Frédéric Bastiat
French economist and free-market advocate
Claude-Frédéric Bastiat was a French economist, writer, and a key figure in the French liberal school. He served in the French National Assembly and is credited with formulating the economic idea of opportunity cost, as well as the well-known broken window parable. Economist Joseph Schumpeter called him “the most brilliant economic journalist who ever lived.” A supporter of classical economics and the ideas of Adam Smith, Bastiat championed free markets and his work later shaped the Austrian School. His most famous book, *The Law*, contends that law should safeguard rights like private property rather than enable the “plunder” of others’ property.
Bastiat was born on 30 June 1801 in Bayonne, a port town in Gascony, southern France. His grandfather Pierre, a businessman who had moved to Bayonne from Mugron, acquired the Sengresse estate near Mugron in 1795 after it was confiscated during the French Revolution. The family’s prosperity, initially boosted by Bayonne’s free-port status, was disrupted by the dissolution of the local chamber of commerce, wars with Spain, and the Continental Blockade, leading them into privateering and trade with the Americas. Bastiat’s father, also named Pierre, married Julie Fréchou in 1800; both died of tuberculosis during the Peninsular War. Orphaned at nine, Bastiat was raised by his grandfather and his unmarried aunt Justine, splitting time between Sengresse and Bayonne. He began his education with abbé Meilhan in Bayonne, attended college in Saint-Sever, and in 1815 was enrolled at a Benedictine boarding school near Castres, a former royal military college that admitted Protestants, where he studied philosophy and learned English, Spanish, and Italian.
In 1818, Bastiat left school and was sent by his grandfather to work as a junior clerk for his uncle Henry Monclar, a lawyer and theoretician of trade, at the Bayonne branch of the Monclar and Bastiat trading firm. Monclar became a mentor. In a letter from September 1819, Bastiat told his friend Victor Calmètes that he found routine commerce uninteresting and was drawn to philosophy and politics, but recognized that a good merchant must study law and political economy. By early 1820, he had read Jean-Baptiste Say’s *Treatise on Political Economy*, and over the next five years he continued studying the works of Say, Adam Smith, and Antoine Destutt de Tracy, as well as articles from the liberal journal *Le Censeur européen*.
In 1821, Bastiat joined the Masonic lodge La Zélée, which already included his grandfather, his deceased father, and his uncles. He became keeper of the seals for the lodge in 1822 and served as its orator in 1823. Through a fellow lodge member, printer Bernard Lamaignère, he connected with a circle of young liberal intellectuals around the banker Jacques Laffitte, a native of Bayonne and Lamaignère’s relative.
Though family reasons prevented Bastiat from pursuing university studies in Paris, the Sengresse estate he inherited after his grandfather’s death in 1825 allowed him to deepen his theoretical work. He left maritime commerce to become a gentleman farmer, focusing much of his intellectual energy on agronomy and frequently visiting the Agricultural Academy of Landes in Mont-de-Marsan. In 1827, he studied the works of Charles Dunoyer and Benjamin Franklin, noting that Franklin’s “virtues” were beyond his own reach. A neighbor, Félix Coudroy, a lawyer and follower of ultramontane thinkers Joseph de Maistre and Félicité de La Mennais, became Bastiat’s main confidant in his mature years and a key intellectual influence during the 1830s; their correspondence dated back to at least 1824. Bastiat later credited Coudroy in his 1850 *Harmonies of Political Economy* and designated him to complete his unfinished works.
After the July Revolution of 1830, Bastiat became politically active. He circulated a pamphlet to Landes constituents during that year’s legislative election, criticizing government taxation and appealing to voters’ individual rationality for the general interest. He was elected justice of the peace of Mugron in 1831 and to the Council General of Landes in 1832. Following the French Revolution of 1848, he was elected to the national legislative assembly. Bastiat, who in 1825 had praised England as “marching as always at the head of European civilization,” grew enthusiastic about Richard Cobden’s anti-protectionist Anti-Corn Law League by 1842, and welcomed the opening of the English Club of Pau.
- born
- 30 June 1801
- died
- 24 December 1850
- field
- Economics, political economy
- nationality
- French
- known_for
- Opportunity cost, parable of the broken window, book The Law
Lore & Background
Bastiat was born on 29 June 1801 in Bayonne, Gascony (Aquitaine), a port town in the south of France on the Bay of Biscay. His grandfather Pierre Bastiat (1742–1825) had come to trade in Bayonne from the inland town of Mugron in the wine-growing region of Chalosse and the Landes department, married Bastiat's grandmother Catherine Laulhé (also from the Chalosse) in 1770. Having armed a frigate at his own expense for the War of the Pyrenees in 1793 to improve his standing with the Republic, Pierre Bastiat acquired the estate of Sengresse (just north of Mugron), confiscated during the French Revolution from the house of Béthune-Chârost, at an auction on 9 June 1795, in the closing stages of the war, and made it his family's residence. The bourgeois prosperity launched by Bayonne's new status as a free port from 1784 was cut short by the dissolution of the town's chamber of commerce in 1791, the ensuing wars with Spain (1793–1795, 1807–1814), and the Continental Blockade (1806–1814); the Bastiat family then shifted its interests to privateering and trading with the American colonies. Bastiat's father, Pierre (1771–1810), the eldest of seven children and also a businessman, married Bastiat's mother Julie Fréchou (1773–1808) in 1800; they both died in the epidemics of tuberculosis that hit Bayonne during the Peninsular War. Frédéric, orphaned at the age of nine, was raised by his grandfather and unmarried aunt Justine Bastiat between Sengresse and Bayonne. He started his education with abbé Meilhan in Bayonne and attended the college in Saint-Sever, before in 1815 he was enrolled by his family at the Sorèze Abbey Benedictine boarding school near Castres (a royal military college, granted lycée status in 1813 and admitting Protestants), where he studied philosophy along with English, Spanish and Italian. In 1818, Bastiat left the college and was sent by his grandfather to work as a junior clerk (commis) for his uncle, the lawyer Henry Monclar (1766–1831), in the Bayonne branch of the Monclar and Bastiat international trading firm, where his father had previously been a partner. Monclar, a theoretician of trade, acted as a mentor to young Bastiat. In a September 1819 letter to his friend Victor Calmètes, Bastiat acknowledged his disinterest in routine commercial affairs, his dedication to philosophy and politics, and his resolution to leave business soon, but also h
Reader's Guide
Bastiat was the author of many works on economics and political economy, generally characterized by their clear organization, forceful argumentation, and acerbic wit. Economist Murray Rothbard wrote, "Bastiat was indeed a lucid and superb writer, whose brilliant and witty essays and fables to this day are remarkable and devastating demolitions of protectionism and of all forms of government subsidy and control. He was a truly scintillating advocate of an unrestricted free market". However, Bastiat himself declared that subsidy should be available, albeit limited under extraordinary circumstances, saying: "Under extraordinary circumstances, for urgent cases, the State should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people, to help them adjust to changing conditions". His first published works were two short treatises on the winemaking industry of the Landes, Le fisc et la vigne (1841) and Mémoire sur la question vinicole (1843), in which he blamed excessive taxation for the regional industry's crisis. Among his better-known works is Economic Sophisms, a series of essays (originally published in the Journal des économistes), which contain a defence of free trade. Bastiat wrote the work while living in England to advise the shapers of the French Republic on perils to avoid. Economic Sophisms was translated and adapted for an American readership in 1867 by economist and historian of money Alexander del Mar, writing under the pseudonym Emile Walter.
Did You Know?
- Bastiat was orphaned at age nine after both his parents died in tuberculosis epidemics during the Peninsular War.
- He was admitted to the Masonic lodge La Zélée in 1821.
- He is buried at the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome.
Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)
"Frédéric Bastiat (30 June 1801 – 24 December 1850) was an early free-market economist and classical liberal French author." — Frédéric Bastiat "L'État c'est la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s'efforce de vivre aux dépens de tout le monde." — Frédéric Bastiat "The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavours to live at the expense of everyone else." — Frédéric Bastiat "The State in Journal des débats (1848) par. 5.20." — Frédéric Bastiat
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