Subject:
ip: Claude Frederic Bastiat
Date:
Sat, 14 Jul 2001 22:15:00 -0400
From:
"R. A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
Digital Bearer Settlement List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
--- begin forwarded text
Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2001 14:41:03 -0500
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (by way of Jan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)
Subject: ip: Claude Frederic Bastiat
Happy Birthday, Bastiat!
By J. Bradley Jansen
http://www.aim.org/
On June 29th, as we celebrated Claude Frederic Bastiat's 200th birthday,
we
were also celebrating economic common sense. Perhaps more than any other
economic commentator, Frederic Bastiat was able to reduce economic
sophisms
to their basic principles and follow them to their logical conclusions.
This
approach was very effective in educating people of the ill-effects of
various
proposals.
We need more Bastiats today. Born at Bayonne, France, Bastiat was
orphaned at
age nine and raised by his grandfather and his aunt.
He studied languages, literature and music, and lived through a
revolutionary
time. He was 14 when Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and then exiled.
At
17, Bastiat began to work for his uncle then, at age 19, Bastiat also
continued his studies by turning his interests to political economy with
the
writings of Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say. Bastiat survived the
Revolution
of 1830 and became involved in local politics the following year.
Bastiat
rose to prominence in 1844 with the publication of an article on tariffs
and
trade. Although he died just six years later, Bastiat became a vocal and
eloquent critic of protectionism.
One of his most famous works was his petition of the candle makers and
others
to the members of the Chamber of Deputies (<
http://www.dallasfed.org/htm/pubs/ei/ei3_1.html>).
In that fictional petition, the makers of candles and related industries
were
lobbying the legislature for trade protection from an unfair foreign
competitor who was hurting their business, costing French jobs.
The petition read in part, "We are suffering from the ruinous
competition of
a foreign rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to
our
own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market
with
it at an incredibly low price: for the moment that he appears, our sales
cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry
whose
ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete
stagnation."
That foreign rival wreaking havoc on the domestic market was none other
than
the sun. The petitioners were asking for a law requiring the closing of
all
shutters, skylights and other openings permitting the light of the
unfair
foreign competition.
As Bastiat explained, "The sort of dependence that results from
exchange,
i.e., from commercial transactions, is a reciprocal dependence. We
cannot be
dependent upon a foreigner without his being dependent on us. Now, this
is
what constitutes the very essence of society. To sever natural
interrelations
is not to make oneself independent, but to isolate oneself completely."
His
insight into the benefits of free trade still offers us a valuable
lesson.
Another important essay of his was the essay, "What is Seen and What is
Not
Seen" which explained that consumers and citizens should not be duped
into
only looking at the ostensible benefits of government action and should
consider the hidden costs as well.
In his "The Broken Window" essay, he exposes the fallacy that forced
redistribution has a net benefit effect for society as a whole. In fact
some
gain at others' expense, but the net effect is often negative for
everyone.
Bastiat gave us a wealth of insightful quotations also (some are
available at
<<http://www.bomis.com/rings/bastiat/2>http://www.bomis.com/rings/bastiat/2).
One of my favorites reads, "The state
is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of
everybody else." Another favorite is "Plunder, which plays such an
important
role in the affairs of the world, has but two instruments: force and
fraud,
and two impediments: courage and knowledge." It is a call to arms that
we
should not cower from pointing out the fallacies in economic debates.
Unfortunately, one place where his economic insights did not last seems
to be
Paris. There, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
and
the Financial Action Task Force are in the process of making a mockery
of the
Rule of Law. Their bureaucrats are not directly accountable to people of
the
countries they claim to represent, but they claim to represent
themselves as
policy-making bodies. Even worse, the OECD and FATF bureaucrats are not
only
trying to make policies for their own member countries. They are also
trying
to dictate the policies for countries that are not members of the OECD
or
FATF and have no say in determining the rules of the game. Both the
approach
and policies of the OECD and FATF regarding tax competition, financial
privacy and sovereignty turn the ideal of the Rule of Law on its head.
In one of his most famous essays, "The Law," Bastiat argues that
government
coercion is only legitimate if it serves "to guarantee security of
person,
liberty, and property rights, to cause justice to reign over all." We
would
all be well served if our leaders heeded his advice. Happy Birthday,
Frederic
Bastiat.
--- end forwarded text
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
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