in the contemporary American sense of the word.
MONNAIE. The word “money” is used in many senses by Bastiat, such as la numéraire (cash or gold or silver coins), la papier monnaie (paper money or notes), and l’argent (money in a general sense).
PRIX. Bastiat uses many expressions to talk about price, such as le prix d’achat (the purchase price), le prix de vente (the sale price), le prix courant (the market price), le prix de revient (the cost price), le prix rémunérateur (the price which covers one’s costs), le prix débattu (the freely negotiated price), and le prix absolus (nominal or money price).
PROHIBITIONISTE, PROTECTIONNISTE. Les prohibitionistes referred to the advocates of prohibiting imports so that domestic manufacturers had a monopoly of the home market, whereas les protectionnistes referred to the advocates of protectionism who wanted high tariffs in order to help domestic manufacturers compete with foreign manufacturers. The two different systems to which these policies gave rise Bastiat termed le régime prohibitif (the system of import prohibition) and le régime de la protection (the protectionist system) respectively.
RÉGIME. Often translated as “regime,” “society,” or “system,” as in le régime de la protection (the protectionist system) or le régime de la liberté (the system of liberty or a free society).
SPOLIATION. Translated here as “plunder.” There are several related terms, including spolier (to plunder), les spoliateurs (the plunderers), les spoliées (the plundered), la classe spoliatrice (the plundering class), les classes spoliées (the plundered classes), and the adjective spoliatrice (plunderous).
TAXE, TARIF, DROIT. The payments which the government imposed on various goods and services, such as le droit (duty), le tarif (tariff), and la taxe (tax).
TRAVAIL. Many different words are used to translate travail, such as “work,” “labor,” “production,” and “employment.” Related words include le travailleur
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(worker or laborer) and la classe des travailleurs (the working or laboring class). Bastiat also carefully distinguished between these two different expressions involving work or labor: le droit au travail (the right to work or the right to a job), which was advocated by the socialists, and le droit du travail (the right to engage in work), which was advocated by the free-market economists.
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Note on the Editions of the Œuvres complètes
The first edition of the Œuvres complètes appeared in 1854–55, consisting of six volumes.1 The second edition, which appeared in 1862–64, was an almost identical reprint of the first edition (with only minor typesetting differences) but was notable for the addition of a new, seventh volume, which contained additional essays, sketches, and correspondence.2 In addition, the second edition contained a preface by Prosper Paillottet and a biographical essay on Bastiat by Roger de Fontenay (“Notice sur la vie et les écrits de Frédéric Bastiat”), both of which were absent in the first edition.
While the second edition of the Œuvres complètes was being printed, a three-volume edition of Bastiat’s selected works, Œuvres choisies, appeared in 1863 using the same plates as the Œuvres complètes. Volumes 1 and 2 of the Œuvres choisies were reproductions of volumes 4 and 5 of the Œuvres complètes (containing Economic Sophisms First and Second Series and the Petits pamphlets), and volume 3 of the Œuvres choisies was the fourth edition of Economic Harmonies. Economic Harmonies appeared the following year (1864) as volume 6 of the Œuvres complètes and was called the fifth edition.
Another difference between the first and second editions was in the sixth volume, which contained Bastiat’s magnum opus, Economic Harmonies. The first edition of the Œuvres complètes described volume 6 as the “third revised and augmented edition” of Economic Harmonies. This is somewhat confusing but does have some logic to it. The “first” edition of Economic Harmonies
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appeared in 1850 during the last year of Bastiat’s life but in an incomplete form. The “second” edition appeared in 1851, after his death, edited by “La Société des amis de Bastiat” (most probably by Prosper Paillottet and Roger de Fontenay) and included the second half of the manuscript, which Bastiat had been working on when he died. Thus the edition that appeared in the first edition of the Œuvres complètes was called the “third” edition on its volume’s title page. As noted above, volume three of the Œuvres choisies, which appeared in 1863, included as volume 3 the fourth edition of the Economic Harmonies. When the second edition of the Œuvres complètes was published between 1862 and 1864, it included as volume 6 the fifth edition of Economic Harmonies (1864). This practice continued throughout the nineteenth century, with editions of Economic Harmonies staying in print as a separate volume as well as being included as volume 6 in later editions of the Œuvres complètes; thus, by 1870–73, when the third edition of the Œuvres complètes appeared, the version of Economic Harmonies that appeared in volume 6 was titled the “sixth” edition of the work.
Other “editions” of the Œuvres complètes include a fourth edition, 1878–79; a fifth edition, 1881–84; if there was a sixth edition, the date is unknown; a seventh edition, 1893; and a final edition may have appeared in 1907.3
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WORKS IN THIS VOLUME
Economic Sophisms First Series
| ES1 I | Introduction: Author’s Introduction |
| ES1 1 | Abundance and Scarcity |
| ES1 2 | Obstacle and Cause |
| ES1 3 | Effort and Result |
| ES1 4 | Equalizing the Conditions of Production |
| ES1 5 | Our Products Are Weighed Down with Taxes |
| ES1 6 | The Balance of Trade |
| ES1 7 | Petition by the Manufacturers of Candles, Etc. |
| ES1 8 | Differential Duties |
| ES1 9 | An Immense Discovery!!! |
| ES1 10 | Reciprocity |
| ES1 11 | Nominal Prices |
| ES1 12 | Does Protection Increase the Rate of Pay? |
| ES1 13 | Theory and Practice |
| ES1 14 |
A Conflict of Principles
|
