Frédéric Bastiat

{{Short description|French economist (1801–1850)}} {{Redirect|Bastiat|the rugby union player|Jean-Pierre Bastiat}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Frédéric Bastiat | image = Bastiat.jpg | caption = | office = Member of the [[National Assembly (France)|National Assembly]] for [[Landes (department)|Landes]] | term_start = 23 April 1848 | term_end = 24 December 1850 | birth_name = Claude-Frédéric Bastiat | birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1801|06|30}} | birth_place = [[Bayonne]], [[French First Republic|France]] | death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1850|12|24|1801|06|30}} | death_place = [[Rome]], [[Papal States]] | resting_place = [[San Luigi dei Francesi]], Rome | module = {{Infobox economist|embed=yes | school_tradition = [[French liberal school]] | contributions = [[Legal plunder]] [[Parable of the broken window]] ''[[The Law (Bastiat book)|The Law]]'' | influences = [[Richard Cobden|Cobden]], [[Niccolo Machiavelli|Machiavelli]], [[Michel De Montaigne|Montaigne]], [[Rene Descartes|Descartes]], [[Moliere]], [[Spinoza]], [[Thomas Hobbes|Hobbes]], [[John Locke|Locke]], [[David Hume|Hume]], [[Edward Gibbon|Gibbon]], [[Denis Diderot|Diderot]], [[Montesquieu]], [[Voltaire]], [[Jean-Jaques Rousseau|Rousseau]], [[Victor Hugo|Hugo]], [[Thomas Jefferson|Jefferson]], [[Thomas Paine|Paine]], [[Benjamin Franklin|Franklin]], [[Mark Twain|Twain]], [[Adam Smith|Smith]], [[Anne Robert Jacques Turgot|Turgot]] }} }} '''Claude-Frédéric Bastiat''' ({{IPAc-en|b|ɑː|s|t|i|ˈ|ɑː}}; {{IPA|fr|klod fʁedeʁik bastja|lang}}; 30 June 1801 – 24 December 1850) was a French economist, writer, and prominent member of the [[French liberal school]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/55610/Frederic-Bastiat|title=Frederic Bastiat|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|date=2 July 2019|access-date=21 October 2019}}</ref>

A member of the [[National Assembly (France)|French National Assembly]], Bastiat developed the economic concept of [[opportunity cost]] and introduced the [[parable of the broken window]].<ref>Initiated in 1820 at "La Zélée" lodge in Bayonne (La Franc-maçonnerie à Bayonne, 1980).</ref> He was described as "the most brilliant economic journalist who ever lived" by economic theorist [[Joseph Schumpeter]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/55610/Frederic-Bastiat|title=Frederic Bastiat|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|date=2 July 2019|access-date=12 January 2021}}</ref>

As an advocate of [[classical economics]] and the economics of [[Adam Smith]], his views favored a [[free market]] and influenced the [[Austrian School]].<ref name=Great>[[Mark Thornton|Thornton, Mark]] (11 April 2011) [https://mises.org/daily/5180/Why-Bastiat-Is-Still-Great "Why Bastiat Is Still Great"]. [[Mises Institute]]. Retrieved 1 August 2019.</ref> He is best known for his book ''[[The Law (Bastiat book)|The Law]]'', where he argued that law must protect rights such as private property, not "plunder" others' property.

== Biography == [[File:Bastiat big.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Drawing of Bastiat]] Bastiat was born on 29 June 1801 in [[Bayonne]], [[Gascony]] ([[Aquitaine]]), a port town in the south of France on the [[Bay of Biscay]]. His grandfather Pierre Bastiat (1742–1825) had come to trade in Bayonne from the inland town of [[Mugron]] in the wine-growing region of [[Chalosse]] and the [[Landes (department)|Landes]] department, married Bastiat's grandmother Catherine Laulhé (also from the Chalosse) in 1770. Having armed a [[frigate]] at his own expense for the [[War of the Pyrenees]] in 1793 to improve his standing with the [[French First Republic|Republic]], Pierre Bastiat acquired the [[Estate (land)|estate]] of Sengresse (just north of Mugron), confiscated during the [[French Revolution]] from the [[House of Béthune|house of Béthune-Chârost]], at an [[auction]] on 9 June 1795, in the closing stages of the war, and made it his family's residence.<ref name="MD-B">{{cite web |last=Dupouy |first=Madeleine |title=Les années d'apprentissage à Bayonne de Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) |website=Cercle Frédéric Bastiat |date=16 September 2017 |access-date=21 December 2025 |url=https://www.bastiat.net/articles/les-annees-dapprentissage-a-bayonne-de-frederic-bastiat-1801-1850-par-madeleine-dupouy-docteur-en-histoire |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250815151337/https://www.bastiat.net/articles/les-annees-dapprentissage-a-bayonne-de-frederic-bastiat-1801-1850-par-madeleine-dupouy-docteur-en-histoire |archive-date=15 August 2025 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{citation |last=Cuzacq |first=René |title=La vie landaise et bayonnaise de Frédéric Bastiat, 1801-1850 |location=Dax |publisher=P. Pradeu |year=1953 |p=4 |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3399139s/}}</ref><ref name="MD-L">{{citation |last=Dupouy |first=Madeleine |title=Les Lamaignère : Une famille de négociants à Bayonne, Nantes, Le Havre, aux Isles (1650-1850) |location=Rennes |publisher=Presses universitaires de Rennes |year=2010 |pp=155–172 |doi=10.4000/books.pur.104901 |url=https://books.openedition.org/pur/104901|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The bourgeois prosperity launched by Bayonne's new status as a [[Free-trade zone|free port]] from 1784 was cut short by the dissolution of the town's [[chamber of commerce]] in 1791, the ensuing wars with Spain (1793–1795, 1807–1814), and the [[Continental Blockade]] (1806–1814);<ref name="MD-L" /> the Bastiat family then shifted its interests to [[privateer]]ing and trading with the [[European colonization of the Americas|American colonies]].<ref name="MD-B" /> Bastiat's father, Pierre (1771–1810), the eldest of seven children and also a businessman, married Bastiat's mother Julie Fréchou (1773–1808) in 1800; they both died in the [[epidemic]]s of [[tuberculosis]] that hit Bayonne during the [[Peninsular War]].<ref name="MD-B" /> Frédéric, orphaned at the age of nine, was raised by his grandfather and unmarried aunt Justine Bastiat between Sengresse and Bayonne.<ref name="MD-B" /><ref name=Roche>{{cite book|last=Roche III|first=George Charles|title= Frédéric Bastiat: A Man Alone|year=1971|publisher=Arlington House|location=New Rochelle, NY|isbn=978-0870001161}}</ref> He started his education with ''[[Abbot#Modern abbots not as superior|abbé]]'' Meilhan in Bayonne and attended the college in [[Saint-Sever]], before in 1815{{sfn|Leroux|2011|p=11}} he was enrolled by his family at the {{ill|Sorèze Abbey|fr|Abbaye de Sorèze}} [[Benedictines|Benedictine]] [[boarding school]] near [[Castres]] (a royal military college,<ref>{{citation |last1=Vaucelle |first1=Serge |last2=McClelland |first2=John |title='Christian Patriotism' and Physical Education in Pre-Revolutionary France: The Royal Military School in Sorèze in the Eighteenth Century |journal=International Journal of the History of Sport |volume=36 |year=2019 |pp=474–492 |doi=10.1080/09523367.2019.1653854}}</ref> granted ''[[lycée]]'' status in 1813 and admitting [[Protestants]]), where he studied philosophy along with English, Spanish and Italian.<ref name="MD-B" /><ref name="Roche"/>

In 1818, Bastiat left the college and was sent by his grandfather to work as a junior clerk (''commis'') for his uncle, the lawyer Henry Monclar (1766–1831), in the Bayonne branch of the Monclar and Bastiat [[international trading]] firm, where his father had previously been a partner.<ref name="MD-B" /><ref name="Roche"/> Monclar, a theoretician of trade, acted as a mentor to young Bastiat.<ref name="MD-B" /> In a September 1819 letter to his friend Victor Calmètes, Bastiat acknowledged his disinterest in routine commercial affairs, his dedication to philosophy and politics, and his resolution to leave business soon, but also his realisation that "the good merchant … must study the laws and delve into political economy, which goes beyond the realm of routine and requires constant study".<ref name="MD-B" /> By early 1820, he had read [[Jean-Baptiste Say]]'s ''[[Say's Political Economy|Treatise on Political Economy]]''; over the following five years, he continued to study the subject through the works of Say, [[Adam Smith]], and [[Antoine Destutt de Tracy]], and articles in [[Charles Comte]] and [[Charles Dunoyer]]'s discontinued [[French liberal school|liberal]] journal ''[[Le Censeur européen]]''.{{sfn|Leroux|2011|pp=12–13}}

In 1821, Bastiat was admitted to the [[Masonic lodge]] La Zélée, whose ranks included his grandfather (since 1790), his deceased father (from at least 1792), and his uncles. He became the [[keeper of the seals]] for La Zélée in 1822 and acted as its orator in 1823. Through a fellow member of the lodge, printer Bernard Lamaignère (1776–1842), Bastiat joined the circle of young liberal [[intelligentsia]] surrounding the influential banker [[Jacques Laffitte]], who was a native of Bayonne and Lamaignère's in-law.<ref name="MD-B" />

Although Bastiat's plans to pursue university studies in Paris were not realised for family reasons, the estate of Sengresse he inherited at his grandfather's death in 1825 provided him with a means to further his theoretical inquiries.<ref name="MD-B" /><ref name="Roche"/>{{sfn|Leroux|2011|pp=13, 141}} He withdrew from maritime commerce to lead the life of a [[gentleman farmer]] and dedicated much intellectual effort to [[agronomy]], with frequent study visits to the Agricultural Academy of Landes (''Académie agricole des Landes'') at the river port of [[Mont-de-Marsan]].<ref name="MD-B" /> In 1827, he embarked on a study of the works of Charles Dunoyer and [[Benjamin Franklin]], while declaring the "virtues" of the latter to be unreachable for himself.{{sfn|Leroux|2011|p=13}} A neighbour of Bastiat's estate, Félix Coudroy, a lawyer by profession and a devotee of [[Joseph de Maistre]] and [[Félicité de La Mennais]]'s [[ultramontanism]], became the main [[confidant]] of his mature years and a key influence on his intellectual development during the 1830s (their correspondence dated back to at least 1824), later credited in the 1850 ''[[Harmonies of Political Economy]]'' and designated by Bastiat to complete his unfinished works.{{sfn|Leroux|2011|pp=32, 34–35, 141}}<ref>{{citation |last=Candau |first=Louis |title=Frédéric Bastiat et la Chalosse, impressions et souvenirs de la fête nationale célébrée en sa mémoire, à Mugron, le 23 avril 1878 |location=Saint-Sever |publisher=Amadis Serres |year=1878 |pp=7–8 |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k64714602/}}</ref>

After the middle-class [[July Revolution]] of 1830, Bastiat became politically active and circulated a pamphlet addressed to the Landes constituents on the occasion of the [[1830 French legislative election|legislative election]] of that year, in which he criticised government taxation and appealed to the individual rationality of voters on behalf of the general interest.{{sfn|Leroux|2011|p=14, 70–74}} He was elected [[justice of the peace]] of Mugron in 1831 and to the [[General councils (France)|Council General]] (county-level assembly) of Landes in 1832. He was elected to the [[National Assembly (France)|national legislative assembly]] after the [[French Revolution of 1848]].<ref name="Great" />

Bastiat, who had credited England with "marching as always at the head of European civilization" in 1825,{{sfn|Leroux|2011|p=45}} developed an enthusiasm for [[Richard Cobden]]'s antiprotectionist [[Anti-Corn Law League]] by 1842,{{sfn|Leroux|2011|p=39}} and welcomed the opening of the [[English Club of Pau, France|English Club of Pau]] in the same year.{{sfn|Leroux|2011|p=16}} Having achieved national recognition as an economist with the publication of his article in defence of Cobden's [[Manchester Liberalism]] in the ''[[Journal des économistes]]'' in October 1844, Bastiat began a correspondence with Cobden that resulted in a political alliance against protectionism and socialism between them.{{sfn|Leroux|2011|pp=15–16, 32, 39–43}} Bastiat visited England in 1845 and 1848,{{sfn|Leroux|2011|p=40}} and by 1846, moved to Paris, where he witnessed the [[June Days uprising]] of 1848.{{sfn|Leroux|2011|pp=16, 18, 142}} In early 1846, he set up an association in [[Bordeaux]] to launch the free trade movement in France.<ref>{{citation |last=Barry |first=Norman |author-link=Norman P. Barry |title=Frédéric Bastiat: The Economics and Philosophy of Freedom |journal=Journal des Économistes et des Études Humaines |volume=11 |issue=2/3 |year=2001 |p=265 |doi=10.2202/1145-6396.1017}}</ref>{{sfn|Leroux|2011|pp=37, 145}}

[[File:Bastiat Tomb.JPG|thumb|Bastiat's tomb in [[San Luigi dei Francesi]], a Catholic church in Rome]] Bastiat contracted [[tuberculosis]], probably during his tours throughout France to promote his ideas, and the illness eventually prevented him from making further speeches (particularly at the legislative assembly to which he was elected in 1848 and 1849) and cut his life short. In ''[[The Law (Bastiat book)|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)".<ref name="Roche"/>

During the autumn of 1850, he was sent to Italy by his doctors. He first traveled to [[Pisa]] in the [[Grand Duchy of Tuscany]], then to [[Rome]]. Before dying on 24 December 1850, Bastiat is alleged to have called those with him to approach his bed and murmured "the truth, the truth".<ref name="Roche"/> He is buried at the church of [[San Luigi dei Francesi]] in Rome.

== Works == [[File:Buste-bastiat.JPG|thumb|upright|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, "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]]".<ref name=Great/> However, Bastiat himself declared that subsidy should be available, albeit limited under extraordinary circumstances, saying: <blockquote>"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".<ref>"Justice and fraternity" (15 June 1848). ''Journal des Économistes''. p. 313.</ref></blockquote>

His first published works were two short treatises on the [[winemaking]] industry of the Landes, ''Le fisc et la vigne'' (1841) and ''Mémoire sur la question vinicole'' (1843), in which he blamed excessive taxation for the regional industry's crisis.{{sfn|Leroux|2011|p=15}}

Among his better-known works is ''Economic Sophisms'',<ref>{{cite web|title=Economic Sophisms|last=Bastiat|first=Frédéric [1845]|others=Goddard, A. (trans.)|year=1996|location=Irvington-on-Hudson, New York|publisher= The Foundation for Economic Education|url=https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/bastiat-economic-sophisms|access-date=12 December 2008}}</ref> 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 economist and historian of money [[Alexander del Mar]], writing under the pseudonym Emile Walter.<ref>Walter, Emile (del Mar, Alexander, pseud.) (1867). [https://archive.org/details/cu31924031220340 ''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}}.</ref>

=== ''Economic Sophisms'' and the candlemakers' petition === {{Capitalism sidebar}} The work, addressed to "the Good People" as an argument for free trade, has been characterised as an "equivalent of Economics [[101 (number)#In education|101]] for [[freshmen]]".{{sfn|Leroux|2011|p=16}} Contained within ''Economic Sophisms'' is the [[Satire|satirical]] parable known as the candlemakers' petition in which candlemakers and tallow producers lobby the [[Chamber of Deputies (France)|Chamber of Deputies]] of the French [[July Monarchy]] (1830–1848) to block out the Sun to prevent its unfair competition with their products.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://silentpc.org/university/Candlemaker.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051031084212/http://silentpc.org/university/Candlemaker.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=31 October 2005|last=Bastiat|first=Frédéric|access-date=12 December 2008|title=Candlemakers' petition}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|title=Bastiat: Economic Sophisms, Series 2, Chapter 16|url=https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/bastiat-economic-sophisms|publisher=Library of Economics and Liberty|access-date=3 March 2013}}</ref>

=== ''The Law'' (1850) === Bastiat's most famous work is his book ''[[The Law (Bastiat book)|The Law]]'' ({{lang|fr|La Loi}}),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://mises.org/sites/default/files/thelaw.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319031605/http://mises.org/sites/default/files/thelaw.pdf |archive-date=2015-03-19 |url-status=live|author=Frédéric Bastiat|title=The Law|access-date=29 March 2015}}</ref> 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 [[Social engineering (political science)|socially engineered]] by the legislator and must bend to the legislators' will "like the clay to the potter", saying: <blockquote>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.</blockquote>

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 [[Legal plunder|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?"<ref name="The Law">[http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html "The Law"]. ''Bastiat.org''.</ref>

=== "What is Seen and What is not Seen" === 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 60 years after his death by [[Friedrich von Wieser]] in 1914.

=== Debate with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon === Bastiat famously engaged in a debate between 1849 and 1850 with [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]] about the legitimacy of interest.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://praxeology.net/FB-PJP-DOI.htm|title=Bastiat-Proudhon Debate on Interest|publisher=Praxeology.net|access-date=2 December 2008}}</ref> As [[Robert Leroux (sociologist)|Robert Leroux]] argued, Bastiat had the conviction that Proudhon's anti-interest doctrine "was the complete antithesis of any serious approach".{{sfn|Leroux|2011|p=118}} Proudhon famously lost his temper and resorted to personal 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."<ref>Roche, Charles George. "Frederic Bastiat: A Man Alone". Arlington House, 1971, p. 153.</ref>

== Views == {{Liberalism in France|People}} Bastiat's support for free trade and denunciation of [[protectionism]], which he associated with the [[Continental Blockade]], was shaped by the vicissitudes of his family's international trading firm, in which he took an active role from 1818 to 1825.<ref name="MD-B" />{{sfn|Leroux|2011|p=14}} His participation in the intellectual networks of [[Freemasonry]] and in [[Jacques Laffitte]]'s circle from 1821 introduced him to [[liberalism]] as a set of ideas.<ref name="MD-B" /> In 1845, he acknowledged a profound influence of the writings of [[Charles Dunoyer]] on his own thought in a letter to their author.{{sfn|Leroux|2011|p=141}}

Bastiat asserted that the sole purpose of government is to protect the right of an individual to life, liberty, and property and that government interference with an individual's other personal matters is dangerous and morally wrong. 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).<ref name="TheLaw"/>

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 [[State socialism|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.<ref name="TheLaw">Bastiat, Frédéric. ''The Law''. Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007.</ref>

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.<ref name=Great/> He backed the [[July Revolution]] of 1830, describing the middle-class revolutionaries as "enlightened, wealthy, and prudent men who are sacrificing their interests and their lives to achieve order and its inseparable companion, liberty", but opposed the [[French Revolution of 1848|revolutions of 1848]] as antiliberal and elevating the role of the state.{{sfn|Leroux|2011|pp=78–80}}

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".<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Bastiat as an Austrian Economist by Mark Thornton |journal=Journal des Économistes et des Études Humaines |date=June 2001 |volume=11 |issue=2 |doi=10.2202/1145-6396.1025 |s2cid=144928102 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.2202/1145-6396.1025/pdf |last1=Thornton |first1=Mark |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Bastiat reiterated his commitment to Christianity in his letters to Victor Calmètes of 1820–1821, where he described religion as a comforting source of morality [[Infallibility of the Church|beyond all error]], and in his 1850 ''[[Harmonies of Political Economy]]'', which he wrote was "pervaded" by his [[Existence of God|belief in God]].{{sfn|Leroux|2011|pp=33–34, 144}} His notion of a natural harmony between "true" socio-economic interests of individuals received praise from Cardinal [[Pope Leo XIII|Gioacchino Pecci]] in 1877, a year before Pecci's election to papacy as Leo XIII.<ref name="LL">{{citation |last=Liggio |first=Leonard |title=Bastiat and the French School of Laissez-Faire |journal=Journal des Économistes et des Études Humaines |volume=11 |issue=2/3 |year=2001 |p=504 |doi=10.2202/1145-6396.1029}}</ref> He was also cited as a key influence by the US president [[Ronald Reagan]] on the latter's accession in 1981.<ref name="LL" />

== Books == * {{cite book|last=Bastiat|first=Frédéric|author-mask=1|year=1848|title=Propriété et loi. Justice et fraternité|publisher=Guillaumin et Cie|location=Paris|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5696376z}} * {{cite book|last=Bastiat|first=Frédéric|author-mask=1|year=1849|title=L'État. Maudit argent|publisher=Guillaumin et Cie|location=Paris|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k56881118}} * {{cite book|last=Bastiat|first=Frédéric|author-mask=1|title=Incomptabilités parlementaires|year=1849|publisher=Guillaumin et Cie|location=Paris|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5677549h}} * {{cite book|last=Bastiat|first=Frédéric|author-mask=1|year=1849|title=Paix et liberté ou le budget républicain|publisher=Guillaumin et Cie|location=Paris|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k56744460}} * {{cite book|last=Bastiat|first=Frédéric|author-mask=1|year=1849|title=Protectionisme et communisme|publisher=Guillaumin et Cie|location=Paris|url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k56730180}} * {{cite book|last=Bastiat|first=Frédéric|author-mask=1|year=1983|title=Oeuvres économiques|series=Libre échange|others=Textes présentés par Florin Aftalion|publisher=PUF|location=Paris|isbn=978-2130378617}} * {{cite book|last=Bastiat|first=Frédéric|author-mask=1|year=2005|title=Sophismes économiques|series=Bibliothèque classique de la liberté|others=Préface de Michel Leter|publisher=Les Belles Lettres|location=Paris|language=fr|isbn=978-2251390383}} * {{cite book|last=Bastiat|first=Frédéric|author-mask=1|year=2009|title=Pamphlets|series=Bibliothèque classique de la liberté|others=Préface de Michel Leter|publisher=Les Belles Lettres|location=Paris|language=fr|isbn=978-2251390499}}

== See also == {{Portal|Economics|Liberalism|Libertarianism}} * [[Age of Enlightenment]] * [[Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune]] * [[Bastiat Prize]] * ''[[Harmonies of Political Economy]]'' * [[Hippolyte Castille]] * [[List of liberal theorists]] * [[Physiocrats]]

== References == {{reflist}}

== Further reading == * [https://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae4_4_3.pdf Bastiat's Legacy in Economics] by [[Jorg Guido Hulsmann]] * [https://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae5_3_6.pdf Frédéric Bastiat's Views on the Nature of Money] by [[Mark Thornton]] * [https://www.mises.org/content/bastiat200.asp Frédéric Bastiat: Two Hundred Years On] by Joseph R. Stromberg * Foville, A. de. "Bastiat" (1900). In [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k224270/f192.image ''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 lang|fr}}. * {{cite journal|last=Garello|first=Jacques|date=16 February 2011|title=Portrait : Bastiat (1801–1850)|language=fr|journal=La Nouvelle Lettre|issue=1067|page=8|url=http://www.libres.org/portraits/518-frederic-bastiat-1801-1850.html|access-date=12 May 2012|archive-date=25 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025160744/http://www.libres.org/portraits/518-frederic-bastiat-1801-1850.html|url-status=dead}} * {{cite encyclopedia |title=Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) |url=https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Bastiat.html |encyclopedia=[[The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics]] |edition=2nd |series=[[Library of Economics and Liberty]] |publisher=[[Liberty Fund]] |year=2008|isbn=978-0865976665 |editor-first=David R.|editor-last=Henderson |editor-link=David R. Henderson |page=524–25 }} * {{cite encyclopedia|last=Hülsmann|first=Guido|author-link1=Jörg Guido Hülsmann|editor-first=Ronald|editor-last=Hamowy|editor-link=Ronald Hamowy|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism|title=Bastiat, Frédéric|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC|year=2008|publisher=[[SAGE Publishing|Sage]]; [[Cato Institute]]|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n16|isbn=978-1412965804|oclc=750831024|lccn=2008009151|pages=25–27|chapter=Bastiat, Frédéric (1801–1850)}} * {{cite book|last=Leroux|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Leroux (sociologist)|title=Political Economy and Liberalism in France: The Contributions of Frédéric Bastiat|year=2011|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ue6rAgAAQBAJ|series=Routledge Studies in the History of Economics|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-1136795145}} * {{cite book|last=Roche|first=George Charles III|author-link=George Roche III|title=Frédéric Bastiat: A Man Alone|series=Architects of Freedom Series|year=1971|publisher=Arlington House|location=New Rochelle|url=https://mises.org/document/4957/Frederic-Bastiat-A-Man-Alone|access-date=12 May 2012}} * {{cite book|last=Russell|first=Dean|title=Frédéric Bastiat: Ideas and Influence|year=1969|publisher=Foundation for Economic Education|location=Irvington-on-Hudson}} * {{cite book|title=Un libéral : Frédéric Bastiat|year=1988|publisher=Presses de l'Institut d'Études Politiques de Toulouse|location=Toulouse|language=fr}}

== External links == {{wikisource|works=or}} {{Wikiquote}} {{Commons and category}} * {{Gutenberg author|id=6395}} * {{Internet Archive author|sname=Frédéric Bastiat|sopt=w}} * {{Librivox author|id=628}} * [http://www.bastiat.org/ Bastiat.org] publishes and indexes information about Bastiat * [https://www.bastiat.net/ Cercle Frédéric Bastiat] publishes and indexes information about Bastiat * [http://www.bastiatsociety.org/ The Bastiat Society] * [https://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=680 "Frédéric Bastiat: Libertarian Challenger or Political Bargainer?"] article by economist Brian Baugus on the development of Bastiat's thinking * ''[https://www.mises.org/books/bastiat1.pdf The Bastiat Collection Volume 1]'', ''[https://www.mises.org/books/bastiat2.pdf The Bastiat Collection Volume 2]'' – A collection of Bastiat works published by the [[Ludwig von Mises Institute]]  * [https://web.archive.org/web/20120913070343/http://freeaudio.org/fbastiat/thelaw.html Audio version of Russell's translation of ''The Law''] * [https://mises.org/books/thelaw.pdf ''The Law'' – Frederic Bastiat (PDF English)] * {{cite web|title=Frédéric Bastiat|url=https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=au%3A%22Bastiat%22|publisher=[[JSTOR]]}} * [https://www.portagepub.com/products/economics/bastiat-political-economy.html Bastiat's ''Essays on Political Economy'' (including ''The Law'')], in its entirety (free PDF download)

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