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Frédéric Bastiat

Claude-Frédéric Bastiat (/bɑːstiˈɑː/; French: [klod fʁedeʁik bastja]; 30 June 1801 – 24 December 1850) was a French economist, writer and a prominent member of the French Liberal School.[1]

Frédéric Bastiat
Member of the French National Assembly
In office
1848 – 24 December 1850
Personal details
Born
Claude-Frédéric Bastiat

(1801-06-30)30 June 1801
Bayonne, France
Died24 December 1850(1850-12-24) (aged 49)
Rome, Papal States
Academic career
School or
tradition
French Liberal School
InfluencesCobden, Dunoyer, Say, Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Smith, Turgot
ContributionsLegal plunder
Parable of the broken window
The Law

A member of the French National Assembly, Bastiat developed the economic concept of opportunity cost and introduced the parable of the broken window.[2] He was described as "the most brilliant economic journalist who ever lived" by economic theorist Joseph Schumpeter.[3]

As an advocate of classical economics and the economics of Adam Smith, his views favored a free market and influenced the Austrian School.[4] He is best known for his book The Law, where he argued that law must protect rights such as private property, not "plunder" others' property.

Biography edit

 
Drawing of Bastiat

Bastiat was born on 29 June 1801 in Bayonne, Aquitaine, a port town in the south of France on the Bay of Biscay. His father, Pierre Bastiat, was a prominent businessman in the town. His mother died in 1808 when Frédéric was seven years old.[5] His father moved inland to the town of Mugron, with Frédéric following soon afterward. The Bastiat estate in Mugron had been acquired during the French Revolution and had previously belonged to the Marquis of Poyanne. Pierre Bastiat died in 1810, leaving Frédéric an orphan. He was fostered by his paternal grandfather and his unmarried aunt Justine Bastiat. He attended a school in Bayonne, but his aunt thought poorly of it and so enrolled him in the school Saint-Sever. At age 17, he left school at Sorèze to work for his uncle in his family's export business. It was the same firm where his father had been a partner.[5]

Bastiat began to develop an intellectual interest as he no longer wished to work with his uncle and desired to go to Paris for formal studies. This hope was not realized as his grandfather was in poor health and wished to go to the Mugron estate. Bastiat accompanied him and cared for him. The next year when Bastiat was 24, his grandfather died, leaving him the family estate, thereby providing him with the means to further his theoretical inquiries.[5] Bastiat developed intellectual interests in several areas including philosophy, history, politics, religion, travel, poetry, political economy and biography. After the middle-class Revolution of 1830, Bastiat became politically active and was elected justice of the peace of Mugron in 1831 and to the Council General (county-level assembly) of Landes in 1832. Bastiat was elected to the national legislative assembly after the French Revolution of 1848.[4]

His public career as an economist began only in 1844, when his first article was published in the Journal des économistes during October of that year and it was ended by his untimely death in 1850. Bastiat contracted tuberculosis, probably during his tours throughout France to promote his ideas and that illness eventually prevented him from making further speeches (particularly at the legislative assembly to which he was elected in 1848 and 1849) and ended his life. In The Law, he wrote: "Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate)".[5]

This last line is understood by translators to be a reference to the effects of his tuberculosis. During the autumn of 1850, he was sent to Italy by his doctors, and he first traveled to Pisa, then to Rome. On 24 December 1850, Bastiat called those with him to approach his bed and murmured twice the words "the truth" before he died at the age of 49.[5]

Works edit

 
Bust of Bastiat in Mugron

Bastiat was the author of many works on economics and political economy, generally characterized by their clear organization, forceful argumentation and acerbic wit. Economist Murray Rothbard wrote that "Bastiat was indeed a lucid and superb writer, whose brilliant and witty essays and fables to this day are remarkable and devastating demolitions of protectionism and of all forms of government subsidy and control. He was a truly scintillating advocate of an unrestricted free market".[4] However, Bastiat himself declared that subsidy should be available, albeit limited under extraordinary circumstances, saying the following:

"Under extraordinary circumstances, for urgent cases, the State should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people, to help them adjust to changing conditions".[6]

Among his better-known works is Economic Sophisms,[7] a series of essays (originally published in the Journal des économistes) which contain a defence of free trade. Bastiat wrote the work while living in England to advise the shapers of the French Republic on perils to avoid. Economic Sophisms was translated and adapted for an American readership in 1867 by the economist and historian of money Alexander del Mar, writing under the pseudonym Emile Walter.[8]

Economic Sophisms and the candlemakers' petition edit

Contained within Economic Sophisms is the satirical parable known as the candlemakers' petition in which candlemakers and tallow producers lobby the Chamber of Deputies of the French July Monarchy (1830–1848) to block out the Sun to prevent its unfair competition with their products.[9] Also included in the Sophisms is a facetious petition to the king asking for a law forbidding the usage of everyone's right hand, based on a presumption by some of his contemporaries that more difficulty means more work and more work means more wealth.[10]

The Law (1850) edit

Bastiat's most famous work is The Law,[11] originally published as a pamphlet in 1850. It defines a just system of laws and then demonstrates how such law facilitates a free society. In The Law, Bastiat wrote that everyone has a right to protect "his person, his liberty, and his property". The state should be only a "substitution of a common force for individual forces" to defend this right. According to Bastiat, justice (meaning defense of one's life, liberty and property) has precise limits, but if government power extends further into philanthropic endeavors, then government becomes so limitless that it can grow endlessly. The resulting statism is "based on this triple hypothesis: the total inertness of mankind, the omnipotence of the law, and the infallibility of the legislator". The public then becomes socially engineered by the legislator and must bend to the legislators' will "like the clay to the potter", saying:

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.


I do not dispute their right to invent social combinations, to advertise them, to advocate them, and to try them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk. But I do dispute their right to impose these plans upon us by law – by force – and to compel us to pay for them with our taxes.

Bastiat posits that the law becomes perverted when it punishes one's right to self-defense (of his life, liberty and property) in favor of another's right to legalized plunder which he defines as "if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime" in which he includes the tax support of "protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works". According to Bastiat, legal plunder can be committed in "an infinite number of ways. Thus, we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole — with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism". Bastiat also made the following humorous point: "If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?"[12]

"What is Seen and What is Not Seen" edit

In his 1850 essay "Ce qu'on voit et ce qu'on ne voit pas" ("What is seen and what is not seen"), Bastiat introduced through the parable of the broken window the concept of opportunity cost in all but name. This term was not coined until over sixty years after his death by Friedrich von Wieser in 1914.

Debate with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon edit

Bastiat also famously engaged in a debate between 1849 and 1850 with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon about the legitimacy of interest.[13] As Robert Leroux argued, Bastiat had the conviction that Proudhon's anti-interest doctrine "was the complete antithesis of any serious approach".[14] Proudhon famously lost his temper and resorted to ad hominem attacks: "Your intelligence is asleep, or rather it has never been awake. You are a man for whom logic does not exist. You do not hear anything, you do not understand anything. You are without philosophy, without science, without humanity. Your ability to reason, like your ability to pay attention and make comparisons is zero. Scientifically, Mr. Bastiat, you are a dead man."[15]

Views edit

Bastiat asserted that the sole purpose of government is to protect the right of an individual to life, liberty and property and that it is dangerous and morally wrong for government to interfere with an individual's other personal matters. From this, Bastiat concluded that the law cannot defend life, liberty and property if it promotes legal or legalized plunder which he defined as using government force and laws to take something from one individual and give it to others (as opposed to a transfer of property via mutually agreed contracts without using fraud or violent threats against the other party, which Bastiat considered a legitimate transfer of property).[16]

In The Law, Bastiat explains that if the privileged classes or socialists use the government for legalized plunder, this will encourage the other socioeconomic class to also use legal plunder and that the correct response to the socialists is to cease all legal plunder. Bastiat also explains why his opinion is that the law cannot defend life, liberty and property if it promotes socialist policies. When used to obtain legalized plunder for any group, he says that the law is perverted against the only things (life, liberty and property) it is supposed to defend.[16]

Bastiat was a strong supporter of free trade who was inspired by and routinely corresponded with Richard Cobden and the English Anti-Corn Law League and worked with free-trade associations in France.[4]

Because of his emphasis on the mutual gains to be had from free exchange, on subjective value, and on the importance of deductive reasoning (as opposed to mathematical models) in deriving economic conclusions, Bastiat has been described by Mark Thornton, Thomas DiLorenzo and other economists as a forerunner of the Austrian School, with Thornton positing that through taking this position on the motivations of human action he demonstrates a pronounced "Austrian flavor."[17]

Bastiat's tomb edit

 
Bastiat's tomb in San Luigi dei Francesi, a Catholic church in Rome

Bastiat died in Rome and is buried at San Luigi dei Francesi in the center of that city.

Books edit

  • Bastiat, Frédéric (1848). Propriété et loi, Justice et fraternité (in French). Paris: Guillaumin et Cie. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
  • Bastiat, Frédéric (1849). L'État, Maudit argent (in French). Paris: Guillaumin et Cie. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
  • Bastiat, frédéric (1849). Incomptabilités parlementaires (in French). Paris: Guillaumin et Cie. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
  • Bastiat, Frédéric (1849). Paix et liberté ou le budget républicain (in French). Paris: Guillaumin et Cie. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
  • Bastiat, Frédéric (1849). Protectionisme et communisme (in French). Paris: Guillaumin et Cie. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
  • Bastiat, Frédéric (1983). Oeuvres économiques. Libre échange (in French). Textes présentés par Florin Aftalion. Paris: PUF. ISBN 978-2130378617.
  • Bastiat, Frédéric (2005). Sophismes économiques. Bibliothèque classique de la liberté (in French). Préface de Michel Leter. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. ISBN 978-2251390383.
  • Bastiat, Frédéric (2009). Pamphlets. Bibliothèque classique de la liberté (in French). Préface de Michel Leter. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. ISBN 978-2251390499.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Frederic Bastiat". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2 July 2019. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
  2. ^ Initiated in 1820 at "La Zélée" lodge in Bayonne (La Franc-maçonnerie à Bayonne, 1980).
  3. ^ "Frederic Bastiat". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2 July 2019. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d Thornton, Mark (11 April 2011) "Why Bastiat Is Still Great". Mises Institute. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  5. ^ a b c d e Roche III, George Charles (1971). Frédéric Bastiat: A Man Alone. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House. ISBN 978-0870001161.
  6. ^ "Justice and fraternity" (15 June 1848). Journal des Économistes. p. 313.
  7. ^ Bastiat, Frédéric [1845] (1996). "Economic Sophisms". Goddard, A. (trans.). Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: The Foundation for Economic Education. Retrieved 12 December 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Walter, Emile (del Mar, Alexander, pseud.) (1867). What is free trade? An adaptation of Frederick Bastiat's "Sophismes economiques". New York: G.P. Putnam and Son, repr. Dodo Press. ISBN 978-1409938125.
  9. ^ Bastiat, Frédéric. (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 October 2005. Retrieved 12 December 2008.
  10. ^ "Bastiat: Economic Sophisms, Series 2, Chapter 16". Library of Economics and Liberty. Retrieved 3 March 2013.
  11. ^ Frédéric Bastiat. "The Law" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 19 March 2015. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  12. ^ "The Law". Bastiat.org.
  13. ^ "Bastiat-Proudhon Debate on Interest". Praxeology.net. Retrieved 2 December 2008.
  14. ^ Leroux, Robert. "Political Economy and Liberalism: The Economic Contribution of Frédéric Bastiat" Routledge, 2011, p. 118.
  15. ^ Roche, Charles George. "Frederic Bastiat: A Man Alone". Arlington House, 1971, p. 153.
  16. ^ a b Bastiat, Frédéric. The Law. Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007.
  17. ^ Thornton, Mark (June 2001). "Bastiat as an Austrian Economist by Mark Thornton". Journal des Économistes et des Études Humaines. 11 (2). doi:10.2202/1145-6396.1025. S2CID 144928102.

Further reading edit

  • Bastiat's Legacy in Economics by Jorg Guido Hulsmann
  • Frédéric Bastiat's Views on the Nature of Money by Mark Thornton
  • Frédéric Bastiat: Two Hundred Years On by Joseph R. Stromberg
  • Foville, A. de. "Bastiat" (1900). In Nouveau dictionnaire de l’économie politique. Deuxième édition. Tome premier. A–H. Publié sous la direction de M. Léon Say et de M. Joseph Chailley, 170–172. Paris: Guillaumin et Cie (in French).
  • Garello, Jacques (16 February 2011). . La Nouvelle Lettre (in French) (1067): 8. Archived from the original on 25 October 2012. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
  • Hülsmann, Guido (2008). "Bastiat, Frédéric (1801–1850)". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). Bastiat, Frédéric. The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. pp. 25–27. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n16. ISBN 978-1412965804. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024.
  • Leroux, Robert (2011). Political Economy and Liberalism in France : The Contributions of Frédéric Bastiat. Routledge Studies in the History of Economics. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1136795145.
  • Roche, George Charles III (1971). Frédéric Bastiat: A Man Alone. Architects of Freedom Series. New Rochelle: Arlington House. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
  • Russell, Dean (1969). Frédéric Bastiat: Ideas and Influence. Irvington-on-Hudson: Foundation for Economic Education.
  • Un libéral : Frédéric Bastiat (in French). Toulouse: Presses de l'Institut d'Études Politiques de Toulouse. 1988.

External links edit

  • Works by Frédéric Bastiat at Project Gutenberg
  • Works by or about Frédéric Bastiat at Internet Archive
  • Works by Frédéric Bastiat at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)  
  • Bastiat.org publishes and indexes information about Bastiat
  • Cercle Frédéric Bastiat publishes and indexes information about Bastiat
  • The Bastiat Society
  • "Frédéric Bastiat: Libertarian Challenger or Political Bargainer?" article by economist Brian Baugus on the development of Bastiat's thinking
  • The Bastiat Collection Volume 1, The Bastiat Collection Volume 2 – A collection of Bastiat works published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • The Law – Frederic Bastiat (PDF English)
  • "Frédéric Bastiat". JSTOR.
  • Bastiat’s Essays on Political Economy (including The Law), in its entirety (free PDF download)

frédéric, bastiat, bastiat, redirects, here, rugby, union, player, jean, pierre, bastiat, claude, ɑː, ɑː, french, klod, fʁedeʁik, bastja, june, 1801, december, 1850, french, economist, writer, prominent, member, french, liberal, school, member, french, nationa. Bastiat redirects here For the rugby union player see Jean Pierre Bastiat Claude Frederic Bastiat b ɑː s t i ˈ ɑː French klod fʁedeʁik bastja 30 June 1801 24 December 1850 was a French economist writer and a prominent member of the French Liberal School 1 Frederic BastiatMember of the French National AssemblyIn office 1848 24 December 1850Personal detailsBornClaude Frederic Bastiat 1801 06 30 30 June 1801Bayonne FranceDied24 December 1850 1850 12 24 aged 49 Rome Papal StatesAcademic careerSchool ortraditionFrench Liberal SchoolInfluencesCobden Dunoyer Say Hume Gibbon Voltaire Rousseau Smith TurgotContributionsLegal plunderParable of the broken windowThe LawA member of the French National Assembly Bastiat developed the economic concept of opportunity cost and introduced the parable of the broken window 2 He was described as the most brilliant economic journalist who ever lived by economic theorist Joseph Schumpeter 3 As an advocate of classical economics and the economics of Adam Smith his views favored a free market and influenced the Austrian School 4 He is best known for his book The Law where he argued that law must protect rights such as private property not plunder others property Contents 1 Biography 2 Works 2 1 Economic Sophisms and the candlemakers petition 2 2 The Law 1850 2 3 What is Seen and What is Not Seen 2 4 Debate with Pierre Joseph Proudhon 3 Views 4 Bastiat s tomb 5 Books 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External linksBiography edit nbsp Drawing of BastiatBastiat was born on 29 June 1801 in Bayonne Aquitaine a port town in the south of France on the Bay of Biscay His father Pierre Bastiat was a prominent businessman in the town His mother died in 1808 when Frederic was seven years old 5 His father moved inland to the town of Mugron with Frederic following soon afterward The Bastiat estate in Mugron had been acquired during the French Revolution and had previously belonged to the Marquis of Poyanne Pierre Bastiat died in 1810 leaving Frederic an orphan He was fostered by his paternal grandfather and his unmarried aunt Justine Bastiat He attended a school in Bayonne but his aunt thought poorly of it and so enrolled him in the school Saint Sever At age 17 he left school at Soreze to work for his uncle in his family s export business It was the same firm where his father had been a partner 5 Bastiat began to develop an intellectual interest as he no longer wished to work with his uncle and desired to go to Paris for formal studies This hope was not realized as his grandfather was in poor health and wished to go to the Mugron estate Bastiat accompanied him and cared for him The next year when Bastiat was 24 his grandfather died leaving him the family estate thereby providing him with the means to further his theoretical inquiries 5 Bastiat developed intellectual interests in several areas including philosophy history politics religion travel poetry political economy and biography After the middle class Revolution of 1830 Bastiat became politically active and was elected justice of the peace of Mugron in 1831 and to the Council General county level assembly of Landes in 1832 Bastiat was elected to the national legislative assembly after the French Revolution of 1848 4 His public career as an economist began only in 1844 when his first article was published in the Journal des economistes during October of that year and it was ended by his untimely death in 1850 Bastiat contracted tuberculosis probably during his tours throughout France to promote his ideas and that illness eventually prevented him from making further speeches particularly at the legislative assembly to which he was elected in 1848 and 1849 and ended his life In The Law he wrote Until the day of my death I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs which alas is all too inadequate 5 This last line is understood by translators to be a reference to the effects of his tuberculosis During the autumn of 1850 he was sent to Italy by his doctors and he first traveled to Pisa then to Rome On 24 December 1850 Bastiat called those with him to approach his bed and murmured twice the words the truth before he died at the age of 49 5 Works edit nbsp Bust of Bastiat in MugronBastiat was the author of many works on economics and political economy generally characterized by their clear organization forceful argumentation and acerbic wit Economist Murray Rothbard wrote that Bastiat was indeed a lucid and superb writer whose brilliant and witty essays and fables to this day are remarkable and devastating demolitions of protectionism and of all forms of government subsidy and control He was a truly scintillating advocate of an unrestricted free market 4 However Bastiat himself declared that subsidy should be available albeit limited under extraordinary circumstances saying the following Under extraordinary circumstances for urgent cases the State should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people to help them adjust to changing conditions 6 Among his better known works is Economic Sophisms 7 a series of essays originally published in the Journal des economistes which contain a defence of free trade Bastiat wrote the work while living in England to advise the shapers of the French Republic on perils to avoid Economic Sophisms was translated and adapted for an American readership in 1867 by the economist and historian of money Alexander del Mar writing under the pseudonym Emile Walter 8 Economic Sophisms and the candlemakers petition edit Contained within Economic Sophisms is the satirical parable known as the candlemakers petition in which candlemakers and tallow producers lobby the Chamber of Deputies of the French July Monarchy 1830 1848 to block out the Sun to prevent its unfair competition with their products 9 Also included in the Sophisms is a facetious petition to the king asking for a law forbidding the usage of everyone s right hand based on a presumption by some of his contemporaries that more difficulty means more work and more work means more wealth 10 The Law 1850 editBastiat s most famous work is The Law 11 originally published as a pamphlet in 1850 It defines a just system of laws and then demonstrates how such law facilitates a free society In The Law Bastiat wrote that everyone has a right to protect his person his liberty and his property The state should be only a substitution of a common force for individual forces to defend this right According to Bastiat justice meaning defense of one s life liberty and property has precise limits but if government power extends further into philanthropic endeavors then government becomes so limitless that it can grow endlessly The resulting statism is based on this triple hypothesis the total inertness of mankind the omnipotence of the law and the infallibility of the legislator The public then becomes socially engineered by the legislator and must bend to the legislators will like the clay to the potter saying Socialism like the ancient ideas from which it springs confuses the distinction between government and society As a result of this every time we object to a thing being done by government the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all We disapprove of state education Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education We object to a state religion Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all We object to a state enforced equality Then they say that we are against equality And so on and so on It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain I do not dispute their right to invent social combinations to advertise them to advocate them and to try them upon themselves at their own expense and risk But I do dispute their right to impose these plans upon us by law by force and to compel us to pay for them with our taxes Bastiat posits that the law becomes perverted when it punishes one s right to self defense of his life liberty and property in favor of another s right to legalized plunder which he defines as if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime in which he includes the tax support of protective tariffs subsidies guaranteed profits guaranteed jobs relief and welfare schemes public education progressive taxation free credit and public works According to Bastiat legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it tariffs protection benefits subsidies encouragements progressive taxation public schools guaranteed jobs guaranteed profits minimum wages a right to relief a right to the tools of labor free credit and so on and so on All these plans as a whole with their common aim of legal plunder constitute socialism Bastiat also made the following humorous point If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind 12 What is Seen and What is Not Seen edit In his 1850 essay Ce qu on voit et ce qu on ne voit pas What is seen and what is not seen Bastiat introduced through the parable of the broken window the concept of opportunity cost in all but name This term was not coined until over sixty years after his death by Friedrich von Wieser in 1914 Debate with Pierre Joseph Proudhon edit Bastiat also famously engaged in a debate between 1849 and 1850 with Pierre Joseph Proudhon about the legitimacy of interest 13 As Robert Leroux argued Bastiat had the conviction that Proudhon s anti interest doctrine was the complete antithesis of any serious approach 14 Proudhon famously lost his temper and resorted to ad hominem attacks Your intelligence is asleep or rather it has never been awake You are a man for whom logic does not exist You do not hear anything you do not understand anything You are without philosophy without science without humanity Your ability to reason like your ability to pay attention and make comparisons is zero Scientifically Mr Bastiat you are a dead man 15 Views editBastiat asserted that the sole purpose of government is to protect the right of an individual to life liberty and property and that it is dangerous and morally wrong for government to interfere with an individual s other personal matters From this Bastiat concluded that the law cannot defend life liberty and property if it promotes legal or legalized plunder which he defined as using government force and laws to take something from one individual and give it to others as opposed to a transfer of property via mutually agreed contracts without using fraud or violent threats against the other party which Bastiat considered a legitimate transfer of property 16 In The Law Bastiat explains that if the privileged classes or socialists use the government for legalized plunder this will encourage the other socioeconomic class to also use legal plunder and that the correct response to the socialists is to cease all legal plunder Bastiat also explains why his opinion is that the law cannot defend life liberty and property if it promotes socialist policies When used to obtain legalized plunder for any group he says that the law is perverted against the only things life liberty and property it is supposed to defend 16 Bastiat was a strong supporter of free trade who was inspired by and routinely corresponded with Richard Cobden and the English Anti Corn Law League and worked with free trade associations in France 4 Because of his emphasis on the mutual gains to be had from free exchange on subjective value and on the importance of deductive reasoning as opposed to mathematical models in deriving economic conclusions Bastiat has been described by Mark Thornton Thomas DiLorenzo and other economists as a forerunner of the Austrian School with Thornton positing that through taking this position on the motivations of human action he demonstrates a pronounced Austrian flavor 17 Bastiat s tomb edit nbsp Bastiat s tomb in San Luigi dei Francesi a Catholic church in RomeBastiat died in Rome and is buried at San Luigi dei Francesi in the center of that city Books editBastiat Frederic 1848 Propriete et loi Justice et fraternite in French Paris Guillaumin et Cie Retrieved 12 May 2012 Bastiat Frederic 1849 L Etat Maudit argent in French Paris Guillaumin et Cie Retrieved 12 May 2012 Bastiat frederic 1849 Incomptabilites parlementaires in French Paris Guillaumin et Cie Retrieved 12 May 2012 Bastiat Frederic 1849 Paix et liberte ou le budget republicain in French Paris Guillaumin et Cie Retrieved 12 May 2012 Bastiat Frederic 1849 Protectionisme et communisme in French Paris Guillaumin et Cie Retrieved 12 May 2012 Bastiat Frederic 1983 Oeuvres economiques Libre echange in French Textes presentes par Florin Aftalion Paris PUF ISBN 978 2130378617 Bastiat Frederic 2005 Sophismes economiques Bibliotheque classique de la liberte in French Preface de Michel Leter Paris Les Belles Lettres ISBN 978 2251390383 Bastiat Frederic 2009 Pamphlets Bibliotheque classique de la liberte in French Preface de Michel Leter Paris Les Belles Lettres ISBN 978 2251390499 See also edit nbsp Economics portal nbsp Liberalism portal nbsp Libertarianism portalAge of Enlightenment Anne Robert Jacques Turgot Baron de Laune Bastiat Prize Harmonies of Political Economy Hippolyte Castille List of liberal theorists PhysiocratsReferences edit Frederic Bastiat Encyclopaedia Britannica 2 July 2019 Retrieved 21 October 2019 Initiated in 1820 at La Zelee lodge in Bayonne La Franc maconnerie a Bayonne 1980 Frederic Bastiat Encyclopaedia Britannica 2 July 2019 Retrieved 12 January 2021 a b c d Thornton Mark 11 April 2011 Why Bastiat Is Still Great Mises Institute Retrieved 1 August 2019 a b c d e Roche III George Charles 1971 Frederic Bastiat A Man Alone New Rochelle NY Arlington House ISBN 978 0870001161 Justice and fraternity 15 June 1848 Journal des Economistes p 313 Bastiat Frederic 1845 1996 Economic Sophisms Goddard A trans Irvington on Hudson New York The Foundation for Economic Education Retrieved 12 December 2008 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint numeric names authors list link Walter Emile del Mar Alexander pseud 1867 What is free trade An adaptation of Frederick Bastiat s Sophismes economiques New York G P Putnam and Son repr Dodo Press ISBN 978 1409938125 Bastiat Frederic Candlemakers petition PDF Archived from the original PDF on 31 October 2005 Retrieved 12 December 2008 Bastiat Economic Sophisms Series 2 Chapter 16 Library of Economics and Liberty Retrieved 3 March 2013 Frederic Bastiat The Law PDF Archived PDF from the original on 19 March 2015 Retrieved 29 March 2015 The Law Bastiat org Bastiat Proudhon Debate on Interest Praxeology net Retrieved 2 December 2008 Leroux Robert Political Economy and Liberalism The Economic Contribution of Frederic Bastiat Routledge 2011 p 118 Roche Charles George Frederic Bastiat A Man Alone Arlington House 1971 p 153 a b Bastiat Frederic The Law Ludwig von Mises Institute 2007 Thornton Mark June 2001 Bastiat as an Austrian Economist by Mark Thornton Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines 11 2 doi 10 2202 1145 6396 1025 S2CID 144928102 Further reading editBastiat s Legacy in Economics by Jorg Guido Hulsmann Frederic Bastiat s Views on the Nature of Money by Mark Thornton Frederic Bastiat Two Hundred Years On by Joseph R Stromberg Foville A de Bastiat 1900 In Nouveau dictionnaire de l economie politique Deuxieme edition Tome premier A H Publie sous la direction de M Leon Say et de M Joseph Chailley 170 172 Paris Guillaumin et Cie in French Garello Jacques 16 February 2011 Portrait Bastiat 1801 1850 La Nouvelle Lettre in French 1067 8 Archived from the original on 25 October 2012 Retrieved 12 May 2012 Hulsmann Guido 2008 Bastiat Frederic 1801 1850 In Hamowy Ronald ed Bastiat Frederic The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism Thousand Oaks CA Sage Cato Institute pp 25 27 doi 10 4135 9781412965811 n16 ISBN 978 1412965804 LCCN 2008009151 OCLC 750831024 Leroux Robert 2011 Political Economy and Liberalism in France The Contributions of Frederic Bastiat Routledge Studies in the History of Economics London Routledge ISBN 978 1136795145 Roche George Charles III 1971 Frederic Bastiat A Man Alone Architects of Freedom Series New Rochelle Arlington House Retrieved 12 May 2012 Russell Dean 1969 Frederic Bastiat Ideas and Influence Irvington on Hudson Foundation for Economic Education Un liberal Frederic Bastiat in French Toulouse Presses de l Institut d Etudes Politiques de Toulouse 1988 External links edit nbsp Wikisource has original works by or about Frederic Bastiat nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Frederic Bastiat nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Frederic Bastiat category Works by Frederic Bastiat at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Frederic Bastiat at Internet Archive Works by Frederic Bastiat at LibriVox public domain audiobooks nbsp Bastiat org publishes and indexes information about Bastiat Cercle Frederic Bastiat publishes and indexes information about Bastiat The Bastiat Society Frederic Bastiat Libertarian Challenger or Political Bargainer article by economist Brian Baugus on the development of Bastiat s thinking The Bastiat Collection Volume 1 The Bastiat Collection Volume 2 A collection of Bastiat works published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute Audio version of Russell s translation of The Law The Law Frederic Bastiat PDF English Frederic Bastiat JSTOR Bastiat s Essays on Political Economy including The Law in its entirety free PDF download Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Frederic Bastiat amp oldid 1188700348, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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