Frédéric Bastiat B. 1801 – D. 1850

Frédéric Bastiat B. 1801 – D. 1850

Claude-Frédéric Bastiat was a French economist, and a prominent member of the French Liberal School. A member of the French National Assembly. As a Deputy to the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Bastiat and explained and refuted each socialist fallacy as it appeared. He explained how socialism would inescapably degenerate into communism. Unfortunately, the majority of his fellow citizens ignored his logic. An almost identical situation exists in America today as in the France of 1848. The equivalent socialist-communist ideas and plans that were embraced in France are now running rampant in America through its educational systems and degenerate politicians. His seminal work “The Law” can be found online.

Frédéric Bastiat Quotes:

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.” – Frederic Bastiat

“The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” – Frederic Bastiat

“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?” – Frederic Bastiat

“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” – Frederic Bastiat

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” – Frédéric Bastiat

“But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.” – Frederic Bastiat

“When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.” – Frederic Bastiat

“Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.” – Frederic Bastiat

“The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.” – Frédéric Bastiat

“It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property. The existence of persons and property preceded the existence of the legislator, and his function is only to guarantee their safety.” – Frederic Bastiat

“The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.” – Frédéric Bastiat

“When plunder is abetted by the law, it does not fear your courts, your gendarmes, and your prisons. Rather, it may call upon them for help.” – Frederick Bastiat,

“Indeed, a more astounding fact, in the heart of society, cannot be conceived than this: That law should have become an instrument of injustice.” – Frédéric Bastiat

The Law by Bastiat The Law, by Frederic Bastiat