Reading Analysis of 'What is Seen and What is Not Seen'

What did you find interesting or uninteresting about the piece? Was there something that seemed intuitive or counterintuitive? Explain.
Bastiat has an interesting opinion surrounding the controversy of whether or not to subsidize the fine arts. Personally, I have no strong attachment to theatre, etc. I wouldn't notice very much if museums of plays and paintings suddenly disappeared because my values don't include the arts. Other people, however, might argue that the arts are inherently valuable, and necessary to the refinement of the people. Values are subjective. I do agree with Bastiat's point about allowing the masses to control what thrives as opposed to the government assigning values to us in the form of subsidies. Having a government that is supposedly controlled by the people, but allocating taxpayers' money towards something that the citizens wouldn't necessarily sustain seems a bit counterintuitive. While it's important to preserve some things, the government shouldn't choose what non-essential items our tax dollars support.


Discussion Questions
Bastiat writes, "Our adversaries believe that an activity that is neither subsidized nor regulated is abolished. We believe the contrary. Their faith is in the legislator, not in mankind. Ours is in mankind, not in the legislator." What about in worser economic times? People cut back on non-essential items in order to preserve their savings. Items such as play tickets fall under this category of non-necessities. Do we continue to let the arts fend for themselves then?

Annotation
This piece addresses the point that values are subjective, as well as reiterating that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Although not everyone values fine arts, the decision to subsidize them affects every tax-paying person. Money that could have been used to increase education standards or improve roadways is reallocated to sustaining theatre and other fine art forms. Similar to the Broken Window Fallacy, the portions of the pie that suffer because the money is used for something else are unseen. We don't see what could have been. The resources have to come from somewhere.