BASTIAT, CLAUDE-FRÉDÉRIC. - French economist and politician, b. at Mugron on 19 June 1801, d. at Rome on 24 Dec. 1850. A member of the Constituent Assembly and of the Legislative Assembly, he was a bitter enemy of socialism and of the protectionist system; he championed free trade. On 23 Feb. 1846 he founded the Association for Free Trade.
He founded the journal Le libre échange (1846). His principal works are: Cobden et la Ligue or L'agitation anglaise pour la liberté des échanges (1845), written for the purpose of making known Cobden's principal ideas on commercial freedom; Sophismes économiques (1847-48), against socialism and protectionism; Capital et rente, a pamphlet against gratuitous lending; Paix et liberté, a demonstration of the necessity of reducing governmental functions and expenditures, besides a great number of articles published especially in the Journal des Economistes. The most important work, however, is Les harmonies économiques, of which only the first part was written. In this work B. starts from the principle that in economic phenomena disagreement is only apparent and that at bottom harmony is to be found again. All the oppositions of interest that seem to exist between producer and consumer, between capital and labor, are not profound oppositions but secondary ones, which come to be merged in the general harmony that regulates society. Entering into the analysis, B. studies economic phenomena from the threefold point of view of particular interest, general interest and justice. He has no difficulty in proving that beyond passing contrasts there is a formal and definitive accord. Harmony dominates everywhere. The more one advances with this outlook, the more the horizon widens, the more unforeseen consequences are discovered. It is no longer a question of economics but of the science of humanity. With these ideas B. embodied better than anyone else the optimistic tendency in economic life already inaugurated by Say. His fundamental error lies in having held that human activities realizing the economic order are subject to the same necessity as the forces of nature, whereas they are essentially free.