Customer Reviews

Bastiat Collection (2 Volume set)

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This set is incredible. Well, volume 1 is incredible. Volume 2 was slower for me, as it seemed to be more dry and covered a lot of the same material as volume 1. The set is a collection of most of the important writings of Frederic Bastiat, the great French classical liberal of the 19th century. There are five essays in the beginning, followed by two sets of "Economic Sophisms" in Volume 1. Volume 2 contains the "Harmonies of Political Economy." Bastiat's power of prose is unparalleled in this field. I doubt that anyone before or since can so clearly and persuasively explain problems of economics or politics so that they seem obvious to the average person.

Three of the first five essays, "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen", "The Law", and "Money", I would put as absolutely mandatory reading. In the first essay, Bastiat shows us how, in every economic situation, we must not only consider what is obvious and seen, but also what we can't see. He uses his famous example of the shopkeeper with a broken window. Everyone sees the broken window, as well as the work it provides for the window repairman. So "what is seen" is the advantage to the repairman. "What is not seen" is what would have happened if the window hadn't been broken: the shopkeeper would have used his money to buy a new pair of shoes, or a new suit of clothes, so that then he would have benefited the shoemaker or the tailor, and himself possessed the additional benefit of the new shoes or suit. This is a very important essay, and it is also what Henry Hazlitt based his "Economics in One Lesson" on.

"The Law" is the most important section of the book. Here Bastiat shows with inescapable force that anytime the law is used to organize anything other than justice, such as equality or prosperity, it necessarily and inescapably works against justice. This essay was one of the most powerful essays I have ever read.

The other essays in the book, as well as the series of Economic Sophisms and the Harmonies of Political Economy, address economic questions in a manner so simple and clear that you will never read the news in the same way again. I believe that anyone who reads this book will understand economics better than the entire Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve combined. Many sections of this book made me laugh out loud. For instance, he writes about people who worry that imports are too high. He says that if we want to maximize exports, and minimize imports, we should just take the biggest ship in our fleet, load it up with goods, send it fifty miles out to sea, and sink it to the bottom of the ocean. Exports are maximized, and imports are minimized. The story of the candlemakers is even better.

There are two main points he emphasizes repeatedly through the book, which our betters in Washington have not learned yet. First, that every voluntary exchange benefits both parties, whether it's a simple exchange of goods, or whether it's capital lent at interest, or whether it's the employer and the laborer. Second, that there are always two perspectives: that of the producer, and that of the consumer. These perspectives correspond to abundance and scarcity. The producer always wants scarcity: he wants the few goods he produces to be very expensive and he wants less competition. The consumer always wants abundance: she wants lots of everything, and more competition, so that everything is cheap. People consume lots of things, but produce only one or a few things. Nevertheless, most of the laws we pass, in Bastiat's time as well as in ours, favor the producers at the expense of the consumers, and hence promote scarcity and high prices (think: "Unions").

This book is really indispensible, and should be perfectly accessible to a literate high school student. If you want to know whether to buy the whole set, find "The Law" online, print it out and read it, and I suspect you'll order the two volumes. You won't regret it.

Note: Both volumes are available for free download on the von Mises website.

Bastiat is one of the intellectual fathers for all free-market advocates. If you still believe in individual rights, limited government, and capitalism, you should read this collection. Bastiat wrote 200 years ago, but his work is more timely than ever. He is insightful and a pleasure to read.

Michael Beitler, Ph.D.
Author of Rational Individualism: A Moral Argument for Limited Government & Capitalism Rational Individualism: A Moral Argument for Limited Government & Capitalism

I was introduced to Bastiat through a friend. Once I read "The Law," I had to read more. The Bastiat Collection is a 2-book set of Bastiat's major essays. The books themselves feature a slick textbook-like binding and the typeface is easy to read. I would have preferred a higher-quality binding and a higher quality paper that would better reflect the value of the content.

Bastiat's essays were written in the 1840's but his ideas remain refreshingly pertinent to contemporary society. Addressing the shortcomings of socialism, he addresses the economy, the law and liberty, education and personal responsibility. His arguments are compelling. His references to other 19th century writers and politicians is slightly distracting, but points out the flaws of some of their philosophies, offering common-sense illustrations of alternative theories. The socialist ideas of his time are still present and it is easy to extend the writing to today's economic/political environment.

In The Law, Bastiat discusses the true role of the law and the ways that law becomes burdensome through the illegitimate plunder of wealth by government. Law is to protect private property and prevent damage. Beyond that role, the Law infringes on the liberty of the citizen when it legislates to provide for some at the expense of others. By extension, laws compelling unnatural fraternity, while seen by some as egalitarian, actually infringe on individual's rights. In What is Seen and What is Unseen, he discusses the difference between apparently good actions and short-term effects and the long-term ramifications of short-sighted policy based on the immediacy of a situation. His writing is to-the-point, honest and logical as he builds the case for his philosophy. There is too much material to offer a critique of each essay, but Bastiat should be required reading for every American.

I am 26 years old and am sorry to report that I had never even heard of Bastiat until recently. Never in high school or college did I read one of his wonderful essays. I have not heard him mentioned in talk radio as a wise man to look to for answers or by the general media who pretend to search for clues in the midst of our economic woes. To anyone already familiar with Bastiat's writings, I suppose it goes without saying that our politicians are not looking through his works for guidance.

I finally stumbled across Bastiat's broken glass essay in Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. I then listened to Bastiat's The Law on the Von Mises website. I was hooked. Common sense and logic are the basis of his books and essays, and these methods of thinking lead him to advocate liberty in all kinds of political areas. Reading Bastiat seems to me like being taught by a wise grandparent. He knows how to explain things in clear language and with simple examples. Bastiat takes on all sorts of issues like money, the rightful role of government, taxes and tariffs, as well as many others, and peels away all the layers of self interested lies that have piled up over the years into a mess I assumed was a more or less factual explanation of how things should work. I often find myself laughing out loud (yes, out loud) with pleasure at the end of a chapter upon having some issue explained with such elegance. These same issues spur endless debate in government and media, are analyzed in confusing terms by important looking people possessing fine suits and even finer degrees, and yet remain extremely confusing when these people are finished. With Bastiat's explanations, I finish a chapter and feel like I ought to have known what he teaches all along, since it is so consistent with common sense.

These volumes are expensive, but they seem to be well made and will last a little better when you loan them to your friends, which I know you will want to do after reading them. Of course, you could just read his works online or even listen to them at the Von Mises website for free. It looks to me like it will take a 19th century Frenchman to clear things up for 21st century Americans!

Bastiat deserves to be considered the greatest economic writer in history. His writing is so lively, so energetic that it grabs you instantly. He is the master of illustrating economic principles with fables: his "broken window" fable is so well-known in the free market camp that whenever anyone ignores opportunity costs we all call it the "broken window fallacy". His characterization of protective tariffs as a kind of "negative railroad" also deserves mention.

I must respectfully disagree with a previous reviewer about the usefulness of volume 2, which contains "Economic Harmonies." Although the fables, pamphlets, and other short works from volume 1 are indisputable classics of economic literature, Economic Harmonies is a real masterpiece. Over and over as I read it, I was struck by how modern it seemed, how many issues it discusses that I talk about all the time! People have been making the same economic fallacies since the beginning of history and Bastiat refutes them all in a manner that is so devastating and so compelling that I could hardly recommend a better introduction to economics than Economic Harmonies.

By the way, this entire series is available as a free pdf download from the Mises Institute.

This is a fantastic read. It's the book that taught me right and wrong when it comes to the role of the government. I originally ended up reading it after reading Benson's "The Proper Role of Government", which is based on this fellow's writing. BTW, it's completely free online in PDF form from mises.org. Thanks!

Excellent! Wonderfully excellent. From page one Bastiat puts you in the position as an economist. I've only read the first 20 pages as I'm writing this review and I'm expecting to finish the next chapter by the end of the day.
I only have one complaint. The fact that the cardboard book-sleeve was not included with my purchase compared to were it to have been ordered from the Mises store, I'd have gladly paid an extra $5 to have it included.
But I digress, for $30 this is an excellent collection of the philosophy of the classical french liberal school of thought.

As other reviewers have noted, Bastiat writes in a fluid, witty and lucid style, a godsend when it comes to economics. His goal in all his writings is to demolish supporters of mercantilism and protectionism, and Bastiat certainly uses some colourful examples to do this; obviously, politically active as he was, the man was writing polemics for a wide audience, which requires some creative effort to capture the attention of lay-readers. A lot of the essays in this collection were extracted from journals that had large circulations.

However, I would like to offer a warning. The essays in this collection are very, very, very repetitive. This is no slight on Bastiat, or on the ideas he is advancing, important that they are. It is more the fact that Bastiat had really one aim in mind, to influence contemporary public policy. For anyone in any time, the only way to do that is to publish, over and over again, the same argument, in different though persuasive ways. So what you get in the collected works of such an author is exactly that: the same argument (anti-protectionist) worded in about a hundred different ways.

For free-market enthusiasts, Bastiat is a must read. But, don't do what I did, and read cover-to-cover. It is almost like reading a hundred editorial columns in a row.

With much wit and wisdom, Bastiat cuts through the rainbows and unicorns of totalitarian collectivist thought and expounds the principles of liberty with a depth of reason and clarity that is completely absent from today's political circles. Socialists/communists/modern liberals/Democrats/RINOs will of course hate every word of the Collection, because Bastiat lays out in undeniable fashion the evil and immoral nature of stealing from one individual to give to another, the inability of government to intervene in the economy without damaging it, and the eternal truth that the only type of economy that can succeed permanently in bringing prosperity to a people is free-will exchange unhindered by Big Mother.

If you haven't read and understood Bastiat, you have no business engaging in discussions of politics or economics. Ever.

For a lay person, this is some dry stuff. But, if you have an interest in philosophy of this sort, by all means, pick it up. You will not regret it. Bastiat is spot on in today's chaotic world. Peace to all during this holiday season!