Who Owns The Negative Railroad?

“Railroad crossing” The New York Public Library Digital Collections.

I first came across the work of Frédéric Bastiat in Robert Heilbroner’s The Worldly Philosophers, a readable survey of the major economic thinkers, in which Bastiat plays a minor role. I was attracted by Bastiat’s deft use of the reductio ad absurdum, as in his story of a hypothetical “negative railroad,” which is (de)constructed by a series of limitations meant to stimulate trade, but which wind up destroying it instead. It goes like this:

I have said that as long as one has regard, as unfortunately happens, only to the interest of the producer, it is impossible to avoid running counter to the general interest, since the producer, as such, demands nothing but the multiplication of obstacles, wants, and efforts.

I find a remarkable illustration of this in a Bordeaux newspaper.

M. Simiot raises the following question:

Should there be a break in the tracks at Bordeaux on the railroad from Paris to Spain?

He answers the question in the affirmative and offers a number of reasons, of which I propose to examine only this:

There should be a break in the railroad from Paris to Bayonne at Bordeaux; for, if goods and passengers are forced to stop at that city, this will be profitable for boatmen, porters, owners of hotels, etc.

Here again we see…