Frédéric Bastiat

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Frédéric Bastiat bigraphy, stories - French economics and political philosopher

Frédéric Bastiat : biography

30 June 1801 – 24 December 1850

Claude Frédéric Bastiat ( 30 June 1801Thornton, Mark (11 April 2011) , Mises Institute – 24 December 1850) was a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly. He was notable for developing the important economic concept of opportunity cost, and for penning the influential Parable of the Broken Window. His ideas have gone on to provide a foundational basis for Libertarian and the Austrian schools of thought.

Views

Bastiat asserted that the sole purpose of government is to protect the right of an individual to life, liberty, and property, and why it is dangerous and morally wrong for government to interfere with an individual’s other personal matters. From this, Bastiat concluded that the law cannot defend life, liberty, and property if it promotes "legal [or legalized] plunder," which he defined as using government force and laws to take something from one individual and give it to others (as opposed to a transfer of property via mutually-agreed contracts, without using fraud nor violent threats against the other party, which Bastiat considered a legitimate transfer of property).

In The Law, Bastiat explains that, if the privileged classes or socialists use the government for "legalized plunder," this will encourage the other socio-economic class to also use "legal plunder," and that the correct response to both the socialists and the corporatists is to cease all "legal plunder." Bastiat also explains in The Law why his position is that the law cannot defend life, liberty, and property if it promotes socialist policies. When used to obtain "legalized plunder" for any group, he says, the law is perverted and turned against the only things (life, liberty, and property) it is supposed to defend.Bastiat, Frédéric. The Law. Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007.

Bastiat was also a strong supporter of free trade. He "was inspired by and routinely corresponded with Richard Cobden and the English Anti-Corn Law League and worked with free-trade associations in France."

Because of his stress on the role of consumer demand in initiating economic progress (a form of demand-side economics), Bastiat has been described by Mark Thornton, Thomas DiLorenzo, and other economists as a forerunner of the Austrian School. In his Economic Harmonies, Bastiat states that,

Thornton posits that Bastiat, through taking this position on the motivations of human action, demonstrates a pronounced "Austrian flavor."Thornton, Mark. "." Mises.org.

One of Bastiat’s most important contributions to the field of economics was his admonition to the effect that good economic decisions can be made only by taking into account the "full picture." That is, economic truths should be arrived at by observing not only the immediate consequencesthat is, benefits or liabilitiesof an economic decision, but also by examining the long-term second and third consequences. Additionally, one must examine the decision’s effect not only on a single group of people (say candlemakers) or a single industry (say candlemaking), but on all people and all industries in the society as a whole. As Bastiat famously put it, an economist must take into account both "What is Seen and What is Not Seen." Bastiat’s "rule" was later expounded and developed by Henry Hazlitt in his work Economics in One Lesson, in which Hazlitt borrowed Bastiat’s trenchant "Broken Window Fallacy" and went on to demonstrate how it applies to a wide variety of economic falsehoods.

Negative railroad

A famous section of Economic Sophisms concerns the way that tariffs are inherently counterproductive. Bastiat posits a theoretical railway between Spain and France that is built in order to reduce the costs of trade between the two countries. This is achieved, of course, by making goods move to and from the two nations faster and more easily. Bastiat demonstrates that this situation benefits both countries’ consumers because it reduces the cost of shipping goods, and therefore reduces the price at market for those goods.