The Candlemakers' Petition

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The Root of Liberty Discussion – "The Candlemakers' Petition"

Written by: Frédéric Bastiat

Bastiat's "Candlemakers' Petition" was originally published as a satirical essay in the French newspaper Journal des Économistes in 1845

Fundamental Concepts

Foreign Trade

The petition is addressed: To the Members of the Chamber of Deputies.  The Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during Bastiat’s lifetime.  Therefore, the petition is addressed to the French National legislative body that was responsible for tariffs and trade legislation.

The petition begins by characterizing the methods of the Chamber regarding foreign trade:

You are on the right road. You reject abstract theories, and have little consideration for cheapness and plenty. Your chief care is the interest of the producer. You desire to protect him from foreign competition and reserve the national market for national industry.

We are about to offer you an admirable opportunity of applying your — what shall we call it? — your theory? No; nothing is more deceptive than theory — your doctrine? your system? your principle? But you dislike doctrines, you abhor systems, and as for principles you deny that there are any in social economy. We shall say, then, your practice — your practice without theory and without principle.

Basic Principles of Economics

In essence, Bastiat is accusing his opponents of failing to understand the basic principles of economics, and of ignoring the fact that these principles had been shown to be effective in promoting economic growth and prosperity.

Naming the sun as an unfair trade competitor the petition says this:

This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us.

Note that perfidious signifies one who does not keep his faith or word (from the Latin word perfidia), while Albion is an ancient and now poetic name for Great Britain. The last sentence in the paragraph is a reference to Britain's reputation as a foggy island.

When describing all the benefits of an embargo against sunlight the petition lists the following:

If more tallow is consumed, then there must be more oxen and sheep; and, consequently, we shall behold the multiplication of meadows, meat, wool, hides, and above all, manure, which is the basis and foundation of all agricultural wealth.

If more oil is consumed, then we shall have an extended cultivation of the poppy, of the olive, and of rape. These rich and soil-exhausting plants will come at the right time to enable us to avail ourselves of the increased fertility that the rearing of additional cattle will impart to our lands…

…The same remark applies to navigation. Thousands of vessels will proceed to the whale fishery; and in a short time, we shall possess a navy capable of maintaining the honor of France, and gratifying the patriotic aspirations of your petitioners, the undersigned candlemakers and others.

Bastiat goes out of his way to note that the actions of the Chamber of Deputies would stimulate the production of manure, “the basis of all agricultural wealth.”  Also, the newly produced manure would be available just in time to replenish the agricultural soil exhausted by the increased crops of oil producing plants.

Finally in this section Bastiat promotes the benefits of the increase in the whaling fleet as it would “maintaining the honor of France, and gratifying the patriotic aspirations of your petitioners, the undersigned candlemakers and others.”  This is a sarcastic rebuttal to the general concept that trade protectionism is good for the entire country.   In this case the candlemakers are ostensibly seeking to “promote the common good and protect the interests of the nation” by passing legislation that will benefit their own industry at the expense of everyone else.

The petition includes this argument against an anticipated objection:

You have ceased to have any right to invoke the interest of the consumer; for, whenever his interest is found opposed to that of the producer, you sacrifice the former. You have done so for the purpose of encouraging labor and increasing employment. For the same reason you should do so again.

Consequences for the Consumers

Bastiat points out that protectionists always side with producers and are never concerned about the consequences for the consumers.  This is the unseen result of protectionist legislation.

The petition also presents this argument against the anticipated objection that the sun’s light is a free gift of nature:

If you urge that the light of the sun is a gratuitous gift of nature, and that to reject such gifts is to reject wealth itself under pretense of encouraging the means of acquiring it, we would caution you against giving a death-blow to your own policy.

Remember that hitherto you have always repelled foreign products, because they approximate more nearly than home products the character of gratuitous gifts. To comply with the exactions of other monopolists, you have only half a motive; and to repulse us simply because we stand on a stronger vantage-ground than others would be to adopt the equation + × + = − ; in other words, it would be to heap absurdity upon absurdity.

In this passage Bastiat points out that protectionist policy applies tariffs in an inversely proportional manner to the amount of the discount in price provided by foreign goods (the lower the price of the foreign product the higher the tariff).  The sun is providing a product for free so the protectionists should have twice as good a reason to embargo the sunlight as another product that is sold for ½ price of domestic products.  In this paragraph Bastiat uses the equation "+ ✕ + = -", which symbolizes that two positive numbers multiplied together result in a negative number.  By including this equation Bastiat is claiming that by granting the demands of other monopolists even though they were weaker than the demands of the candlemakers and then rejecting the candlemakers’ demands is equivalent to multiplying the 2 positive demands and arriving at a negative result.

The petition ends with the following comparisons to existing tariffs:

Once more, when products such as coal, iron, corn, or textile fabrics are sent us from abroad, and we can acquire them with less labor than if we made them ourselves, the difference is a free gift conferred upon us. The gift is more or less considerable in proportion as the difference is more or less great.

It amounts to a quarter, a half, or three-quarters of the value of the product, when the foreigner only asks us for three-fourths, a half, or a quarter of the price we should otherwise pay. It is as perfect and complete as it can be when the donor (like the sun in furnishing us with light) asks us for nothing.

The question, and we ask it formally, is this: Do you desire for our country the benefit of gratuitous consumption or the pretended advantages of onerous production? Make your choice, but be logical; for as long as you exclude, as you do, coal, iron, corn, foreign fabrics, in proportion as their price approximates to zero, what inconsistency it would be to admit the light of the sun, the price of which is already at zero during the entire day!

Study Questions

1. At the end of the essay Bastiat is asking for the protectionists to make a logical choice.  How would you answer his question: should government policy favor low prices or subsidized production?

2. Why is it politically expedient to favor producers and burden consumers by enacting protectionist legislation?

3. Would protectionist policies embargo or subject to tariffs goods or services offered by a foreign producer if they were provided for free?