文档介绍：Author:
Bastiat, Frédéric (1801-1850)
Title:
Selected Essays on Political Economy
Published: 
Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., trans. Seymour Cain., ed. e B. de Huszar, 1995.
First published: 1848, in French.
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Frédéric Bastiat
1
What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen**1
In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.
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.
Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil e, while the good economist pursues a great good e, at the risk of a small present evil.
The same thing, of course, is true of health and morals. Often, the sweeter the first