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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

The Concepts of “Industry” and “Plunder” (Spoliation)

Bastiat got many of his ideas from reading a number of classical liberal theorists who were active during Napoléon’s empire and the restoration, most notably the economist Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) and the lawyers and journalists Charles Comte (1782–1837) and Charles Dunoyer (1786–1862). The latter developed an “industrialist theory” of history in which the class of industriels played an important role.21 According to this school of thought there were only two means of acquiring wealth: by productive activity and voluntary exchanges in the free market (l’industrie, which included agriculture, trade, factory production, and services, etc.) or by coercive means (or “plunder,” such as conquest, theft, taxation, subsidies, protection, transfer payments, and slavery).

Anybody who acquired wealth through voluntary exchange and productive activities belonged to a class of people collectively called les industrieux. In contrast to les industrieux were those individuals or groups who acquired their wealth by force, coercion, conquest, slavery, or government privileges. The latter group was seen as a ruling class, or as “parasites” and plunderers, who lived at the expense of les industrieux.22 A parallel group of thinkers who shared many of these views developed around Henri Saint-Simon, who advocated rule by a technocratic elite rather than the operations of the free market as did Say, Comte, Dunoyer, and Bastiat.

In contrast to Bastiat’s use of the term industry is his use of the word la spoliation (or plunder), which was a key idea in his pamphlet “Propriété et spoliation,” which we have translated as “Property and Plunder.”23

It was the latter principle that had come to prominence during the revolution of 1848, exemplified in the National Workshops and the “right to work” movement, the opposition to which occupied a considerable amount of Bastiat’s time as a deputy.

[21. ]See Hart, Class, Slavery, and the Industrialist Theory of History in French Liberal Thought, 1814–1830.

[22. ]See Dunoyer, L’Industrie et la morale considérées dans leurs rapports avec la liberté. See also the entries for “Say, Jean-Baptiste”; “Comte, Charles”; and “Dunoyer, Barthélémy-Pierre-Joseph-Charles,” in the Glossary of Persons.

[23. ]See “Property and Plunder,” pp. 147–84 in this volume.