BASTIAT, Frederic, a distin guished French political economist: b. Bayonne, 19 June 1801; d. Rome, 24 Dec. 1850. He entered in 1818 the counting-house of his uncle at Bayonne, but he felt no enjoyment in the routine of mercantile life, and in 1825 retired to a property at Mugron, of which he became possessor on the death of his grandfather. Thus withdrawn from society he devoted himself with eagerness to meditation and study, master ing the English and Italian languages and litera tures, speculating on the problems of philosophy and religion, and digesting the doctrines of Adam Smith and Say, of Charles Compte and Dunoyer. His first publication appeared in 1844 under the title 'De !Influence des tarifa francais et anglais sur l'avenir des deux peo ples.' In 1845 he came to Paris in order to su perintend the publication of his 'Cobden et la ligue, ou l'agitation anglaise pour la liberte des echanges,) and was very cordially received by the economists of the capital; from Paris he went to London and Manchester, and made the personal acquaintance of Cobden, Bright and other leaders of the league. When he returned to France he found that his writings had been exerting a powerful influence; and in 1846 he assisted in organizing at Bordeaux the first French Free Trade Assodation. He wrote in rapid succession a series of brilliant and effec tive pamphlets and essays, showing how social ism was connected with protection, and exposing the delusions on which it rested. While thus occupied he was meditating the composition of a great constructive work, meant to renovate economical science by basing it on the principle that °interests left to themselves tend to har monious combinations, and to the progressive preponderance of the general good?) The first volume of this work, 'Les Harmonies econo miques,' was published in the beginning of 1850. He was a member successively of the Constituent and Legislative assemblies. He also published (Propriete et Loi' ; 'Justice et Fraternite' ; (Protectionisme et Communisme' ; and many other treatises. The life work of Bastiat, in order to be fairly appreciated, re quires to be considered in three aspects. (1) He was the advocate of free trade, the opponent of protection. The general theory of free trade had, of course, been clearly stated and solidly established before he was born, and his desire to see its principles acted on in France was quickened and confirmed by the agitation of the Anti-Corn-Law League for their realization in England, but as no one denies it to have been a great merit in Cobden to have seen so dis tinctly and comprehensively the bearing of economical truths which he did not discover, no one should deny it to have been also a great merit in Bastiat. He did far more than merely restate the already familiar truths of free trade. He showed as no one before him had done how they were applicable in the vari ous spheres of French agriculture, trade and commerce. Now the abstract theory of free trade is of comparatively little value; its elab oration so as .to cover details, its concrete ap plication and its varied illustration are equally essential. And in these respects it owes more, perhaps, to Bastiat than to any other economist. In the (Sophismes Econotniques) we have the completest and most effective, the wisest and the wittiest exposure of protectionism in its principles, reasonings and consequences which exists in any language. (2) He was the op ponent of socialism. In this respect also he had no equal among the economists of France. He alone fought socialism hand to hand, body to body, .as it were, not caricaturing it, not de nouncing it, not criticizing under its name some merely abstract theory, but taking it as actually presented by its most popular repre sentatives, considering patiently their proposals and argurnents, and proving conclusively that they proceed on false principles, reasoned badly and sought to realize generous aims by foolish and harmful means. Nowhere will rea
son find a richer armory of weapons available against socialism than in the pamphlets pub lished by Bastiat between 1848 and 1850. These pamphlets will live, it is to be hoped, at least as long as the errors which they expose. (3) He attempted to expound in an original and independent manner political economy as a science. In combating first the protectionists and afterward the socialists, there gradually rose on his mind a conception whic.h seemed to him to shed a flood of light over the whole of economical doctrine, and, indeed, over the whole theory of society, namely, the harmony of the essential tendencies of human nature. The radi cal error, he became always more convinced both of protectionism and socialism, was the assumption that human interests, if left to them selves, would inevitably prove antagonistic and anti-social, capital robbing labor, manufactures ruining agriculture, the foreigner injuring the native, the consumer the producer, etc.; and the chief weakness of the various schools of po litical economy, he believed he had discovered in their imperfect apprehension of the truth that human interests, when left to themselves, when not arbitrarily and forcibly interfered with, tend to harmonious combination, to the general good. Such was the point of view from which tias tiat sought to expound the whole of economical science. The sphere of that science he limited to exchange, and he drew a sharp distinction between utility and value. Political economy he defined as the theory of value, and value as "the relation of two services exchanged.' The latter definition he deemed of supreme im portance. It appeared to him to correct .what was defective or erroneous in the conflicting definitions of value given by Adam Smith, Say, Ricardo, Senior, Storch, etc., to preserve and combine what was true in them, and to afford a basis for a more consistent and developed economical theory than had previously been presented. It has, however, found little accept ance, and Roscher, Cairnes and others seem to have shown it to be ambiguous and misleading. A consequence of it on which he laid great stress was that the gratuitous gifts of nature.
whatever be their utility, are incapable of ac quiring value — what is gratuitous for man in an isolated state •remaining gratuitous in a social condition. Thus, land, according to Bas tiat, is as gratuitous to men at the present day as to their first parents, the rent ,which is paid for it—its so-called value,— being merely the return for the labor and capital which have been expended on its improvement. ln the general opinion of economists he has failed to estab lish this doctrine, failed to show that the pro perties and force of nature cannot be so appro priated as to acquire value. His theory of rent is nearly the same as Carey's, that is, decidedly anti-Ricardian. His views on the growth of capital and interest, on landed property, com petition, consumption, wages and population, are independent, and,.if not unqualifiedly true, at least richly suggestive. His works were pub lished in seven volumes (Paris 1881). Consult Bondurand, (Frederic Bastiat' (ib. 1879) • and Von Leesen, (Frederic Bastiat' (Munich 1904).
See ECONOMICS.