Wealth & Money Quote by Frederic Bastiat

Bastiat writes like a man trying to pop a balloon with a pin, not a sword. The sentence is a warning wrapped in a neat inversion: the thing politicians and protected industries crave - monopoly - is precisely what will trap them in a poorer world. His trick is to shift the frame from power to purchasing power. “Monopoly over impoverished customers” sounds like a victory until you picture the balance sheet: exclusive access to people who can’t buy much is a hollow crown.

The intent is polemical, aimed at the 19th-century French obsession with tariffs and “national” champions. Bastiat was fighting the protectionist idea that sheltering domestic producers from competition makes a country stronger. He flips it: blocking competition doesn’t just redistribute wealth; it shrinks the customer base by making everyone else poorer through higher prices and misallocated resources. Your factory may enjoy captive demand, but it’s captive demand from households and firms squeezed by the very policies meant to “help” you.

Subtext: elites mistake control for prosperity. Bastiat’s “at their own expense” is doing double duty, implying both financial cost and moral comeuppance. He’s also smuggling in a cosmopolitan premise: rich customers are created by open exchange, rising productivity, and broad-based wealth, not by fencing off markets. Competition is cast as an inconvenience that signals health; monopoly as comfort that signals decay. It’s an economist’s version of tough love, and a political jab: protection sells as patriotism, then bills the nation like a predatory subscription.