Sri Lanka, Dec. 8 -- By M. Rizwan Muzzammil
The Parable of the Broken Window
In 1850, the French economist Frederic Bastiat penned "The Parable of the Broken Window." A boy breaks a shop window, and a glazier is paid six francs to repair it. Onlookers muse that such accidents are good for trade, as they keep windowmakers in business. This logic, Bastiat argues, focuses only on the "seen" consequence-the glazier's gain-while ignoring the "unseen."
The shopkeeper, now six francs poorer, cannot spend that money on a new hat, shoes, or a book. The "unseen" consequence is the business denied to the tailor, the cobbler, and the bookseller. In a better world, the shopkeeper would have both his window and a new good. Bastiat's lesson is that sou...