the British Parliament voted to abolish the Corn Laws) a Bordeaux free-trade association was created, the first such association to be founded in France. A similar association was soon founded in Paris in July 1846, the Association pour la liberté des échanges, headed by François-Eugène Harcourt (duc d’Harcourt).
Bastiat was very much the driving force behind this national free-trade association. He served as its general secretary; he was the editor of Le Libre échange, the association’s weekly paper; and he authored the association’s manifesto,7 which stated in the clearest possible terms that “exchange is a natural right, like property.” It was, however, a difficult task to emulate the success of the British Anti-Corn Law League. Bastiat followed the League’s strategy of organizing public meetings in Paris and some of the major towns, such as Lyons and Marseilles, but after a promising start the association’s membership began to stagnate and by the end of 1847 it was clear that the movement was not flourishing. In a letter to Cobden, Bastiat wrote that in France “instructing the masses is an impossible task, because they have neither the civic right, the habit, nor the liking for grand rallies and public discussion. This is one more reason for me to aim to gain contact with the most enlightened and influential classes through becoming a deputy.”8 This statement indicated a shift in Bastiat’s strategic thinking about the best way to campaign for free trade. If the grassroots approach, which had proven so successful in England, did not work in France, Bastiat was prepared to try something else, in this case standing for election to the Chamber of Deputies.
Bastiat’s Political Career
At the legislative elections of 1846, Bastiat ran against the government-supported candidate, Marie Gustave Larnac. In his “profession of faith,” or election manifesto,9 written to explain his position to the voters, Bastiat outlined his basic political and economic ideas: a government limited strictly to providing only justice, law-enforcement, and defense services; international free trade; freedom of education;10 and protection of property rights. He also criticized the tendency for governments to expand and spend, the excessive number of civil servants in parliament, and the frequent changes of government to satisfy the ambition of some members of parliament to become ministers. But in spite of the clarity and logic of his pamphlet, he was not elected.
Another opportunity appeared after the revolutionary days of February 1848, which resulted in the downfall of the July Monarchy and the establishment of the Second Republic. Bastiat was elected in 1848 as deputy of the Landes to the Constituent Assembly and reelected in 1849 to the Legislative Assembly. For the next thirty months, in spite of declining health and family concerns, he worked feverishly as a member of parliament, a pamphleteer, and a theoretician. His parliamentary activities, especially as vice president of the finance committee, enabled him to work with many leading figures, such as the poet and historian Alphonse Lamartine, the novelist Victor Hugo, the political theorist and writer Alexis de Tocqueville, the anarchist and socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the Catholic priest and orator L’Abbé Jean-Baptiste-Henri Dominique Lacordaire, the future emperor Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, and the socialist Louis Blanc.
Bastiat’s desire was to help build a truly liberal republic, one that would avoid the utopian interventionism of the socialists on the “left” (such as the make-work schemes of the National Workshops) and the authoritarian tendencies of the conservatives of the “right” (who were encouraged by the election of Louis-Napoléon to the presidency of the Republic). Bastiat did not belong to any political party because, in the words of Léon Say, “He had too strong a personality to be a complete politician.” Bastiat chose to fight errors, especially economic errors, from wherever they came. Finding that both the left and the right often made serious errors concerning economic policy, Bastiat did not spare either side when it came to upholding his principles. “This is why on some occasions I had to vote with the left and on others with the right; with the left when it defended liberty and the Republic, with the right when it defended order and security.”11
Although elected vice president of the finance committee—an important position at a time of severe budgetary difficulties for the new government—Bastiat played a modest role, as he was not a naturally gifted public speaker. He was not quick at repartee, and his voice, which was weakened by the illness12 that would soon kill him, did not carry well in the often heated arguments that ensued.
Bastiat gave speeches on such diverse subjects as postal reform and taxes, the repression of strikes, and conflicts of interest that result when civil servants or government officials also sit in parliament. He voted against such issues as the reintroduction of imprisonment for debt, the legal suits against Louis Blanc, and the 1.2-million-franc credit asked for by the executive for the purpose of sending a military expedition to Rome (supposedly to free the pope but in fact aimed at destroying the newly created Roman republic).
If Bastiat’s true talents did not lie in public speaking, they did indeed lie in the brilliant essays and books that flowed from his pen in the last few years of his life. Among the most influential pamphlets were Protectionism and Communism; Capital and Rent; Peace and Freedom or the Republican Budget; Parliamentary Conflicts of Interest; Damned Money; Free Credit; Baccalaureate and Socialism; The State; Plunder and Law; The Law; and What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen. In these and other essays and pamphlets he fought the interventionist economic ideas of Adolphe Thiers, Joseph Proudhon, and Victor Considérant, among others. He also defended his own ideas on the natural organization of society; on the freedom to work, to exchange, and to seek an education; on the need for the limitation of public expenditure and the reduction of the state to its essential functions; on the adoption of a peaceful foreign policy based on disarmament of the navy and army; and on the possibilities of real social progress. By the latter he explained that “I sincerely hope to see the sufferings of the workers reduced to a minimum, but the more the state gets involved in their fate, the more their sufferings will increase.”
Bastiat’s Views on Free Trade and Peace
Like Cobden, Bastiat was convinced that free trade and peace were integrally connected. Both men agreed that free trade would lead to greater international cooperation and would lessen economic conflict among nations. The growth of international economic interdependence brought about by the advancement of free-trade policies would create in each nation a strong domestic lobby for peace; and the elimination of tariffs and subsidies would reduce the power and influence of the vested interests that push for war. It was for these reasons that Bastiat eagerly participated in the burgeoning organized peace movement, which began to hold annual meetings to discuss the issues and to promote peace among nations. The first Peace Congress was held in London in 1843 (the year the Anti-Corn Law League was founded), and a second was held in Brussels in 1848. Bastiat also opposed colonization schemes for much the same reasons. He criticized the idea behind the French colonization of Algeria and the method by which it was carried out, not to mention its exorbitant cost.
The outpouring of essays in this period enabled Bastiat to touch upon a number of points of economic theory in a sometimes novel but desultory fashion. He had dreamed for some time of writing his magnum opus, to be titled Economic Harmonies, which would be followed by another volume titled Social Harmonies. Although absorbed by urgent assignments, pressured by time, and consumed by illness, Bastiat wrote an incomplete draft of his book in barely three months. The writing obviously suffers from this haste, and the reviews were mixed as a result. Economic Harmonies received a favorable review abroad and a somewhat mixed one at home. For example, Bastiat’s ideas on value and on the role of natural factors on production, rent, and population did not conform to the orthodox views held by the reviewer in Le Journal des économistes. After Bastiat’s death, in 1850, the controversy over his book continued, with the American economist Henry C. Carey accusing Bastiat of plagiarism.13
During the last year of his life, Bastiat found the energy to write two of his best-known pieces: What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen and The Law. Unfortunately his health deteriorated rapidly, and he suffered from a ceaseless cough. On the advice of his doctor, he went to Italy to enjoy the warmer climate and relieve his symptoms. Upon reaching Rome, exhausted, Bastiat died on 24 December 1850