France's champion of liberty: nineteenth-century economist Frederic Bastiat's writings demonstrate why socialism won't work any better for 21st-century Americans than it did for the 19th-century French.

A writer sits at his desk, staring absently at the city street below. He nibbles the end of his writing instrument thoughtfully. What should he write about today? The out-of-control welfare system? Pork barreling politicians? The onerous tax burden? Meddling farm subsidies? Perhaps an expose on the social engineers who had set their sights on controlling the education system? Ah--the problems were so plentiful--it was hard to choose!

The issues and concerns confronting 19th-century French economist Frederic Bastiat had a curiously contemporary flavor. And then, as now, a man committed to limited government, personal freedom, and faith in God was considered an anomaly in academe.

Historical Re-run

It has been said that if we are not willing to learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. Certainly, as one reads the life story and writings of Bastiat, it seems that the United States is in many ways repeating the slippery slide into socialism, and eventually into despotism, that France experienced from 1789 to 1848. To fully appreciate Bastiat's contribution to the formulation of laissez-faire capitalism, and to see the parallels between his concerns and the issues facing Americans today, a brief sortie into French history is in order.

Most people are familiar with the French Revolution of 1789, with its powerful images of the guillotine and the Bastille. Perhaps not so well known are the behind the-scenes machinations that perverted a quest for reform into a violent assault on the fabric of society itself.

There existed in France (also in Germany and other areas of Europe) a network of secret societies that fomented revolution all over Europe with the aim of destroying the existing social order and replacing it with a communistic order. And, like all artificially organized "revolts" in which the emotions of gullible citizens are played upon by professional agitators, the main lasting effect of the French Revolution was to install the agitators in power and deepen the misery of the citizens themselves.

In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte rose to dictatorship. The Restoration of 1815 saw King Louis XVIII mount the throne, followed by Charles X. The repressive reign of Charles X gave the communists and socialists of the day another chance to ran the flames of rebellion. In July 1830, Charles X was deposed, and political power was ostensibly transferred from the nobility to the bourgeoisie (middle class), although the revolutionaries kept the semblance of a king, putting the "Citizen King" Louis Philippe on the throne as a representative of the middle class.

The reign of Louis Philippe was marked by a government increasingly devoted to regulating and manipulating society. French businessmen soon found out that any truly independent enterprise ran afoul of this government and its complex and contradictory rules and regulations. Success was more likely to be found running a business supported by a government monopoly or government capital. Sound familiar?

Even worse off than businessmen were the French proletariat (working class) whose real wages had been declining steadily since 1820. Their legitimate complaints included bad harvests, an industrial depression, and a cholera epidemic, as well as rampant governmental corruption. Socialist leaders were eager as always to take advantage of a dissatisfied populace, and the populace was eager as always to naively believe and do what the demagogues told them. As Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out, the working class' very real complaints served to "magnify doctrines which tend to nothing less than the overthrow of all the foundations on which society rests."

The dissolution of the National Work shops, which in theory were to embody every man's "right to work," but in reality had merely provided fertile ground for sowing the seeds of violent revolution, provided the fatal spark. The coals of discontent burst into flames, quite literally. In February 1848, anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Marxist Louis Blanc, and other leading revolutionaries urged the workers to attack the existing government. Fires were started all over Paris; workers and students erected barricades and waved flags, shouting "Long live the Republic!" The Citizen King fled Paris with his family. In historian George Roche's words, "suddenly middle-class democracy had been swept aside, but all of its shortcomings, all of the human foibles and corruptions, remained to plague France."

Headed by the socialist Alphonse de Lamartine, the so-called Second French Republic was full of plans for centralized control of the French people, who were promised that all inequalities of wealth, education, property and even sex would be eradicated. Work would become a thing of the past. But despite these promises, conditions kept growing worse. By May 1848, the number of unemployed in Paris had reached 120,000. The government kept promising that all "unnecessary and unpopular" taxes would be removed, while the people kept demanding more and more government grants for all sorts of projects. Once again, all of this sounds quite familiar.

Revolution Reflux

Over the next few months, prompted by the Communist Auguste Blanqui and his ilk, the breach between the bourgeoisie and the working class widened. Finally, the secret societies, the socialists, and the Communist factions succeeded in again stirring the masses into violent revolt in June 1848. Houses of property owners became smoking ruins; gunfire was rampant; the streets of Paris became deathtraps. It was only after thousands of men from the French provinces, armed in any way they could manage, journeyed to Paris and helped put down the insurrection that order, in the form of a military dictatorship, returned to Paris. But although the French people had finally become wary and weary of revolution, they did not seem to grasp the connection between revolutionary strife and the socialist government interventionism that caused it. As Bastiat wrote later, "We have tried so many things; when shall we try the simplest of all: freedom?"

Bastiat alone, among his fellow countrymen, seemed to understand the dangers that socialism posed to the very woof and weave of society. He would devote the rest of his life, brief though it was, to exposing the fallacies of socialism and the worth of personal freedom. But France did not heed Bastiat's advice. At the end of 1849, Louis Napoleon (Napoleon-the-Little) was elected president of France.

Within two years, Louis Napoleon transformed himself from figurehead president to Napoleon III, Emperor of France. Along the way, he imprisoned all opposition members of the Legislative Assembly (who were seized from their homes), dissolved the Legislative Assembly, and stationed troops in Paris to ensure "peace." Despite the empty promises of leaders like Blanc and Lamartine, the working class was worse off than before. In about 60 years and three separate revolutions, France had gone from rule by King to rule by Emperor, twice--and had learned and gained precious little in the process.

From Farm to Fray

Bastiat originally had no intention of taking on his role of champion of true liberty. Born in 1801 in Bayonne, Bastiat spend his childhood on a farm in Mugron. A retiring and thoughtful individual, Bastiat spent much of his time reading and thinking. Although he worked for a time in his uncle's firm, Bastiat was not inspired by accounting. Rather, he described his ambitions as "to become acquainted with politics, history, geography, mathematics, mechanics, natural history, botany, and four or five languages." But his experience with his uncle's business led him to realize that the "deadly hand" of governmental control was anathema to economic prosperity. As he became familiar with the work of Jean Baptiste Say and Adam Smith, Bastiat became convinced that a free market was imperative to economic and social progress.

However, for the next 20 years, Bastiat spent most of his time in the serene countryside estate, quietly studying and thinking, and unwittingly preparing for his late but energetic battle against socialism. His analytical thinking did not go unnoticed, however. He found himself elected Justice of the Peace in Mugron in 1830, and then in 1832, he was elected a member of the General Council of Landes.

Although as early as the 1820s Bastiat was active in debate societies, crushing his opponents with infallible logic on free trade issues, it was in the 1840s that Bastiat's fascination with free trade really ignited. * Excited by the ideas of Richard Cobden and his tree trade movement in England, Bastiat submitted a treatise on tariffs to the well-respected Journal des economistes. In doing so, Bastiat took his first real step on the road away from his peaceful existence as a gentleman farmer-scholar. That road would eventually lead him to Paris, the National Assembly, and the cutting edge of French politics.

As his works and ideas became prominent, Bastiat was unavoidably inundated in criticism from those who opposed his ideas on free trade. Ever the gentleman, Bastiat never lost his temper, but used his excellent satirical wit and logic to expose the critics as liars and fools. For example, when the socialist leaders of the National Assembly insisted that "taxation should lose its oppressive character and should henceforth be no more than an act of fraternity," Bastiat shot back with "Heavenly days! I am well aware of the fact that it is the vogue to get fraternity in everywhere, but I did not suspect that it could be put into the receipt of the tax collector."

But despite Bastiat's monumental efforts to establish a permanent French flee trade association, and the fact that he undoubtedly exerted considerable influence over the intense political and social debate that was simmering, by 1848 his free trade association was laid waste and France was embroiled in revolution once again.

A Man of Principle

His studies and analysis of current events led Bastiat to realize that free trade, while important, was a limited subject. He began to take a greater interest in freedom in general. All his reading and thinking led Bastiat to conclude that it didn't matter who held the reins of government--aristocracy, bourgeoisie, or the proletariat. Any government committed to social engineering was anathema to a just and tree society.

It was this theme that ran through all of Bastiat's later writings. No matter the topic, whether taxes, control of the education system, or government subsidies, Bastiat always returned to the triad of limited government, personal responsibility, and faith in our Creator.

Elected to the French National Assembly in 1848, Bastiat constantly opposed socialism in all its forms. Even his socialist opponents in the National Assembly had to admire Bastiat's commitment to principle: he voted not along party lines, but on whether a law or decision violated the proper role of government or impinged on personal properly, freedom, and justice.

Words As Weapons

Bastiat did not lead an exciting life--he fought no battles, led no armies. His pen was his sword, which he wielded with expertise and finesse. Therefore, the best way to get a feel for who Bastiat was is to examine his writings. The echoes of present situations in America will not be lost on in formed and thoughtful readers.

Taxes: "When a nation is burdened with taxes, nothing is more difficult, as I should say, impossible, than to levy them equally. The statisticians and fiscal authorities no longer even try to do so. What is still more difficult, however, is to shift the tax burden onto the shoulders of the rich. The state can have an abundance of money only by taking from everyone and especially from the masses."

"I believe we are entering on a path in which plunder, under very gentle, very subtle, very ingenious forms, embellished with the beautiful names of solidarity and fraternity, is going to assume proportions the extent of which the imagination hardly dams to measure."

Military adventurism: from a play by Bastiat, featuring James Goodfellow (a vintner) and Blockhead (a tax collector):

BLOCKIIEAD: You have laid in twenty tuns of wine?

GOODFELLOW: Yes, by dint of much toil and sweat.

B.: Be so kind as to give me six of the best.

G.F.: Good heavens! You're trying to ruin me. And, if you please, what do you intend to do with them?

B.: The first will be given to the creditors of the state. When one has debts, the very least one can do is to pay the interest on them.

G.F.: And what has become of the principal?

B.: That would take too long to tell. A part of it was invested in cartridges, which produced the most beautiful smoke in the world. Another part went to pay those who became crippled in foreign lands that they had laid waste. Then, when these expenditures of ours led to an invasion of our laud by our good friends, the enemy, they were unwilling to leave without taking away some money, which we had to borrow.

G.F.: And what benefit do I derive from it today?

B.: The satisfaction of saying: "How proud I am to be a Frenchman when I behold the triumphal column!"

Private property: "There are many workers full of a sincere faith in the right to employment, and consequently communists without knowing or desiring it, who would not tolerate their being considered as such.... Many industrialists, otherwise quite respectable, promote communism (under another name), as people always do, that is, on condition that only the goods of others are to be divided and shared. But as soon as the principle has gained ground, and it is now a matter of sharing their own property too, oh, then communism strikes them with honor."

Government intervention: "We have, first of all, licenses of all kinds. No one can become a barrister, a physician, a teacher, a broker, a dealer in government bonds, a solicitor, an attorney, a pharmacist, a printer, a butcher, or a baker without encountering legal restrictions.... Next comes the attempt to set an artificial price ... by levying tariffs. Next comes taxation."

"Our adversaries believe that an activity that is neither subsidized nor regulated is abolished. We believe the contrary. Their faith is in the legislator, not in mankind. Ours is in mankind, not in the legislator."

Corruption and pork-barreling: "Your principle has placed these words above the entrance to the legislative chamber: 'Whosoever acquires any influence here can obtain his share of legal plunder.' And what has been the result? All classes have flung themselves upon the doors of the chamber, crying: 'A share of the plunder for me, for me!'"

Education: "And why do political parties aspire to take over the direction of education? Because they know the saying of Leibnitz: 'Make me the master of education, and l will undertake to change the world.' Education by governmental power, then, is education by a political party, by a sect momentarily triumphant; it is education on behalf of one idea, of one system, to the exclusion of all others....

To pervert the human mind--that is the problem which seems to have been posed and which has been solved by those to whom the monopoly of education has been handed over."

Bureaucrats: "Very soon there will be two or three of these bureaucrats around every Frenchman, one to prevent him from working too much, another to give him an education, a third to furnish him credit, a fourth to interfere with his business transactions, etc., etc."

Individual responsibility: "We see, then, that in almost all of the important actions of life we must respect men's free will, defer to their own good judgment, to that inner light that God has given them to use, and beyond this to let the law of responsibility take its course.

"Away, then, with the quacks and the planners! Away with their rings, their chains, their hooks, their pincers! Away with their artificial methods! Away with their social workshop, their phalanstery, their statism, their centralization, their tariffs, their universities, their state religion, their interest-free credit or bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their moralization, and their equalization by taxation! And after vainly inflicting so many systems on the body politic, let us end where we should have begun. Let us cast out all artificial systems and give freedom a chance--freedom, which is an act of faith in God and in His handiwork."

Faith and progress: "We therefore believe in liberty because we believe in the harmony of the universe, that is, in God ... It would be absurd for an atheist to say: Laissez faire! Leave it to chance! But we, who are believers, have the right to cry: Luissez passer! Let God's order and justice prevail! ... And freedom, thus understood, is no longer an anarchistic deification of individualism; what we worship, above and beyond man's activity, is God directing all.

"To tamper with man's freedom is not only to injure him, to degrade him: it is to change his nature, to render him, in so far as such oppression is exercised, incapable of improvement; it is to strip him of his resemblance to the Creator, to stifle within him the noble breath of life with which he was endowed at his creation."

France Didn't Learn--But Will We?

Bastiat did his best to convince his fellow Frenchmen that justice and liberty were far better than government control and corruption. But his countrymen were obstinately set on their course. Bastiat once wrote,

   Good Lord! What a lot of trouble to
   prove in political economy that two
   and two make four; and if you succeed
   in doing so, people cry, "It is so clear
   that it is boring." Then they vote as if
   you had never proved anything at all.

The fight against socialism drained Bastiat's already fading energy, and by 1850--a mere six years alter his first published article and only two since his election to the National Assembly--he was on his deathbed. But far from being a flash in the pan, Bastiat's influence reached well beyond his own sphere. His seven volumes of work (all eminently readable) and his ideas on freedom are as applicable today as they were two centuries ago. The present threat of not just a national dictator, but a global cadre of dictators, under the auspices of the United Nations, should give us pause. We would do well to listen to Bastiat and apply his principles to our own government, before we, too, lose our freedom.

* During Bastiat's day, "free trade" meant the free exchange of goods and services unimpeded by government regulations. Today's multinational "free trade agreements" have nothing to do with genuine free trade and everything to do with economic merger leading to political merger.

Among the government impositions opposed by Bastiat were tariffs. But Bastiat could not have fore seen a world in which the global elite would transfer money, machinery and technological know-how, through foreign aid and other means, from the world's richest nation to its foreign competitors in the international marketplace.

Frederic Bastiat's most famous work is The Law, originally published in 1850. A paperback edition of this book (75 pages) is available, for $2.95 plus shipping and handling from American Opinion Book Services, P.O. Box 8040. Appleton, WI 54912; by phone at 920-749-3783; or online at www.aobs-store.com. (The shipping and handling costs art" the same as those listed in the ad on page 7.)

Jodie Gilmore, a homeschooling mother of two, is a freelance writer.