Frédéric Bastiat

Free labour directed to the production of sugar will lower its price more and more, and slave property will become less and less valuable to the…

If public opinion is sovereign, even in the region of Force, it is very much more so in the region of Craft [_Ruse_], In truth, this is its true…

What is the object in view? The object is to procure provisions, vestments, luxury, consideration, influence, power, by exchanging fictitious for…

But if I say to him, "In exchange for your services I am going to render you immense service, not in this world, but in another; for after this…

And still to this fundamental security I should add others. For example, effectually to prevent enlightenment ever reaching the masses, I should…

It would not be amiss that I should at the same time satisfy some of the real wants of my people, especially if, in doing so, I could increase my…

God forbid that I should desire to shake the consoling religious convictions which connect this life of trial with a life of felicity. But that our…

_If the priest is the instrument of religion_, if his sole care is to spread over the country morals and blessings, he will be gentle, tolerant,…

Another variety of spoliation by craft and artifice is to be found in what are called _commercial frauds_, an expression, as it appears to me, not…

Had man been created a solitary animal, each man would work for himself. Individual wealth would, in that case, be in proportion to the services…

It is not so in state matters, especially before the introduction of representative government. Whether we have need of such services as the…

Now it is the tendency of all men to see through the small end of the telescope the services which they render, and through the large end the…

Now this guarantee we have either not at all or to a very limited extent in public transactions. And yet the government, composed of men (although at…

In this way the state is also subject to the Malthusian law. It tends to pass the level of its means of existence, it grows great in proportion to…

For there is one circumstance especially which it is very necessary to mark--it is this: Among the services which we demand from the government,…

Just consider on what an immense scale, as we learn from history, spoliation has been exercised through the abuse and excess of the powers of…

At length, representative government has been instituted, and we should have thought, _a priori_, that these disorders would have disappeared as if…

In fact, the principle of representative government is this: "The people themselves, by their representatives, are to decide on the nature and extent…

Governments are very skilful. They act with method and consistency, upon a plan well arranged, and constantly improved by tradition and experience.…

If the nation is generous, government undertakes to cure all the ills of humanity; to revive trade, to make agriculture flourish, to develop…

In short, the tactics consist in representing restraints as effective services; and the nation pays, not for services, but for disservices.…

While the government displays so much skill and ability, the people display scarcely any. When called upon to elect those whose province it is to…

To govern is so agreeable a business, that every one aspires to it. The counsellors of the people never cease telling them: We see your sufferings,…

In the meantime, and sometimes for a long period, there are rebellions and _émeutes_. When the people are vanquished, the expense of the war only…

Certain nations seem marvellously disposed to become the prey of government spoliation; those especially where the people, losing sight of their…

We have seen that an exchange of services constitutes society; and it must be an exchange of good and loyal services. But we have shown also that men…

Whence it happens that certain men have recourse to the law in order that it may control this freedom in certain branches of industry. This kind of…

Everybody knows that the services which he brings to the general market are appreciated and remunerated in proportion to their rarity. The…

When monopoly is an isolated fact, it never fails to enrich the man who is invested with it. It may happen, then, that other classes of producers, in…

It is unnecessary to add, that this strange _régime_ introduces a universal antagonism among all classes, all professions, and all nations; that it…

But it may be said, Why make use of this ugly term, Spoliation? It is coarse, it wounds, irritates, and turns against you all calm and moderate men--…

To speak plainly, I respect the persons, and I believe in the sincerity of nearly all the partisans of protection; I claim no right to call in…

Or, again, figure a tribune speaking thus in the forum: "Romans, you derive all your means of existence from the pillage of all nations in succession…

In saying so, they would only speak undoubted truth. But are we to conclude from this that Athens and Rome were inhabited only by bad and dishonest…

Who could entertain for a moment any such thought? But these great men lived in a social medium which took away all consciousness of injustice. We…

Slavery in modern times has existed down to our own day without exciting many scruples in the minds of planters. Armies serve as the instruments of…

We must not blame individuals, but rather the general movement which carries them along, and blinds them to the real state of the case; a movement…

The same thing holds of monopoly. I blame the system, and not individuals--society at large, and not individual members of society. If the greatest…

"Well, are we wrong in reproaching economists with being dry and cold? What a picture of human nature! What! Is spoliation, then, to be regarded as…

It is singular enough that those who decry political economy (or _economisme_, as they are pleased to call it), because that science studies man…

It is not the business of political economy to inquire what society might have become had God made man otherwise than He has been pleased to make him…

We cannot so order it that from this organization there should not result a perpetual effort on the part of certain men to increase their own share…

It is not for us to go in the face of universal history, or stifle the voice of the past, which tells us that such has been the state of things…

But let us be thankful that history also shows us that the diffusion of enjoyments and of efforts has a tendency to become more and more equal…

We maintain that this force exists in society, and that God has placed it there. If it did not exist, we should be reduced, like Utopian dreamers, to…

Every injurious or hurtful act has necessarily two terms: the point whence it comes, and the point to which it tends--the _terminus a quo, and the…

The religious moral principle, in order to ensure the suppression of an injurious act, addresses its author, addresses man in his capacity of agent,…

But it is easy to understand that this economic principle of morality, which is rather virtual than formal; which is only, after all, a scientific…

The reproach is well founded in itself, without being just in its application. It just amounts to saying that political economy does not discuss…

The accusation would be well founded only if political economy presented its processes as exclusive, and had the presumption, if we may so speak,…

Let us admit, then, the simultaneous action of morality, properly so called, and of political economy; the one branding the injurious act in its…

Let us admit even that the triumph of the religious moralist, when achieved, is more beautiful, more consoling, more fundamental But we must at the…

The same statesman would never have ventured to say that liberty is too precious a thing for France to stand higgling about its price, had France…

In the matter of elections, it is not because there are parties who offer bribes that there are parties open to receive them, but the contrary; and…

After all I have heard and read and observed, I have never yet met with an instance of an abuse which had been in operation on a somewhat extensive…

To expose the effects of abuses, then, is the surest means of putting an end to them. And this holds especially true of abuses like the policy of…

After all, can the kind of morality we are advocating of itself enable us to realize all that social perfection which the sympathetic nature of the…

The prudence of each would be enforced by the vigilance of all; and reform, confining itself to the regulation of external acts, and never going…

But the two principles of morality I have described, instead of running counter to each other, work in concert, attacking vice from opposite…

In a society which, without being personally and individually virtuous, would nevertheless be well ordered through the action of the economic…