Online Library of Liberty
A collection of scholarly works about individual liberty and free markets. A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.
Frédéric Bastiat
1801 - 1850
Nationality:
French
Historical Period:
The 19th Century
Groups
- 19th Century French Liberalism
- 19th Century Natural Rights Theorists
- The Classical School of Political Economy
Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) was one of the leading advocates of free markets and free trade in the mid-19 century. He was inspired by the activities of Richard Cobden and the organization of the Anti-Corn Law League in Britain in the 1840s and tried to mimic their success in France. Bastiat was an elected member of various French political bodies and opposed both protection and the rise of socialist ideas in these forums. His writings for a broader audience were very popular and were quickly translated and republished in the U.S. and throughout Europe. His incomplete magnum opus, Economic Harmonies, is full of insights into the operation of the market and is still of great interest to economists. He died at a young age from cancer of the throat. [The image comes from “The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.”]
See the Liberty Matters online discussion of Bastiat and Political Economy.
For additional information about Frédéric Bastiat see the following:
- in the Forum: Essays on Bastiat
- at our sister website Econlib: the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics entry on Bastiat
For tables of contents of Bastiat’s Works:
- table of contents of the Guillaumin edition of the Works (in French)
- table of contents of LF’s translation (in English)
- table of contents of LF’s translation (in French)
- chronological list of Bastiat’s works
See the Timeline of the Life and Work of Frédéric Bastiat:
- Expanded and enlarged Timeline Part 1 (1801-1844) 123 KB PDF
- Expanded and enlarged Timeline Part 2 (1844-1850) 82 KB PDF
- JPG (1200 px, 410 KB)
- PDF (45 KB)
Titles:
- Author: The Best of Bastiat
- Author: The Best of Bastiat 1.1: A Life in Letters
- Author: The Best of Bastiat 1.2: Bastiat the Revolutionary Part 1
- Author: The Best of Bastiat1.3: Bastiat the Revolutionary Part 2
- Author: The Best of Bastiat 2.1: The State
- Author: The Best of Bastiat 2.2: Property Plunder
- Author: The Best of Bastiat 2.3: The Law
- Author: The Best of Bastiat 3.1: Petition of the Manufacturers of Candles
- Author: The Best of Bastiat 3.2: The Broken Window
- Author: The Best of Bastiat 3.3: The Utopian
- Author: Armonias Economicas
- Author: The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, in 6 Vols.
- Author: The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat. Vol. 1: The Man and the Statesman: The Correspondence and Articles on Politics
- Author: The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat. Vol. 2: The Law, The State, and Other Political Writings, 1843-1850
- Author: Economic Harmonies (FEE ed.)
- Author: Economic Sophisms (FEE ed.)
- Author: The Law (FEE ed.)
- Author: Lettres d’un habitant des Landes
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 1st ed. 6 vols.
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 1st ed. vol 1 Correspondance. Mélanges
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 1st ed. vol. 2 Le libre-échange
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 1st ed. vol. 3 Cobden et la ligue
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 1st ed. vol. 4 Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets I
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 1st ed. vol. 5 Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets II
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 1st ed. vol. 6 Harmonies économiques
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 2nd ed. 7 vols.
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 2nd ed. vol. 1 Correspondance et mélanges
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 2nd ed. vol. 2 le Libre-Échange
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 2nd ed. vol. 3 Cobden et La Ligue
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 2nd ed. vol. 4 Sophismes Économiques. Petits pamphlets I
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 2nd ed. vol. 5: Sophismes économiques. Petits pamphlets II
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 2nd ed. vol. 6: Harmonies économiques
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 2nd ed. vol. 7 Essais, Ébauches, Correspondance
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 3rd ed. 7 vols
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 3rd ed. vol. 4 Sophismes économiques et Petits pamphlets I
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 3rd ed. vol. 5 Sophismes économiques et Petits pamphlets II
- Author: Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, 3rd ed. vol. 6 Harmonies économiques
- Author: Selected Essays on Political Economy (FEE ed.)
- Author: The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat. Vol. 3: Economic Sophisms and “What is Seen and What is Not Seen”
- Author: The Law (revised LF ed.)
- Author: The State (revised LF ed.)
Quotations:
- Frédéric Bastiat, while pondering the nature of war, concluded that society had always been divided into two classes - those who engaged in productive work and those who lived off their backs (1850)
- Frédéric Bastiat and the state as "la grande fiction à travers laquelle Tout Le Monde s'efforce de vivre aux dépens de Tout Le Monde (1848)
- Frédéric Bastiat on the state as the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else (1848)
- Bastiat asks the fundamental question of political economy: what should be the size of the state? (1850)
- Bastiat on the spirit of free trade as a reform of the mind itself (1847)
- Bastiat on the most universally useful freedom, namely to work and to trade (1847)
- Bastiat on the many freedoms that make up liberty (1848)
- Bastiat on the need for urgent political and economic reform (1848)
- Bastiat on the fact that even in revolution there is an indestructible principle of order in the human heart (1848)
- Bastiat on the scramble for political office (1848)
- Bastiat on the state vs. laissez-faire (1848)
- Bastiat, the 1830 Revolution, and the Spilling of Wine not Blood (1830)
- Bastiat on trade as a the mutual exchange of "a service for another service" (1848)
- Bastiat's has a utopian dream of drastically reducing the size of the French state (1847)
- Frédéric Bastiat asks what came first, property or law? (1850)
- Bastiat's Malthusian theory of the growth of the state (1847)
- Bastiat on disbanding the standing army and replacing it with local militias (1847)
- Frédéric Bastiat's theory of plunder (1850)
- Frédéric Bastiat argues that socialism hides its true plunderous nature under a facade of nice sounding words like “fraternity” and “equality” (1850)
- Bastiat criticizes the socialists of wanting to be the “Great Mechanic” who would run the “social machine” in which ordinary people were merely so many lifeless cogs and wheels (1848)