"Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas"

The parable of the broken window was created by Frédéric Bastiat in his 1850 essay "Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas" (That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen) to illuminate the notion of hidden costs associated with destroying property of others.


Bastiat uses this story to introduce a concept he calls the broken window fallacy, which is related to the law of unintended consequences, in that both involve an incomplete accounting for the consequences of an action.

The parable describes a shopkeeper whose window is broken by his young son, and who has to pay for a glazier fixing his window. It conveys some thoughts on economy and money circulation. Bastiat's original parable of the broken window went like this:


“ Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact, that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation—"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Everybody must live, and what would become of the glaziers if panes of glass were never broken?"

Now, this form of condolence contains an entire theory, which it will be well to show up in this simple case, seeing that it is precisely the same as that which, unhappily, regulates the greater part of our economical institutions.

Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier's trade—that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs—I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.

But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, "Stop there! Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.

The fallacy of the onlookers' argument is that they considered only the benefits of purchasing a new window, but they ignored the cost to the shopkeeper. As the shopkeeper was forced to spend his money on a new window, he could not spend it on something else. For example, the shopkeeper might have preferred to spend the money on bread and shoes for himself (thus enriching the baker and cobbler), but now cannot because he must fix his window.

Thus, the child did not bring any net benefit to the town. Instead, he made the town poorer by at least the value of one window, if not more. His actions benefited the glazier, but at the expense not only of the shopkeeper, but the baker and cobbler as well. Moreover, the benefit to the glazier is relatively small, because most of what he charges is to compensate him for his tedious and strenuous labour, as well as the materials he uses.

I am of the belief that tenants who move into a filthy and broken down flat, sooner than later, get to feeling that they have been had.  In short order, they find ways to make the landlord pay them back for having not been fair.  The fail to report further damage, break the rules agreed upon, and worse of all, stop paying rent on flat.  They are determined to extract what they feel is owed from the 'greedy landlord'.  Not a pretty thing to feel, but is is something one has to take into consideration in trying to right past wrongs.

Telling the tale of the "Broken Window" is one way of addressing the things that ail the Linda Villa at present.

There is a lovely chap who lives in a flat here.  He and this old geezer have not always been on best terms, a slight mis-understanding about the harshness of the policy of dealing with stray cats.  We have moved past that and now try to face the future with open mind.  I am now being told what needs to be sorted out in his unit.

From day one, the window in his flat did not work proper,  with the turning cold, he needed to resort to using 'duct tape' to slow down the howling wind that came from the window gap and made sitting in the living room right uncomfortable, along with raising the electric bill.  Being anal about things, I was determined to sort the saga of the window out.  Past management and maintainance had ignored the poor chaps pleas for relief.

Was viewing the repair of post box locks, when I caught sight of the chap outside of flat.  Had James, the much put upon maintainance bloke, follow with and help me sort out this window problem.  James is right clever and he went about trying to make the bloody window fit in proper.  He hit upon the idea of removing the window entirely from the frame and that is when a shocker came to light.  The bleeden window was put in wrong way round.  How very odd that former Mr. Fixit failed to sort this one out.

Is it any wonder why folks living at the Linda Villa had their knives out for this old geezer?  Many had suffered through much and felt that nothing was going to change.  Things out of sort in the past were reported and ignored.  "What you see, is what you get",  "The landlord fixes NOTHING".  Heard oft enough and one gets to believe it to be true.

It was a long hard day yesterday.  It was time to do a proper deep cleaning of the office.  The smell of bleach was right powerful, burnt eyes and filled nose.  Walls were washed, furniture cleaned, window coverings washed, to make a long list short, there was nothing not cleaned in the office.  It is now sorted out.  Ready to be the calling card to the world that the Linda Villa is no longer a joke.  That the Linda Villa is no longer seeking to fill flats with the least desirable tenants.  We mean business.

Brilliant coppers will tell you that in order to right a plagued neighbourhood, it is needed to sort out the small problems that make a community fall down and die.  The belief being that if you fix 'broken windows', you stop the problems from becoming larger down the road.  How true.

What has hurt Linda Villa, shamed Murray Kay, gobsmacked this old geezer and puzzled the coppers, are the many 'broken windows' left unsorted at the Linda Villa.  Is it any wonder that at times it feels as if the car park of the Linda Villa is the pull -in for local law enforcement?

"Brick by Brick" is method being applied, giving the message to one and all that there is a new order at the Linda Villa.  More's the pity if the clever clogs failed to see that.