June 30 is Frederic Bastiat’s birthday. That is noteworthy, as his contributions on behalf of liberty were not only massively important, but have stood the test of time.
As Julian Adorney and Matt Palumbo wrote for the Mises Institute, he used “taut logic and compelling prose to bring the dry field of economics to hundreds of thousands of laymen.”
Murray Rothbard wrote that he was “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.”
The introduction to The Bastiat Collection, which incorporates his greatest works, summarizes his importance by saying that “If we were to take the greatest economists from all ages and judge them on the basis of their theoretical rigor, their influence on economic education, and their impact in support of the free-market economy, then Frédéric Bastiat would be at the top of the list.”
For all the praise Bastiat has deservedly received, however, his greatest works don’t exhaust his wisdom, and people are far less aware of some of those other words of wisdom. In particular, in Frederic Bastiat: The Man and the Statesman, Liberty Fund has published a collection of 207 letters he wrote (including many to Richard Cobden, “the father of free trade”), but they have not gotten the same attention as his major works.
That is why it is worth celebrating Bastiat’s 1801 birth by looking to his letters for added words of wisdom, following his recognition that “Truth has power only when it is defused.” Here are some that I found particularly striking:
- “As long as our deputies want to further their own business and not that of the general public, the public will remain just the tail end of the people in power.”
- “Although there are a few souls who instinctively would like freedom to a certain extent, there are none who understand it in principle.”
- “Let us raise the flag of absolute freedom and absolute principle, and let us wait for those with the same faith to join us.”
- “We would not even be able to mention the word justice if we accepted the shadow of protection.”
- “The liberation of trade will lead to political liberation…invasive politics will have ceased to exist.”
- “I want not so much free trade itself as the spirit of free trade for my country. Free trade means a little more wealth; the spirit of free trade is a reform of the mind itself…the source of all reform.”
- “The cause we serve is not bounded by the borders of a nation. It is universal and will find its solution only in its acceptance by all peoples.”
- “[Many] have the same goal, tyranny. They differ only on the question of…in whose hands the despotism will be placed. This is why the thing they fear most is a spirit of true freedom.”
- “The plentiful bounty of the state…the whole mechanism consists in taking away ten to give it back eight, not to mention the true freedom that will be destroyed in the operation!”
- “Anything that can, directly or indirectly, damage property, undermine confidence, or weaken security is an obstacle to the accumulation of capital and has an unfavorable effect on the working classes. This is also true for all taxes and irritating governmental interference.”
- “How can industry revive when it is accepted in principle that the scope for regulation is unlimited? When every minute a decree on earnings, working hours, the cost of things, etc., can upset all economic decision making?”
- “The dominant notion…that has permeated every class of society, is that the state is responsible for providing a living for everyone….The real cause of the evil is certainly the false ideas of socialism.”
- “The state has been required to provide for the welfare of its citizens directly. But….This means that the state or the public treasury has been plundered.”
- “Every class has demanded from the state the means of subsistence, as of right. The efforts made by the state to provide this have led only to taxes and restrictions and an increase in deprivation, with the result that the demands of the people have become more pressing….[All] have called upon the law to intervene to increase their share of wealth. The law has been able to satisfy them only by creating distress in the other classes, especially the working classes. These therefore raised a clamor, and instead of demanding that this plundering should cease, they demanded that the law should allow them to take part in the plundering as well. It has become general and universal.”
- “Each person should call upon his own forces to provide his means of existence and expect the state to provide only justice and security.”
- “You need to be uncommonly absurd and foolish to believe that it is an act of courage to vote in favor of might…the majority, the passions of the moment, and the government.”
- “Protectionism [is] the negation of the right of property.”
- “Protectionism is a plague.”
- “As long as the state is regarded…as a source of favors, our history will be seen as having only two phases, the periods of conflict as to who will take control of the state and the periods of truce, which will be the transitory reign of a triumphant oppression, the harbinger of a fresh conflict.”
- “The legitimate functions of the government…once these functions have been understood and these limits set, the people governed will no longer expect prosperity, well-being, and absolute good fortune but equal justice for all from their governments….governments will have their ordinary action circumscribed, will no longer repress individual energy, will no longer dissipate public assets…and will themselves be freed from the illusionary hopes pinned on them by their peoples.”
- “[Even] the best assembly is good only for preventing evil.”
- “What I ask of the law is that it should be neutral between us and that it should guarantee my property in the same way as that of the blacksmith.”
- “The government should guarantee security to each person and…should not concern itself with anything else.”
“A keen wit and a clear pithy writing style,” as Adorney and Palumbo described it, is clearly on display in Bastiat’s letters as well as his other, better-known writing. That is why his letters are worth our consideration as well. They even provide us with a toast worthy of emulating:
Allow me, in closing…this toast: To free trade among peoples! To the free circulation of men, things, and ideas! To universal free trade and all its economic, political, and moral consequences!
