I was silly enough to choose a form of industry that leaves me with a loss of 10 percent.

Frédéric Bastiat
What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen

This twelfth and last (very short) text of the series “What is seen and What is not seen” is an uncompromising attack on crony capitalism that is set on the same plane as socialism by Frédéric Bastiat who admits it is slightly more “refined”. Be it in the form of protecting tariffs or subsidies, this “capitalism” that requires taxpayers to cover the losses of entrepreneurs could be justified only if the said entrepreneur had a right to profit in the same way that an individual would have a right to work (“a right to work” as opposed to “the right to work”). In order to be consistent, whoever believes that one is not acceptable must find the other unacceptable either.

A footnote is added to the text, trying to explain why it is possible to encounter this form of crony capitalism by the fact that “the harm is more widely spread over the mass and the benefit more concentrated on a single point”, which, if I may remind you, was noted in the quote chosen for the Introduction to the Economic Sophisms upon opening this blog.