In Bastiat’s lifelong quest to instill into the French people the ideals of liberty, peace, and prosperity—that is, those principles today associated with the conservative right—Bastiat sat on the parliamentary benches with the left. His political position is more easily understood if one remembers that, in his time, those who sat on the right in the Assembly were mainly conservatives, not classical liberals. They were nostalgic for the ancien régime of the pre-1789 period, namely the era of the monarchy and aristocratic class privileges. In fact, Bastiat was very critical of the efforts made by the wealthiest and most politically connected individuals to protect their own interests by manipulating the power of the legislature and the state. Like his friend and colleague in England Richard Cobden, Bastiat passionately believed that in advocating for free markets, low taxes, and free trade he was defending the interests of the poor.
The difficulty of Bastiat’s balancing act in the Assembly between left and right can clearly be seen in the reaction to two of his speeches: “Discourse on the Tax on Wines and Spirits” (1849) and “The Repression of Industrial Unions” (1849).
In the first speech Bastiat, who represented an agricultural district in which the production of wine was particularly important, attempts to convince his colleagues that the farmers in his locality have to bear an unfair tax burden. He defends the interests of his constituents without compromising what he rightly considers to be the lessons of sound economic theory. What is particularly striking in this speech is the fact that he receives applause from those sitting on the left’s benches. Bastiat points out that poor people suffer the most from state interventionism and that politically influential businessmen are able to induce the state to pass laws giving them protection from foreign competition, with the result that higher prices are created for ordinary consumers.
Bastiat concludes therefore that liberalizing trade and freeing up markets benefit the poor. Note that in Bastiat’s time, as in ours, it was a commonly held view that liberals (in the classical sense of the word) supported business interests over the interests of ordinary consumers. It is fascinating to discover that when Bastiat gave this speech, both the champions of the poor and the supporters of the republic (the left) seemed to understand what he was saying and to approve it. Unfortunately, the applause he received in the Assembly was not followed up by any concrete legislation to bring about the reforms he advocated.
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In the second speech, “The Repression of Industrial Unions,” Bastiat opposes legislation that restricts the right of workers to form the unions proposed by the right. Bastiat explains why both businessmen and workers must be granted the freedom to form trade unions; he argues that “the word union is synonymous with association”22 and that human freedom implies the right to associate with whomever and for whatever purpose one chooses. In addition, Bastiat strongly supports the right to strike, since an individual can legitimately decline to sell his or her work and “when it [an action] is innocent in itself, it cannot become guilty because it is carried out by a large number of individuals.”23 He further proclaims, “For what is a slave if not a man obliged by law to work under conditions that he rejects?” This sentence was greeted in the Assembly with repeated shouts of “Hear! Hear!” from the benches of the left.
Contrary to frequently held modern views, Bastiat’s belief is that a consistent (classical) liberal is necessarily against all forms of slavery and is in favor of the right to associate and also to strike, with the important condition that violence is not used. Thus, the state should not forbid trade unions and strikes, but it should punish those who use violence in any strike-related activity. On the basis of these clear principles of individual liberty, Bastiat supported the proposal to allow the creation of trade unions, concluding that “only principles have the power to satisfy people’s minds, to win over their hearts, and to unite all serious minds.”24
THE ECONOMISTS, THE SOCIALISTS, AND LEGAL PLUNDER
According to Bastiat and the liberal, free-trade political economists of his time, there was only one school of economics, that of Les Économistes.25 On the other hand, there were many schools of socialism, all of which opposed the ideas of Les Économistes. The reason for this difference is straightforward in Bastiat’s view: true economists are concerned with principles, and if people agree on principles they cannot express conflicting or incoherent statements. On the contrary, socialists want to rebuild human nature and each school has its own recipe for changing society. Bastiat expresses this view clearly in “Justice and Fraternity” (1848): “I believe that what radically
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divides us is this: political economy reaches the conclusion that only universal justice should be demanded of the law. Socialism, in its various branches and through applications whose number is of course unlimited, demands in addition that the law should put into practice the dogma of fraternity.”26
For Bastiat, the approaches of the political economists and the socialists are incompatible with each other because socialism necessarily impinges upon individual rights whenever one wants to redistribute wealth by using constraint. The main criterion for evaluating human actions is to ask whether an act is made freely or whether it is obtained by violence. According to Bastiat, legal violence is the most dangerous of human actions because it is wielded without any risk to the politicians and their supporters; moreover, it is even considered virtuous because politicians use it in the name of brotherhood and solidarity. Bastiat’s consistency in opposing all forms of coercion, whether legal or not, separates him from most of his contemporaries.
FREEDOM TO EXCHANGE
It is not surprising that Bastiat frequently opposes protectionist measures and pleads the case for free trade, but what is surprising is the broad range of arguments he uses to make his case. He draws his arguments from many fields of inquiry, such as economics, history, philosophy, and ethics. He reminds us that he was the founder of the Association pour la liberté des échanges (the free-trade association) and not the “association for commercial freedom” or the “association for the gradual reform of tariffs.” The “association for commercial freedom” would suggest support for only a narrowly based interest group that worked in the area of “commerce.” Likewise, the “association for the gradual reform of tariffs” would be inappropriate in Bastiat’s view because it would imply a willingness to compromise with those groups who benefited from protection at the expense of the broad mass of consumers who suffered from it. Thus, he chose for his organization the more general and somewhat abstract name “Association pour la liberté des échanges,” explaining that “the term free trade implies the freedom to dispose of the fruits of your work, in other words, property,”27 and this property could be in the form of wine, cotton cloth, gold bullion, or ideas.
Bastiat also makes a striking comparison between slavery and protectionism:
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“If I use force to appropriate all the work of a man for my benefit, this man is my slave. He is also my slave if, while letting him work freely, I find a way through force or guile to take possession of the fruit of his work.”28 In his battle with both conservatives and socialists Bastiat wanted to make the rhetorical and philosophical point that protectionism was just another form of that age-old means of granting privileges to one group at the expense of the liberty and property of another group. Thus he gave “this new form of servitude the fine title of protection.”29
CONCLUSION
Throughout the writings in this volume, we discover the personality of Bastiat. He is a keen observer and analyst of the times and a passionate politician who rushes into many debates with the hope of changing the course of history during the crucial period in which he lived. It is as if he somehow anticipated that he had only a very short time left to live.
The time between his election to the Assembly in early 1848 and his death on Christmas Eve in 1850 was a scant twenty months. During this period he carried out his parliamentary duties, wrote numerous pamphlets, and worked feverishly to complete his magnum opus,