Happy Birthday, Frederic Bastiat!
Today marks the 204th birthday of Frederic Bastiat, my most favorite frenchman. Bastiat was an economist, politician, and writer who tirelessly championed the cause of freedom in the 19th century. While Bastiat never brought anything new to the field of economics, his words are what people remember. He had an innate ability to communicate the virtues of limited government and expanded freedom. He explained the idea of "legal plunder", the fallacy of the "broken window", and why "Paris gets fed". He also made the insightful point that the law is perverted "by the influence of two entirely different causes: stupid greed and false philanthropy". He was the Great Communicator before Ronald Reagan was even born. If you have ever read his stuff, you know that his words drip with emotion and energy and wit. I get nothing but pure joy from reading him. Here's just a glimpse: bq. "When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will." bq. "The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else." bq. "It is, that when we disapprove of Government support, we are supposed to disapprove of the thing itself whose support is discussed; and to be the enemies of every kind of activity, because we desire to see those activities, on the one hand free, and on the other seeking their own reward in themselves. Thus, if we think that the State should not interfere by taxation in religious affairs, we are atheists. If we think the State ought not to interfere by taxation in education, we are hostile to knowledge. If we say that the State ought not by taxation to give a fictitious value to land, or to any particular branch of industry, we are enemies to property and labour. If we think that the State ought not to support artists, we are barbarians who look upon the arts as useless." bq. "There is in all of a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are "just" because the law makes them so." And perhaps my favorite one of all: bq. "Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve... But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn't 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. Then abolish that law without delay ... No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic." Beautiful words. If you haven't read Bastiat, I encourage you to start now. For starters, I suggest The Law and What is Seen and What is Not Seen. Both are available online without cost. When lovers of liberty speak about standing on the shoulders of giants, Bastiat is one of those giants. Happy birthday, pal.
