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Annotated Bibliography of Frédéric Bastiat
Bastiat's Life Frédéric Bastiat ZOOM Picture of Frédéric Bastiat courtesy of The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University. Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) merits a hallowed place in the annals of political economy. A member of the French Liberal, or laissez-faire, school of economists that included the great J. B. Say, Bastiat marshaled logic, clarity, and exuberant wit in the cause of understanding society, prosperity, and liberty. In a series of brief essays and pamphlets, and a treatise on political economy, Bastiat taught, contra Rousseau, that there is a natural harmonious order to the social world, an order that emanates from the free exchange between human beings driven to satisfy unlimited wants with limited resources. The result is a steady progress in the material well-being of all. Interference with that freedom, and with its corollaries, property and competition, he wrote, leaves people poorer as well as oppressed. Th...