Bastiat on the Japanese Tsunami

Nathan Gardels at the Huffington Post writes (emphasis added):

No one — least of all someone like myself who has experienced the existential terror of California’s regular tremors and knows the big one is coming here next — would minimize the grief, suffering and disruption caused by Japan’s massive earthquake and tsunami.


But if one can look past the devastation, there is a silver lining. The need to rebuild a large swath of Japan will create huge opportunities for domestic economic growth, particularly in energy‐​efficient technologies, while also stimulating global demand and hastening the integration of East Asia.

But as French political economist Frédéric Bastiat noted, destruction isn’t stimulative because it cannot create wealth: