Economic Sophisms [Paperback]

Frederic Bastiat (Author), Arthur Goddard (Translator), Henry Hazlitt (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1996

What gives this work its unique quality and places it among the classics of economic literature is not only the logical rigor with which each fallacy is demolished, but the highly original and striking way in which the author uses wit, irony, satire, dialogue, and apologue to reduce erroneous ideas to patent absurdity, as, for example, in his famous petition of the candlemakers for protection against the competition of the sun.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English
Introduction: French

About the Author

Frédéric Bastiat (1801—1850) was a French economist, statesman, and author. He was the leader of the free-trade movement in France from its inception in 1840 until his untimely death in 1850. The first 45 years of his life were spent in preparation for five tremendously productive years writing in favor of freedom. Bastiat was the founder of the weekly newspaper Le Libre Échange, a contributor to numerous periodicals, and the author of sundry pamphlets and speeches dealing with the pressing issues of his day. Most of his writing was done in the years directly before and after the Revolution of 1848—a time when France was rapidly embracing socialism. As a deputy in the Legislative Assembly, Bastiat fought valiantly for the private property order, but unfortunately the majority of his colleagues chose to ignore him. Frédéric Bastiat remains one of the great champions of freedom whose writings retain their relevance. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 291 pages
• Publisher: Foundation for Economic Education (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0910614148
• ISBN-13: 978-0910614146
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #865,378 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding source in "common sense" economics., March 31, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Richard Cassidy) (California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Economic Sophisms (Paperback)

This is a book that I first read about fifteen years ago, and the wonderful stories provide vivid examples for evaluating, or countering, "new" economic ideas with common sense historical, or allegorical, counterparts.

Protectionists, beware - this book will change you forever.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Opponents of Logic Beware, August 2, 2001

By 

Jonathan Brown (Fair Oaks,, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Economic Sophisms (Paperback)

Bastiat does some gentle and not so gentle poking fun at the Trade Luddites of his era. His defense of free trade is no less relevant today. In fact, with the nonsense we are hearing about trade from political and activist quarters - it is probably even more important today.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Advocates of protectionism beware- your annihilator is in sight, July 21, 2008

By 

Sutirtha Bagchi (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Economic Sophisms (Paperback)

Frederic Bastiat was not an economic theorist in the sense that he did not make any original contribution to economic theory. His claim to fame rests on the success he achieved as a pamphleteer, an exposer of economic fallacies and as one of the foremost champions of free trade on the European continent. That in itself is an achievement that is worth the admiration of anybody who is a supporter of free trade. For even though, the defects of mercantilism and the advantages of international trade, ala comparative advantage, had been established by the doyens of economic theory such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, protectionism was still reigning supreme in Bastiat's own country, France during the nineteenth century. And that is precisely what he has tried to expose in his book "Economic Sophisms."

Unlike Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" or "Capitalism and Freedom" or Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson" which deal with a large variety of applications, Bastiat concerns himself solely with trying to combat the menace of protectionism through a series of arguments that are both witty and satirical. Occasionally he also shows how a conversation between two parties having differing opinions on protectionism might evolve. For example, in one of his chapters, he shows how a tax collector might justify the exorbitant collection of taxes to a vineyardist who moans the loss of his wine as taxes whereas in another chapter, he conducts a thought experiment as to how three different merchants might conspire amongst themselves to pass legislation advantaging each one of them in their respective industries. Contained within this book is the famous satirical parable known as the "Candlemakers' petition" which presents itself as a demand from the candlemakers' guild to the French government, petitioning the government to block out the Sun to prevent its unfair competition with their products: a parable that has made its way to the most elementary economics text book.

The central theme of Bastiat's economic ideology could be summed up as: All economic decisions should be made with the consumer in mind. Instead Bastiat alleges that protectionists and their advocates in the legislatures look only at the interests of the producers and fail to see the unintended consequences of their actions on consumers and even on other producers. Protectionism is the original sin in the sense that protectionism in one sphere begets calls for protectionism in yet another till we have a complicated, convoluted system of collecting tariffs, providing subsidies resulting in uniformly high prices and scarcity instead of abundance which would have resulted if he had allowed free trade in the first place.

Would I recommend the book to somebody else? No because even though it makes for a fun and easy read,
a) The book almost exclusively focuses on trying to make the case against protectionism and in favor of free trade and
b) Also because many of the arguments made in the book are part of popular wisdom today and therefore might be seen as superfluous in some sense. Instead if one is interested in exposing popular myths and voodoo economics, especially those coming from the left, then I would suggest reading Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson." That one is truly an arsenal for the libertarian.