Editing Parable of the broken window (section)

===Bastiat's argument===
Suppose it were discovered that the little boy was actually hired by the glazier, and paid a franc for every window he broke. Suddenly the same act would be regarded as theft: the glazier was breaking windows to force people to hire his services. Yet the facts observed by the onlookers remain true: the glazier benefits from the business at the expense of the baker, the tailor, and so on.

Bastiat argues that society endorses activities that are morally equivalent to the glazier hiring a boy to break windows for him:
{{blockquote|Whence we arrive at this unexpected conclusion: "Society loses the value of things which are uselessly destroyed;" and we must assent to a maxim which will make the hair of protectionists stand on end – To break, to spoil, to waste, is not to encourage national labour; or, more briefly, "destruction is not profit."

What will you say, ''Moniteur Industriel''<ref>''Le Moniteur Industriel'' was a famous protectionist journal.</ref> – what will you say, disciples of good M. F. Chamans, who has calculated with so much precision how much trade would gain by the burning of Paris, from the number of houses it would be necessary to rebuild?{{sfn|Bastiat|1850}}
}}

Bastiat is not addressing [[Production (economics)|production]] – he is addressing the stock of [[wealth]]. In other words, Bastiat does not merely look at the immediate but at the longer effects of breaking the window. Bastiat takes into account the consequences of breaking the window for society as a whole, rather than for just one group.{{sfn|Fetter|1915|loc=chapter 37: "Waste and Luxury"}}{{sfn| Hazlitt | 1946 |loc=chapter 2: "The Broken Window"}}

[[Austrian school of economics|Austrian theorists]] cite this fallacy, saying it is a common element of popular thinking. The 20th century American economist [[Henry Hazlitt]] devoted a chapter to the fallacy in his book ''[[Economics in One Lesson]]''.{{sfn| Hazlitt | 1946 |loc="Preface"}}