A boy smashing a shop window doesn't actually boost the economy

Frédéric Bastiat imagined a shopkeeper whose window is broken by a careless boy. Onlookers console the shopkeeper by noting the money will flow to the glazier, who'll spend it elsewhere. Bastiat's point: that's only what's 'seen.' What's unseen is the suit or books the shopkeeper would have bought instead — money destroyed, not created.

— Frédéric Bastiat, That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen — Essay, 1850