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Essays on Political Economy

Frédéric Bastiat

Book Overview: 

Bastiat asserted that the only purpose of government is to defend the right of an individual to life, liberty, and property. From this definition, Bastiat concluded that the law cannot defend life, liberty and property if it promotes socialist policies inherently opposed to these very things. In this way, he says, the law is perverted and turned against the thing it is supposed to defend.

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .inquiry, the operatives themselves explained this phenomenon thus:--"What is the use of pinching? Who knows what will happen to us? Who knows that interest will not be abolished? Who knows but that the State will become a universal and gratuitous lender, and that it will wish to annihilate all the fruits which we might expect from our savings?" Well! I say, that if such ideas could prevail during two single years, it would be enough to turn our beautiful France into a Turkey--misery would become general and endemic, and, most assuredly, the poor would be the first upon whom it would fall.

Workmen! they talk to you a great deal upon the artificial organisation of labour;--do you know why they do so? Because they are ignorant of the laws of its natural organisation; that is, of the wonderful organisation which results from liberty. You are told, that liberty gives rise to what is called the radical antagonism of classes; that it creates, and makes to clash, two opp. . . Read More

Community Reviews

This is a good and easy-to-read collection of Bastiat's polemical, witty and sharp essays.

It includes the ever-green "The Law", which is a fantastic piece of polemical writing in the right-libertarian tradition. I have reviewed it elsewhere; it remains fantastic.

"That Which is Seen" is a rhetorical

Common Sense

Phenomenal common sense spoken into an increasingly insane France 160 years ago, which would speak to us today if we had the good sense to listen.

Loved the book! It was a relief to finally have a book by someone who wants to bring economics to the people (rather than making people run away screaming "this is so boring!"). If someone wanted to learn what in the world economics was, I would direct them to this book right away. Bastiat makes bas

This collection of essays contains five of the essays of this well-known and sadly all too shortly-lived French economist who explores the various ways that someone who is essentially proper and conservative can appeal to a large group of readers in speaking economic truths that are sometimes diffic

Frederic Bastiat is an economic genius. His work is timeless because he excoriates a government that steals from one group to give to another under the rubric of welfare, or helping the downtrodden. By definition it is stealing from one group to enrich another. The government, be it 19th century Fra

Ugh. I enjoy reading Bastiat because his prose is well-worded, but the content is the exact same drivel I hear from intelligent libertarians today.

He tosses out a lot of explanations that were great then but which have since been amended and debunked. It's got holes in it, just like those modern lib

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