This is Bastiat’s ‘The Seen and the Unseen’ for the 20th century. A few quotes:
As a consumer, he may advocate or acquiesce in subsidies; as a taxpayer he will resent paying them
This is so true! All the economic protests that happen build on this nature, except that we don’t even realize that we are paying for these, in some way or the other. Worse, we may think that a subsidy benefits us, but the math shows this to be a fleeting benefit
All the financial news that comes out these days makes me want to cry. How shortsighted are the people in government, and what have we done to deserve them …
… the best prices are not the highest prices, but the prices that encourage the largest volume of production and the largest volume of sales. The best wage rates for labor are not the highest wage rates, but the wage rates that permit full production, full employment and the largest sustained payrolls. The best profits, from the standpoint not only of industry but of labor are not the lowest profits, but the profits that encourage most people to become employers or to provide more employment than before.
and
Economics … is a science of recognizing secondary consequences. It is also a science of seeing general consequences. It is the science of tracing the effects of some proposed or existing policy not only on some special interest in the short run, but on the general interest in the long run.
Best read with Big Business