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the ongoing processes of human improvement. Where relation-
ships are based on consent and mutual agreement there can be
no plunder, only reinforcing prosperity, as each works to trade
with his neighbors and acquire all the things that make life bet-
ter for each and all.
If one looks at the period during which Bastiat devoted his
efforts to fight for freedom and free trade, the conclusion would
appear to be that his life ended in failure. Both during his life-
time and following his death France remained in the grip of the
protectionist and interventionist spirit, never achieving the
degree of economic liberty enjoyed in Great Britain through the
second half of the nineteenth century. 
And yet Bastiat’s life should be seen as a glorious success.
For the 150 years since his passing, each new generation of
advocates of economic liberty has been inspired by his writings.
His fables and essays read as fresh as if they were written yes-
terday, because they address the underlying nature of human
association and the dangers from political encroachment on the
social and market orders. 
1. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of
Nations, Book Four, chapter two (New York: Modern Library, 1937 [1776]),
pp. 437–38. 
2. Sir Alexander Gray, The Development of Economic Doctrine: An
Introductory Survey (London: Longmans, Green, 1931), pp. 244–45. 
3. Lewis H. Haney, History of Economic Thought (New York:
Macmillan, 1936), pp. 331–32. 
4. Eduard Heimann, History of Economic Doctrines: An Introduction to
Economic Theory (London: Oxford University Press, 1945), p. 124. 
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5. Charles Gide and Charles Rist, A History of Economic Doctrines,
From the Time of the Physiocrats to the Present Day (Boston: D.C. Heath,
1915), pp. 329–30. 
6. William A. Scott, The Development of Economics (New York: The
Century Co., 1933), p. 244. 
7. Joseph A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 500. 
8. Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism: The Classical Tradition (Irvington-on-
Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996 [1927]), p. 197. 
9. Yves Guyot, Economic Prejudices (London: Swan Sonnenschein,
1910), p. v. 
10. Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1946). 
11. The following brief summary of Bastiat’s life and professional activi-
ties is drawn primarily from Dean Russell, Frédéric Bastiat: Ideas and
Influence (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education,
1965); also Dean Russell, Frédéric Bastiat and the Free Trade Movement in
France and England, 1840–1850 (Geneva: Imprimarie Albert Kundig, 1959);
and George C. Roche, Frederic Bastiat: A Man Alone (Hillsdale, Mich.:
Hillsdale College Press, 1977).
12. Jean-Baptiste Say, A Treatise on Political Economy, or the
Production, Distribution and Consumption of Wealth [1921] (N.Y.: Augustus
M. Kelley, 1971); Say, Letters to Mr. Malthus on Several Subjects of Political
Economy [1821] (N.Y.: Augustus M. Kelley, 1967); and R. R. Palmer, ed., J.-B.
Say: An Economist in Troubled Times (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1997).
13. For a brief account of the free-trade movement in Great Britain and
its triumph in the middle of the nineteenth century, see Richard M. Ebeling,
Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom (Northampton,
Mass.: Edward Elgar, 2005), ch. 10: “The Global Economy and Classical
Liberalism: Past, Present and Future,” pp. 247–281, and especially pp.
248–252.
14. Economic Sophisms, trans. and ed. Arthur Goddard, with introduc-
tion by Henry Hazlitt (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic
Education, 1996 [1845]). 
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15.  Selected Essays on Political Economy, trans. Seymour Cain, ed.
George B. de Huszar, with introduction by F. A. Hayek (Irvington-on-Hudson,
N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1995 [1964]). 
16. Economic Harmonies, trans. W. Hayden Boyers, ed. George B. de
Huszar, with introduction by Dean Russell (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.:
Foundation for Economic Education, 1996 [1850]). 
176. In Selected Essays, pp. 1–50. 
18. Economic Sophisms, pp. 7–27.
19. “The Law,” in Selected Essays, pp. 51–96; and, “The Physiology of
Plunder,” in Economic Sophisms, pp. 129–46.
20. See, for example, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest,
vol. 1: History and Critique of Interest Theories (South Holland, Ill.:
Libertarian Press, 1959), pp. 191–94.
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The Law 
The law perverted! And the police powers of the state per-
verted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its
proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose!
The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of
checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to
punish!
If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me
to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.
Life Is a Gift from God
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This
gift is life—physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has
entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing,
and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has
provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has
put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the appli-
cation of our faculties to these natural resources we convert
them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in
order that life may run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production—in other words, individuality,
liberty, property—this is man. And in spite of the cunning of art-
ful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all
human legislation, and are superior to it.
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