In this chapter, I will unveil a brand-new technology — a revolutionary innovation. A researcher has developed a pair of bionic glasses with an ultra-powerful mini-camera embedded in the front. This technology enables the visualization of details that are invisible to the naked eye. In the arms, there is an electronic chip that transmits images directly to the cloud via my smartphone.

The inventor of the first prototype of these glasses was Frédéric Bastiat in 1850 in a famous pamphlet: Ce qu’on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas. These glasses are those of the economist. They allow measuring the consequences of decisions made by the authorities on our lives. They are the glasses that "allow us to see what we do not see": the destruction caused by clientelist policies and false economic theories. Often, we do not see their victims, nor their beneficiaries; in short, we do not see their real effects, as opposed to the claims made in official speeches, which Bastiat calls "Economic Sophisms." The good economist, according to Bastiat, must describe the effects of political decisions on society. However, they must be attentive, not to their short-term effects on a particular group, but rather to their long-term consequences for society as a whole. Who are the victims and who are the beneficiaries of these policies? What are the hidden costs of a certain law or political decision? What would taxpayers have done instead of the government with the money that was taken from them in taxes? These are the questions posed by the good economist, according to Bastiat.

Thus, in Public Works, Bastiat writes:

One of the most well-known sophisms is the broken window fallacy. Some claim that breaking a window in a house does not harm the economy, as it benefits the glazier. However, Bastiat will demonstrate that destruction is not in our interest because it does not generate wealth. It costs more than it yields. The young boy who breaks a neighbor's window gives the glazier work to do. But here is how his friends console him:

Thus, according to Keynes, the destruction of property, by forcing expenditure, would stimulate the economy and have a "multiplier effect", invigorating production and employment. This is only what is seen.

However, what is not seen is what the owner would have bought with that money, which he now has to do without, as he must spend it on repairing his window. What is not seen is the lost opportunity of the owner of the broken window. He could have allocated the sum given to the glazier to something else. If he had not had to spend money on repairing the window, he could have spent it on his own consumption, thus employing people for production.

Thus, there will be no more "stimulation" of the economy with the breaking of the window than without. However, there will have been a net loss in the first case: the value of the window.

The first lesson to learn is that a "good" decision or a "good" policy is one that costs society less than what another allocation of resources could have cost. The effectiveness of a policy should be judged not only based on its effects but also on the basis of the alternatives that could have occurred. This is the concept of "opportunity cost," dear to Bastiat.

The second lesson is that destruction does not stimulate the economy as Keynesians think, but leads to impoverishment. The destruction of material goods does not have a positive effect on the economy, contrary to popular belief. To use the concluding words of Frédéric Bastiat's text: "society loses the value of the objects unnecessarily destroyed."

Let's take a current example. As soon as the automotive industry is struggling, policymakers imagine scrappage schemes to "relaunch" it. What we see is the increase in sales of Renault and Peugeot. What we do not see is the loss for other economic sectors, and that cars in perfect working order are destroyed.

But there are other ways to boost the economy. If the State engages in major projects or invests funds in certain industrial sectors to support employment, isn't that good news for growth? Not any more, Bastiat would answer. Because by what would public spending be financed? By raising taxes or by debt, that is, by invisible but very real costs, which will impact growth. Moreover, the government produces nothing; it simply diverts resources from their private use. And what we do not see are the many things that could have been produced if the capital had not been withdrawn from the private sector to finance government programs.

Finally, nearly a century before Keynes, we can say that Bastiat refuted the Keynesian sophisms that claim state indebtedness encourages economic growth and that public spending produces economic growth.

The key lesson from this series of texts is that state intervention often has unintended, perverse effects that are not always apparent. Only a good economist is capable of foreseeing them. Politics is what we see. The economy is what we do not see.