Frederic Bastiat Quotes
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
Frederic Bastiat, 1801-1850, French Political Economist What Is Seen And Not Seen
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This quotation polarized the economists into those who thought that economics was held back by the rigidity of the scientific method and those who thought that economics was a backward science because it did not follow the standards of the more developed scientists. Scientists from other fields are almost universally in agreement and accuse many economists of making predictions and pronouncements from analyses that in other sciences would only be called guesses. The same is said of politics by many scientists.
This quotation illustrates why so many consider Mises a political philosopher rather than an economist. In the latter part of Mises life and career, advances in mathematics and its application to economics revolutionized the field of economics and left Mises behind. Nonetheless Mises’ contribution to the non-quantitative area of economics was substantial, and his influence on others was even greater.
This is the equivalent of “if you build it, they will come.” This is one of those so called “Law” of economics that is really not always so. In many cases it holds, as when Disney Built Disney World or Apple issued the iPhone. However, it clearly does not hold when there is a surplus of a commodity.
Claude-Frédéric Bastiat was a French economist, writer and a prominent member of the French Liberal School.
