(as the popular school sophistically alleges); it does not tell the one, ‘You must invest your money in the building of a ship, or in the erection of a manufactory;’ or the other, ‘You must be a naval captain or a civil engineer;’ it leaves it to the judgment of every individual how and where to invest his capital, or to what vocation he will devote himself. It merely says, ‘It is to the advantage of our nation that we manufacture these or the other goods ourselves; but as by free competition with foreign countries we can never obtain possession o this advantage, we have imposed restrictions on that competition, so far as in our opinion is necessary, to give those among us who invest their capital in these new branches of industry, and those who devote their bodily and mental powers to them, the requisite guarantees that they shall not lose their capital and shall not miss their vocation in life; and further to stimulate foreigners to come over to our side with their productive powers. In this manner, it does not in the least degree restrain private industry; on the contrary, it secures to the personal, natural, and moneyed powers of the nation a greater and wider field of activity. It does not thereby do something which its individual citizens could understand better and do better than it; on the contrary, it does something which the individuals, even if they understood it, would not be able to do for themselves.
Freidrich List in “The National System of Political Economy”; page 167 – 168