Saturday, November 27, 2004
Why bad things aren't good things
Bastiat wrote a parable about this that has become known as the "Broken Window Fallacy." A shopkeeper's window is broken by a vandal. A crowd forms, sympathizing with the man, but pretty soon, the people start to suggest the boy wasn't guilty of vandalism; instead, he was a public benefactor, creating economic benefits for everyone in town. After all, fixing the broken window creates employment for the glazier, who will then buy bread and benefit the baker, who will then buy shoes and benefit the cobbler, and so forth.
Those are the seen effects of the broken window. What's unseen is what the shopkeeper would have done with the money had the vandal not broken his window. He might have employed the tailor by purchasing a suit. The broken window produced at least two unseen effects. First, it shifted unemployment from the glazier, who now has a job, to the tailor, who doesn't. Second, it reduced the shopkeeper's wealth. Explicitly, had it not been for the vandalism, the shopkeeper would have had a window and a suit; now, he has just a window.
The broken-window fallacy was seen in a column written by Princeton University professor Paul Krugman after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, "After the Horror" New York Times (Sept. 14, 2001). He wrote, "Ghastly as it may seem to say this, the terror attack -- like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression -- could do some economic good." He went on to point out how rebuilding the destruction would stimulate the economy through business investment and job creation. Again, do the smell test. If Krugman is right, wouldn't the terrorists have done us a bigger economic favor if they had destroyed buildings in other cities?
Those are the seen effects of the broken window. What's unseen is what the shopkeeper would have done with the money had the vandal not broken his window. He might have employed the tailor by purchasing a suit. The broken window produced at least two unseen effects. First, it shifted unemployment from the glazier, who now has a job, to the tailor, who doesn't. Second, it reduced the shopkeeper's wealth. Explicitly, had it not been for the vandalism, the shopkeeper would have had a window and a suit; now, he has just a window.
The broken-window fallacy was seen in a column written by Princeton University professor Paul Krugman after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, "After the Horror" New York Times (Sept. 14, 2001). He wrote, "Ghastly as it may seem to say this, the terror attack -- like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression -- could do some economic good." He went on to point out how rebuilding the destruction would stimulate the economy through business investment and job creation. Again, do the smell test. If Krugman is right, wouldn't the terrorists have done us a bigger economic favor if they had destroyed buildings in other cities?
