many of us may be disposed to re-examine the spiritual foundations on which our culture has been erected. Our heritage of free churches-religious bodies possessing an authority of their own, independent of the State-is obviously rooted in the unique intellectual and cultural soil of the West. But we need to be reminded that our other cherished institutions spring from the same soil. Modem science, education, our tradition of limited government, and our taste for free enterprise or <capitalism are all anchored to the same spiritual foundation; and, as superstructures, they are all affected by the decay or the loss of prestige of their foundation.