Claude Frédéric Bastiat was born in Bayonne, France on June 29th, 1801. He was orphaned at age nine and raised by relatives. He worked in his uncle's accounting firm and then became a farmer when he inherited his grandfather's farm. After the middle-class Revolution of 1830, Bastiat became politically active and was elected justice of the peace in 1831 and to the Council General (county-level assembly) in 1832. He was elected to the national legislative assembly after the French Revolution of 1848. Bastiat was inspired by and routinely corresponded with Richard Cobden and the English Anti-Corn Law League and worked with free-trade associations in France.
Bastiat wrote sporadically starting in the 1830s, but in 1844 he launched his amazing publishing career when an article on the effects of protectionism on the French and English people was published in the Journal des Economistes and was held to critical acclaim.[1] The bulk of his remarkable writing career, which so inspired the early generation of English translators — and so many more — is contained in this collection.
If we were to take the greatest economists from all ages and judge them on the basis of their theoretical rigor, their influence on economic education, and their impact in support of the free-market economy, then Frédéric Bastiat would be at the top of the list. As Murray N. Rothbard noted:
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