Frederic Bastiat: libertarian challenger or political bargainer?

• Author: Baugus, Brian
• Position: PREDECESSORS - Essay

Social thinkers and scholars tend to moderate their beliefs, especially their most radical beliefs, as they age. Many who begin their careers as radical libertarians, challenging the status quo and extensive state power, tire over time or realize that holding such views obstructs their careers. Hence, they moderate their views or compromise their most radical ideas, at least publicly, and express greater support for incrementalism and working within the established system. Examples of this tendency include such major figures as Edmund Burke and Herbert Spencer. Of course, any thinker may change his positions over time or make greater distinctions in applying his basic beliefs to different issues. This tendency is especially pronounced, however, if a thinker seeks wide public approval. Political aspirants in particular frequently compromise or bargain away their more radical positions. Only a few major thinkers, such as Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises, and Murray Rothbard, have maintained radical libertarian positions consistently throughout their lives--and Bohm-Bawerk did so despite holding a high position in the government on several occasions. Perhaps the rarest case of all is that of the thinker who seeks political office and public approval yet expresses increasingly radical libertarian views.

Claude Frederic Bastiat was such a thinker. He is best known for the radical libertarian positions he expressed in his most famous writings, most of which were penned during the final two years of his life. Especially noteworthy are his uncompromising stands on free trade, limited government, and the classical-liberal philosophy in general. Arguments set forth in his famous tract The Law demonstrate that Bastiat stood well apart from most members of the French political class in the mid-nineteenth century.

Bastiat's clear, concise, engagingly framed statements of libertarian philosophy in The Law, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen, and other works are still widely disseminated by libertarian organizations. Because he was a prolific writer, however, researchers may examine his entire body of work to investigate his intellectual development. In this article, I consider not only the famous works he produced at the end of his career, but also his political letters and works as a legislator to show how his thinking about political economy developed.

Bastiat's Life

Bastiat was born in 1801 and died on Christmas Eve in 1850. (1) From his vantage point as a member of a merchant family, he observed at first hand the damage tariffs did to trade, producing empty warehouses and a lower standard of living. He advocated free trade throughout his life. Unfortunately, he never saw a single day of free trade in France because import prohibitions and high tariffs preceded his birth, and French trade was not liberalized until ten years after his death. As Frank William Taussig observed in 1911,

[T]he great [Napoleonic] wars led to the complete prohibition of the importation of manufactures, reaching its climax in Napoleon's Continental system. The system of prohibition thus instituted, while aimed at Great Britain, was made general in its terms. Hence the importation into France of virtually all manufactured articles from foreign countries was completely interdicted; and such was the legislation in force when peace came in 1815. This system doubtless was not expected to last after the wars had ceased, but, as it happened, it did last until 1860. Successive governments in France made endeavours to break with the prohibitive system, but naturally met with strong opposition from the manufacturing interests, not prepared to meet the competition of Great Britain, whose industries had made, and were continually making, rapid strides. The political position of the governments of the Restoration and of Louis Philippe was such that they were unwilling to forfeit support by pushing measures in which, after all, they were not themselves deeply interested. ([1911] 2002) By 1840, Bastiat was well versed in classical economics, primarily the works of Adam Smith and Jean Baptiste Say, and he was a dedicated free trader, but he did not become an outspoken advocate until he discovered the Anti-Corn Law League in England and Richard Cobden in particular. Cobden's success in organizing in support of free trade with speeches, debates, and articles inspired Bastiat to act. The two men began a lifelong correspondence. Bastiat published his first article on free trade in a leading journal in 1844, initiating a prodigious outpouring during the remaining six years of his life.

Well read and prepared owing to his life as a gentleman farmer and amateur scholar and debater, Bastiat plunged full tilt into the public intellectual battle. He published a series of articles in 1844 and early 1845 that were collected in his Economic Sophisms (many of the same articles also appear in his Economic Fallacies); he wrote a book about Cobden; (2) and he traveled to Paris and to London (to meet Cobden). In 1846, he advocated successfully on behalf of the Bordeaux Association of Free Trade. The association's success inspired Bastiat and comrades to launch the Free Trade Association, France's version of the Anti-Corn Law League.

Between 1789 and 1848, France had three monarchies, two republics, and one tyrant. This governmental turmoil inspired a variety of political movements to seek support and power. Communists, socialists, monarchists, republicans, supporters of Napoleon, anarchists, and various other groups were all out in force in France in the 1840s. Bastiat's waxing popularity and strong, clear stands inspired some in his home electoral district to encourage him to stand for election as a deputy to the National Assembly. He did so, but lost decisively to the monarch's preferred candidate.

Aside from his failure in electoral politics, Bastiat's other efforts were going well. By the end of 1846, the Free Trade Association's meetings had standing room only, and he was editing the association's national publication Le libre-echange. As political unrest grew in France, however, support for the Free Trade Association and its cause waned; initial fervor for the association did not translate into national support. Yet Bastiat himself remained popular.

After Louis Phillipe's abdication in February 1848, Alphonse de Lamartine, who had been publicly sympathetic to several of Bastiat's positions, assumed power as head of the Second Republic. Lamartine offered Bastiat a government position, which he declined. Bastiat believed, however, that he needed to be more than a journalist and critic, so he decided to stand for election again. This time, in the spring of 1848, he won office as a deputy in the National Assembly. The Assembly's primary task was to produce a new constitution under which new elections would be held. Bastiat assumed office soon after the election in 1848, one of the most turbulent years in French history, with popular unrest coming to a head in late June as a second revolution, which resulted in the entire Assembly's being held hostage at one point and in three days of bloody street fighting in Paris. Despite these experiences, Bastiat stood for election again under the new but fatally flawed constitution, and he was reelected in December 1849. This same election brought Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later known as Napoleon III, to power as head of state. Despite Napoleon's great popularity, Bastiat spoke against him during the campaign and voted for fellow Assembly member General Louis-Eugene Cavaignac, who had been granted dictatorial powers during the June uprising and then renounced those powers once calm was restored.

During this time, Bastiat's health continued to fail. Even before his first election, he had been sick with tuberculosis, the disease that had killed his father, and he took rest breaks in warmer climates whenever possible. By 1850, the disease had advanced, and his time in the Assembly was minimal. Always a limited orator, he almost ceased speaking publically after the onset of his disease, but his pen was not stilled. In his last twelve months of life, he produced the pamphlet The Law, which became his most famous and enduring work, as well as the first volume and a rough draft of the second volume of Economic Harmonies, his long-planned economic treatise. On doctor's orders, he traveled to Italy during the winter of 1850, and while visiting Rome for the Christmas holidays, he...