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• The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat
• General Editor’s Note
• Note On the Translation
• Note On the Editions of the Œuvres Complètes
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• The Political Pamphlets As Models of Applied Economics
• Eyewitness to Political and Economic Upheavals (1848–50)
• Republicanism and Universal Suffrage
• State Education
• Hayek and Spontaneous Order
• Peace, Liberty, and Taxes
• The Left, Taxes, and Trade Unions
• The Economists, the Socialists, and Legal Plunder
• Freedom to Exchange
• Conclusion
• Frédéric Bastiat Chronology
• “the Law,” “the State,” and Other Political Writings, 1843–1850
• 1: Reflections On the Petitions From Bordeaux, Le Havre, and Lyons Relating to the Customs Service 1
• 2: The Tax Authorities and Wine 1
• 3: On the Wine-growing Question
• 4: Property and Law
• 5: Justice and Fraternity 1
• 6: Individualism and Fraternity
• 7: The State
• 8: The State (draft)
• 9: The Law
• 10: Property and Plunder 1
• First Letter
• Second Letter
• Third Letter
• Fourth Letter
• Fifth Letter
• Claim Made By M. Considérant and F. Bastiat’s Reply
• 11: Baccalaureate and Socialism 1
• 12: Protectionism and Communism
• 13: Plunder and Law 1
• 14: The War Against Chairs of Political Economy 1 , 2
• 15: Peace and Freedom Or the Republican Budget 1
• 16: Discourse On the Tax On Wines and Spirits 1 , 2
• 17: The Repression of Industrial Unions 1
• 18: Reflections On the Amendment of M. Mortimer-ternaux 1
• 19: Parliamentary Conflicts of Interest 1 , 2
• Bastiat’s Political Writings: Anecdotes and Reflections
• The Law-abiding Revolutionary
• The State As the “great Fiction”
• Bastiat’s Publisher, the Librairie De Guillaumin
• Bastiat’s Editor and Executor, Prosper Paillottet (1804–78)
• The Concept of Individualism
• The Idea of Laissez-faire
• The Concepts of “industry” and “plunder” (spoliation)
• The Right to Work Vs the Right Or Freedom of Working
• Classical Liberal Vs Socialist Utopias
• The Cause of Bastiat’s Untimely Death
• Speaking Truth to Power: “the Miller of Sans-souci”
• Glossary of Persons
• Glossary of Places
• Glossary of Subjects and Terms
• Bibliographical Note On the Works Cited In This Volume
• Bibliography
• Primary Sources
• Works By Bastiat
• Works By Other Authors Cited In the Text, Notes, and Glossaries
• Secondary Sources

Eyewitness to Political and Economic Upheavals (1848–50)

After a period as a successful provincial magistrate, Bastiat was elected in the immediate aftermath of the February revolution of 1848 to the Constituent Assembly in Paris. He represented his home département (the Landes, located in the southwest region of France) and became active in opposing both the socialism of the left and the authoritarianism of the right. As a classical liberal advocate of natural rights, universal franchise, the ultraminimalist state, and absolute free trade, Bastiat was not completely at home on the right or on the left side of the Assembly, though he oft en sat on the left because of his opposition to many of the establishment’s policies. On the right sat the monarchists, militarists, large landowners, supporters of the very limited voting franchise, and business interests who advocated tariff protection and subsidies. Occupying the left were the republicans, democrats, socialists, and advocates of state-supported make-work schemes and other subsidies to the poor. As some of his speeches indicate, Bastiat could cleverly play off one side against the other, appealing to the right in his attacks on socialism but appealing to the left in his support of the republic and his criticism of state subsidies to the rich.

In 1846 a key economic reform occurring in Britain caught Bastiat’s attention: Prime Minister Robert Peel’s abolition of the Corn Laws.4 The repeal of these laws eliminated many price controls on imported food stuffs and thus lowered the cost of food for those British consumers who were the least well off. The person behind the successful repeal was Richard Cobden whose organization, the Anti–Corn Law League, mobilized British opinion and forced Peel to act as he did. Bastiat, impressed with this popular and successful movement, very much wanted to emulate Cobden’s success by organizing a homegrown French free-trade movement and spent much of his time during the mid-1840s trying to bring this about, with disappointing results.5

Toward the end of his life, as a deputy in the Constituent Assembly and then in the Legislative Assembly, Bastiat became immersed in the struggles against the rise of socialist groups from the left and the opportunistic, interventionist policies of other groups on the right. Many of his pamphlets from this period were economic in nature and designed to alert people to the dangers of growing government intervention in the economy and attacks on the rule of law. The pamphlets are period pieces to the extent that they reflect the day-to-day or week-to-week battles for liberty fought by Bastiat in the Assembly (he served on a budget committee and thus had access to important economic data). However, they are also timeless works of applied economic theory that still stand today as insightful, informative, and even exemplary forms of their kind.

[4. ]See the entry for the “Anti–Corn Law League” in the Glossary of Subjects and Terms.

[5. ]A future volume will contain Bastiat’s writings on the free-trade movements in Britain and France.