Customer Reviews

That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen: The Unintended Consequences of Government Spending

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That which is seen: Government bailouts & a Stimulis Package to help the country recover from a severe recession; that which is not seen: The crippling effects of a budget deficit, which our children's children will be paying off with higher taxes, long after we're gone. Short term gain; long term pain. That's business as usual for practically every government on the planet; welcome to Obama Nation.

Of course, we know that sort of policy is not the proper solution to problems of finacial difficulties; however, it's the most expedient, and therefore, most politically advantageous. After all, it's politicians who are running things; not economists.

Frederic Bastiat's remarkable treatise on government spending was written a century and a half ago, but like his timeless masterpiece The Law, this particular endeavor is still very relevent. The language is perhaps a bit difficult to sift through; but it's message is clear: The government really needs much less intervention in dealing with our society's needs; that concept is still as compelling today as it was when Bastiat first wrote this book.

Big government needs to shrink; it's really that simple. Making that happen any time soon is going to be difficult, however, as long as politicians are still running things; and they are.

One of Bastiat's finest essays. He appeals to the reader to question your public officials, or private companies, when they point to a positive consequence that we can see. What is often more important is the unseen effects, the other outcomes that result, which are often hidden from our view because their effects are messier and less visible.

This is a must read for anyone interested in economics or politics.

This little book is the most insightful thing ever written by all of the great freedom thinkers. What is seen versus what is not seen explains why government gets away with such deception.

Read Bastiat along with Beitler's Rational Individualism: A Moral Argument for Limited Government & Capitalism. Essential reading for free-market thinkers.

This is a great follow up to "The Law".

I'm not sure which was published first, but it seems to take up the theme of "The Law", and en devours to illuminate further the foibles of a government obsessed with righting the wrongs of the world through taxation (legal plunder).

The booklet outlines what today we call "unintended consequences." The setting in the 1840 era means the illustrations are simple and difficult not to recognize. Contemporary economists consider those principles too simple to listen to. Contemporary economists would rather live in a Rube Goldberg economy exploiting a mechanism complex enough to convince the unwashed masses Utopia is here and it costs nothing.