bastiat

Frederic Bastiat could have easily been a fellow traveler of the signers of our Declaration of Independence.

Translator's note: At the time this was written, Mr. Bastiat knew that he was dying of tuberculosis. Within a year, he was dead.

If Bastiat were alive today, he would be disappointed with our failure to keep the law within its proper domain.

Orphaned at the age of nine, Bastiat tried his hand at commerce, farming, and insurance sales.

He relied on some stories by Bastiat and his own impeccable capacity for logical thinking and crystal-clear prose.

Many philosophers have made important contributions to the discourse on liberty, Bastiat among them.

Government, Bastiat explained, produces nothing independent from the resources and labor it diverts from private uses.

Bastiat reminds us that there are many types of protectionism. They all have international implications.

As Bastiat taught, the good economist must look at the unseen consequences of a government (or central-bank) policy.

This, Bastiat argues, is the origin and basis of protectionism, regulation, and redistributive taxation.

It is, says Bastiat, "the collective organization of the individual right of lawful defense. "

Bastiat was a legal philosopher of the first rank.

Bastiat saw its origin in two sources.

After reading the book I was convinced that a liberal-arts education without an encounter with Bastiat is incomplete.

Textbook: Bastiat's The Law. This is a series of readings on thetheory of limited civil government.

Bastiat was an optimist who thought that eloquent arguments in defense of liberty might save the day;

Writing as France was being seduced by the false promises of socialism, Bastiat was concerned with law in the classical sense;