Bastiat for Young and Old

The exchange between Boudreaux and Hart on whether Bastiat is "wasted on the young" is interesting. It is possible to argue that Bastiat is the ideal "gateway economist," leading to later addictions to other scholars who make more complex and more general arguments. I have tended to that view myself.

But Hart raises the objection that" Bastiat is largely wasted on the young and that one needs quite a few more years under the belt before he can be fully appreciated in all his richness and complexity."

It will surprise exactly no one who knows me to learn that I-having the ego though not the wisdom of Solomon-would step into this fray and say: "Cut the baby in half! I choose both."

Ideas or memes such as "The Broken Window" or "The Candlemakers' Petition" are extremely useful pedagogical tools. They can be understood, remembered, and used by people otherwise innocent of any organized study of economics. High school students, in fact, find Bastiat interesting and worth discussing. So Boudreaux is correct.

But Hart, as is his wont, is slippery. He doesn't exactly disagree with Boudreaux that Bastiat is useful when taught to the young. Notice that he claims that "one needs quite a few more years under the belt before [Bastiat] can be fully appreciated in all his richness and complexity." Surely that is also right. For myself, I know I still learn something most times I read Bastiat, and I have read it many times.

This duality, where a composition can be usefully considered once but then continue to reward study decades later, is a quality seen only in great works. I feel just the same way about Beethoven.

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Part of: Robert Leroux, "Bastiat and Political Economy" (July 2013)