Note 712 — Chapter I · : THE OPTIMISTS

Bastiat himself was obliged to recognise this. “I have not taken the trouble to ask whether all these services are real and proper or whether men are not sometimes paid for services which they never give. The world is full of such injustices.” (Ibid., chap. 5, p. 157.)

But if the world is full of people who are paid for services which they have never given or for merely imaginary and improper work, what is the use of speaking of value and property as if they were founded upon service rendered?

See Gide’s article on La Notion de la Valeur dans Bastiat, in the Revue d’Économie politique, 1887.