BASTIAT, CLAUDE-FRÉDÉRIC. — French economist and political figure, born in Mugron on 19 June 1801, died in Rome on 24 December 1850. A member of the Constituent Assembly and of the Legislative Assembly, he was a staunch enemy of socialism and the protectionist system; he advocated free trade. On 23 February 1846 he founded the Association for the Freedom of Trade.
He founded the newspaper Le libre échange (1846). His principal works are: Cobden et la Ligue or L'agitation anglaise pour la liberté des échanges (1845), written with the aim of making Cobden’s principal ideas on commercial freedom known; Sophismes économiques (1847–48), against socialism and protectionism; Capital et rente, a pamphlet against interest-free lending; Paix et liberté, a demonstration of the need to reduce governmental powers and expenditures, in addition to a large number of articles published especially in the Journal des Economistes. His 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. All the conflicts of interest that seem to exist between producer and consumer, between capital and labor, are not profound conflicts, but secondary ones, which come to merge into the general harmony governing society. In his analysis B. studies economic phenomena from the threefold standpoint of particular interest, general interest, and justice. He has no difficulty proving that beyond transient conflicts there is a formal and definitive agreement. Harmony dominates everywhere. The more one proceeds from this viewpoint, the broader the horizon becomes, and 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 the human activities that realize the economic order are subject to the same necessity as the forces of nature, whereas they are essentially free.