Frederic Bastiat
Frederic Bastiat
Claude-Frédéric Bastiatwas a French economist and author who was a prominent member of the French Liberal School. He developed the economic concept of opportunity cost, and introduced the Parable of the Broken Window. He was also a Freemason, and member of the French National Assembly...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth30 June 1801
CountryFrance
liberty safe natural
Since the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to allow them liberty, how comes it to pass that the tendencies of organizers are always good?
heart names liberty
And what is liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties - liberty of conscience, of education, of association, of the press, of travel, or labor, or trade?
law justice liberty
...the statement, "The purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign," is not a rigorously accurate statement. It ought to be stated that the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is injustice, instead of justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent.
evil liberty libertarian
The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder.
self law liberty
In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self-defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder - is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?
order justice liberty
No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate).
liberty libertarian economic
The plans differ; the planners are all alike...
independent essence liberty
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.
law evil liberty
It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
exercise understanding liberty
Property, the right to enjoy the fruits of one's labor, the right to work, to develop, to exercise one's faculties, according to one's own understanding, without the state intervening otherwise than by its protective action; this is what is meant by liberty
thinking people liberty
There are people who think that plunder loses all its immorality as soon as it becomes legal. Personally, I cannot imagine a more alarming situation.
liberty economic natural
Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.
long liberty use
In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm other persons while doing so?
law liberty alternatives
When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.