Bastiat the Great
We could use more Bastiats today, writes Henry Hazlitt. We have, in fact, desperate need of them. But we have, thank Heaven, Bastiat himself, in a new translation; and the reader of these pages will not only still find them, as Cobden did, "as amusing as a novel," but astonishingly modern, for the sophisms he answers are still making their appearance, in the same form and almost in the same words, in nearly every issue of today's newspapers. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (8)
Angelo
I'm so glad to see Bastiat praised today. I had never heard of him before I was given a copy of Selected Essays on Political Economy by the Cato Institute last year, and I am extremely grateful for it. Even though I had already been pretty well educated on Austrian and classical economics, I got a whole new vocabulary and enthusiasm for justice and economics from that book, and I've just ordered the Bastiat Collection.
That book was one of the few books-Rothbard is the other author who does this to me-where there is so much energy in the words that I feel like the words and author come alive when I read them. That is one of the things that made so many quotes so burned into my memory after reading the book only once.
And the point worth stressing from Hazlitt's article is that truly, we are in desperate need of Bastiats.
Published: January 29, 2006 4:55 PM
Chris Meisenzahl
Amen to that! I just discovered both Bastiat and Hazlitt in the last two years. I've read Economics in One Lesson & The Law, great stuff!
Published: January 29, 2006 6:37 PM
gene berman
All so very true, Henry. And you weren't that bad yerself. RIP.
Published: January 30, 2006 7:04 AM
Yves Grassioulet
Bastiat, Malthus & Co. The Greats?!?! What a poor and depressing vision of mankind! Get back to the 'Lumieres', get your eyes burned with truth & optimism...
Published: January 30, 2006 9:25 AM
Juan
Yves,
Bastiat is an optimist. From your comment I gather you have not read him.
>Get back to the 'Lumieres', get your eyes burned >with truth
You mean brother marx ?
Published: January 30, 2006 7:21 PM
Yves Grassioulet
Juan: Marx? No, though he certainly was one of the "Lumieres" 19th century sons. What I meant: (1) Get out of your liberal all-economicus cave (in reference to Plato's allegory of the cave); (2) Instead of praying Bastiat, read other 'optimistic' (as you say!) thinkers from the Enlightenment period (18th century). Also have a look on Giordano Bruno and Pierre Gassendi's legacy. And then come back to Proudhon 19th century approach of economics. Then again read Malthus, Smith & Co.
Did they all share a common vision of humanity? What are the main differences? What are the facts and scientific studies that sustain the feasibility of each approach? And how such comparison could help us to build harmony at last?
Published: February 1, 2006 1:07 PM
Francisco Torres
"Property, acting by exclusion and encroachment, while population was increasing, has been the life-principle and definitive cause of all revolutions... The downfall and death of societies are due to the power of accumulation possessed by property." Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
Which explains why people in such high-density places like Hong Kong are at each other throats and... Hmmm, oh, right, it does NOT happen.
Published: February 1, 2006 2:35 PM
Tex
FYI, another good book on Bastiat is "Bastiat, A Man Alone" by George Roche. I read this in the mid-60s and have been a Bastiat fan ever since.
Published: February 1, 2006 6:13 PM