Bastiat Collection (Hardcover)

~ Frederic Bastiat (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

In two volumes, here is The Bastiat Collection, the main corpus of his writings in English in a restored and elegant translation that includes some of the most powerful defenses of free markets ever written. This restoration project has yielded a collection to treasure. After years of hard work and preparation, we can only report that it is an emotionally thrilling moment to finally offer to the general public. Claude Frédéric Bastiat was an economist and publicist of breathtaking intellectual energy and massive historical influence. He was born in Bayonne, France on June 29th, 1801. After the middle-class Revolution of 1830, Bastiat became politically active and was elected Justice of the Peace in 1831 and to the Council General (county-level assembly) in 1832. He was elected to the national legislative assembly after the French Revolution of 1848.

Bastiat was inspired by and routinely corresponded with Richard Cobden and the English Anti-Corn Law League and worked with free-trade associations in France. Bastiat wrote sporadically starting in the 1830s, but in 1844 he launched his amazing publishing career when an article on the effects of protectionism on the French and English people was published in the Journal des Economistes which was held to critical acclaim.

The bulk of his remarkable writing career that so inspired the early generation of English translators and so many more is contained in this collection.

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.

These volumes bring together his greatest works and represents the early generation of English translations. These translators were like Bastiat himself, people from the private sector who had a love of knowledge and truth and who altered their careers to vigorously pursue intellectual ventures, scholarly publishing, and advocacy of free trade.

The collection consists of three sections, the first of which contains his best-known essays. In That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen, Bastiat equips the reader to become an economist in the first paragraph and then presents the story of the broken window where a hoodlum is thought to create jobs and prosperity by breaking windows. Bastiat solves the quandary of prosperity via destruction by noting that while the apparent prosperity is seen, what is unseen is that which would have been produced had the windows not been broken.

The second section is Bastiat s Economic Sophisms, a collection of 35 articles on the errors of protectionism broadly conceived. Here Bastiat shows his mastery of the methods of argumentation using basic logic and taking arguments to their logical extreme to demonstrate and ridicule them as obvious fallacies. In his Negative Railroad Bastiat argues that if an artificial break in a railroad causes prosperity by creating jobs for boatmen, porters, and hotel owners, then there should be not one break, but many, and indeed the railroad should be just a series of breaks a negative railroad.

The third section is Bastiat s Economic Harmonies which was hastily written before his death in 1850 and is considered incomplete. Here he demonstrates that the interests of everyone in society are in harmony to the extent that property rights are respected. Because there are no inherent conflicts in the market, government intervention is unnecessary. Here we find a powerful but sadly neglected defense of the main thesis of old-style liberalism: that society and economy are capable of self-managing. Unless this insight is understood and absorbed, a person can never really come to grips with the main meaning of liberty.

About the Author

As Murray N. Rothbard noted: "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 untrammeled free market."

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1000 pages
• Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute; 1st edition (August 22, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933550074
• ISBN-13: 978-1933550077
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #367,404 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Intellectual Father, October 26, 2008

By	Michael A. Beitler (Greensboro, NC United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This will change the way you think, October 17, 2009

By	B. C. Richards (Tucson, AZ, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required Reading, September 12, 2009

By	beeguy (NC) - See all my reviews

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.