Frédéric Bastiat – författare

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a keen observer of political and economic problems and a passionate proponent of liberal economic theory. This book collects nineteen of Bastiat's articles, ranging from the theory of value and rent, public choice and collective action, government intervention and regulation, the balance of trade, education, and trade unions to price controls, capital and growth, and taxation. Throughout his articles, Bastiat demonstrates how the combination of careful logic, consistency of principle, and clarity of exposition is the instrument for solving most economic and social problems. In his famous essay "The Law" Bastiat explains that the law, far from being what it ought to be, "namely the instrument that enabled the state to protect individuals' rights and property", had become the means for what he termed "spoliation" (or plunder). From the article "The State" written at the height of the 1848 Revolution in June, comes perhaps his best-remembered quotation: "The state is the great fiction by which everyone endeavours to live at the expense of everyone else". In this volume readers will find extensive introductory material, including notes on the translation and on the editions of the uvres completes, a chronology of Bastiat's life and works, two maps of France showing the cities associated with Bastiat, annotations to the articles, and a bibliography. A special section provides charming, little-known anecdotes about Bastiat and his contemporaries, including his editor Prosper Paillottet, who became Bastiat's firm friend and eventually his executor. This section also includes discussions of key concepts such as individualism, laissez-faire, industry, plunder, and the right to work. Three glossaries explain persons, places, and subjects and terms.

Liberty Fund's six-volume The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat series, of which The Man and the Statesman is the first volume, may be considered the most complete edition of Bastiat's works published to date, in any country, and in any language. The main source for this translation is the seven-volume Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat, published in the 1850s and 1860s. The present volume, most of which has never before been translated into English, includes Bastiat's complete correspondence: 208 letters Bastiat wrote between 1819, when he was only 18 years old, until just a few days before his untimely death in 1850 at the age of 49. For contemporary classical liberals, Bastiat's correspondence will provide a unique window into a long-forgotten world where opposition to war and colonialism went hand-in-hand with support for free trade and deregulation. Bastiat's numerous letters to Richard Cobden, a Member of Parliament and best known today as the leader of the British Anti-Corn Law League, chronicle the profound effect the Anti-Corn League had on Bastiat. The League's success in mobilising a popular movement in England to pressure the British government into abolishing the very protectionist "corn laws" in 1846, inspired Bastiat to emulate the League's success in France by starting his own free-trade movement. This volume also includes articles and other writings on politics and current events that showcase Bastiat's talent as a theoretician, a pamphleteer, a journalist, and a deputy (Member of Parliament) of the nascent French Second Republic. Together with the correspondence, the writings in this volume fill an important gap in our understanding of the lesser-known Bastiat, who, in just a few short years, made a profound impact on French intellectual and political life in Paris.

Ekonomiska sofismer, av Frédéric Bastiat Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) är en av den liberala idéhistoriens mest läsvärda författare. Ekonomiska Sofismer är en samling essäer som Bastiat publicerade i ekonomiska tidskrifter på 1840-talet. Detta är första gången essäsamlingen ges ut i sin helhet på svenska. Förordet till den svenska utgåvan är skrivet av Adam Cwejman, ledarskribent på Göteborgs-Posten.