Music: 신건 With 에즈원 (As One)-My Girl (두근두근 쿵쿵).mp3
PART ONE
PART TWO
Something interesting that I found while studying for Principles of International Commerce:
The Petition of the Candlemakers
Sometimes satire and ridicule are more effective than theory and logic in influencing public opinion. For example, exasperated by the spread of protectionism under the prevailing mercantilist philosophy of the time, French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1851) overwhelmed the proponents of protectionism by satirically extending their arguments to their logical and absurd conclusions. Nowhere is this more briliiantly accomplished than in the ictitious petition of the French candlemakers, written by Bastiat in 1845, and excerpted as follows.
We are suffereing from the intolerable competition of a foreign rival, placed, it would seem, in a condition so far superior to ours for the production of light, that he absolutely inundates our national market at a price fabulously reduced. The moment he shows himself, our trade leaves us--all of our consumers apply to him; and a branch of native industry, having coutless ramifications, is all at once rendered completely stagnant. This rival ... is not other than the sun.
What we pray for is, that it may please you to pass a law ordering the shutting up of all windows, sky-lights, dormerwindow, curtains, blinds, bull's eyes; in a word all openings, holes, chinks, clefts, and fissures, by or through which the light of the sun has been in use to enter houses, to the prejudice of the meritorious manufactures with which we flatter ourselves we have accommodated our country--a country which, in gratitude, ought not to abandon us now to a strife so unequal...
Does it not argue to the greatest inconsistency to check as you do the importation of coal, iron, cheeses, and goods of foreign manufacture, merely because and even in proportion as their price approaches zero, while at the same time you freely admit, and without limitation, the light of the sun, whose price is during the whole day at zero?
If you shut up as much as possible all access to natural light, and create a demand for artificial light, which of our French manufactures will not be encouraged by it? If more tallow is consumed, then there must be more oxen and sheep; and, consequently we shall behold the multiplication of articifial meadows, meat, wool, hides, and above all, manure, which is the basis and foundation of all agricultural wealth.
Source: Frederic Bastiat, Economic Sophisms (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1873), pp.49-53, abridged.
The Petition of the Candlemakers
Sometimes satire and ridicule are more effective than theory and logic in influencing public opinion. For example, exasperated by the spread of protectionism under the prevailing mercantilist philosophy of the time, French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1851) overwhelmed the proponents of protectionism by satirically extending their arguments to their logical and absurd conclusions. Nowhere is this more briliiantly accomplished than in the ictitious petition of the French candlemakers, written by Bastiat in 1845, and excerpted as follows.
We are suffereing from the intolerable competition of a foreign rival, placed, it would seem, in a condition so far superior to ours for the production of light, that he absolutely inundates our national market at a price fabulously reduced. The moment he shows himself, our trade leaves us--all of our consumers apply to him; and a branch of native industry, having coutless ramifications, is all at once rendered completely stagnant. This rival ... is not other than the sun.
What we pray for is, that it may please you to pass a law ordering the shutting up of all windows, sky-lights, dormerwindow, curtains, blinds, bull's eyes; in a word all openings, holes, chinks, clefts, and fissures, by or through which the light of the sun has been in use to enter houses, to the prejudice of the meritorious manufactures with which we flatter ourselves we have accommodated our country--a country which, in gratitude, ought not to abandon us now to a strife so unequal...
Does it not argue to the greatest inconsistency to check as you do the importation of coal, iron, cheeses, and goods of foreign manufacture, merely because and even in proportion as their price approaches zero, while at the same time you freely admit, and without limitation, the light of the sun, whose price is during the whole day at zero?
If you shut up as much as possible all access to natural light, and create a demand for artificial light, which of our French manufactures will not be encouraged by it? If more tallow is consumed, then there must be more oxen and sheep; and, consequently we shall behold the multiplication of articifial meadows, meat, wool, hides, and above all, manure, which is the basis and foundation of all agricultural wealth.
Source: Frederic Bastiat, Economic Sophisms (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1873), pp.49-53, abridged.
I find this funny, brilliant, and remindful of Jonathan Swift's A Vindication of Issac Bickerstaff, Esq; which is absolutely hilarious! (to a literature geek, of course. Maybe not for normal people...)
If you also have exams coming up but want to think about everything except that exam tomorrow, I urge you to click on this link and find out more about the devilish Jonathan Swift and one of the most famous April Fool's pranks in English history.
