An expanded and detailed version of the life and works of Bastiat can be found at oll.libertyfund.org/person/25.
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Map of France Showing Cities Mentioned by Bastiat
Cartography by Mapping Specialists, Madison, Wisconsin.
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Map of Southwestern France
Cartography by Mapping Specialists, Madison, Wisconsin.
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“The Law,” “The State,” and Other Political Writings, 1843–1850
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[vol. 1, p. 231. “Réflexions sur les pétitions de Bordeaux, Le Havre et Lyon, concernant les Douanes.” April 1834. n.p.]
Free trade will probably suffer the fate of all freedoms; it will be introduced into our legislation only after it has taken hold of our minds. For this reason, we should applaud the efforts of the traders in Bordeaux, Le Havre, and Lyons even if the only effect of these efforts in the immediate future is to draw public attention to the matter.
However, if it is true that a reform has to be generally understood to be firmly established, it follows that nothing can be more disastrous than something that misleads opinion. And nothing is more likely to mislead it than writings that clamor for freedom on the basis of the doctrines of monopoly.
It would doubtless require a great deal of temerity for a simple farmer to disturb, through bold criticism, the unanimous chorus of praise that welcomed the demands of French trade both inside and outside France. No less would be needed to confirm his decision to do so than a firm conviction, I would even say a certainty, that such petitioning would be as disastrous in its effects on the general interest, and in particular on the agricultural interests of France, as its doctrinal effects would be on the progress of economic science.
In speaking out in the name of agriculture against the customs plans presented by the petitioners, I feel the need to begin by declaring that what
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arouses my complaints in these plans is not the liberal element in their premises, but the exclusive content of their conclusions.
They demand that all protection be removed from primary products, that is to say from agricultural work, but that protection be maintained for the manufacturing industry.
I have come not to defend the protection that they are attacking but to attack the protection that they are defending.
Privilege is being claimed for a few; I come to claim freedom for all.
Agriculture owes its cosseted sales to the monopoly it exercises and its unfairly priced purchases to the monopoly to which it is subject. If it is just to relieve it of the first of these, it is no less so to free it from the second.2
To wish to deliver us to universal competition without subjecting manufacturers to the same situation is to damage our sales without relieving our purchases and to do just the opposite for manufacturers. If this is freedom, may I then have a definition of privilege?
It is up to agriculture to reject such attempts.
I make so bold here as to call upon the petitioners themselves and especially M. Henri Fonfrède. I urge him to refute my complaints or to support them.
I will show:
1 That, between the plan of the petitioners and the government system, there is community of principle, error, aim, and means;
2 That they differ only in one additional error for which the petitioners are responsible;
3 That the aim of this project is to set up an unjust privilege in favor of traders and manufacturers to the detriment of farmers and the general public.
§1. Between the petitioners’ proposals and the protectionist system there is community of principle, error, aim, and means.
What is the protectionist system? Let us hear M. de Saint Cricq’s views on this.
“Work constitutes the wealth of a people, since on its own it has created material things that we need, and because general affluence consists in an abundance of these things.” This is the principle.
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“But it is necessary for this abundance to flow from the nation’s work. If it were based on foreign work, domestic work would stop immediately.” This is the error.
“Therefore, what should a farming and manufacturing country do? Limit its market to the products of its territory and its industry.” This is the aim.
“And to do this, limit through duties, and prohibit as necessary, the products of the territory and industry of other peoples.” This is the means.
Let us compare this approach with that of the petition from Bordeaux.
The petition divides all goods into four categories. The first and second cover food products and raw materials that have not yet undergone any human transformation. In principle a wise economy would require that these two categories not be taxed.
The third category
