Things Seen and Things Not Seen

2014 Reprint of 1910 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Even those who may question the eminence of Frederic Bastiat as an economic theorist will grant that he was a publicist of genius. Joseph Schumpeter calls him "the most brilliant economic journalist who ever lived." Nothing illustrates this better the essay "Things Seen and Things Not Seen." No one has ever stated more clearly in a single phrase the central difficulty of a rational economic policy and, I would like to add, the decisive argument for economic freedom. It is the idea compressed into these few words that made me use the word "genius" in the opening sentence when referring to Bastiat. It is indeed a text around which one might expound a whole system of libertarian economic policy.-F. A. Hayek