Thanksgiving Was a Triumph of Capitalism over Collectivism

Thanksgiving Was a Triumph of Capitalism over Collectivism

This time of the year, whether in good economic times or bad, is when we gather with our family and friends and enjoy a Thanksgiving meal together. It marks a remembrance of those early Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the uncharted ocean from Europe to make a new start in Plymouth,
Massachusetts. What is less appreciated is that Thanksgiving is also a celebration of the birth of free enterprise in America.

The English Puritans, who left Great Britain and sailed across the Atlantic on the Mayflower in 1620, were not only escaping from religious persecution in their homeland. They also wanted to turn their backs on what they viewed as the materialistic and greedy corruption of the Old World.
Two years of communism in practice had left alive only a fraction of the original number of the Plymouth colonists.

In the New World, they wanted to erect a New Jerusalem that would not only be religiously devout, but be built on a new foundation of communal sharing and social altruism. Their goal was the communism of Plato’s Republic, in which all would work and share in common, knowing neither private property nor self-interested acquisitiveness.

What resulted is recorded in the journal of Governor William Bradford, the head of the colony. The colonists collectively cleared and worked land, but they brought forth neither the bountiful harvest they hoped for, nor did it create a spirit of shared and cheerful brotherhood.

The less industrious members of the colony came late to their work in the fields, and were slow and easy in their labors. Knowing that they and their families were to receive an equal share of whatever the group produced, they saw little reason to be more diligent their efforts. The harder working among the colonists became resentful that their efforts would be redistributed to the more malingering members of the colony. Soon they, too, were coming late to work and were less energetic in the fields.

As Governor Bradford explained in his old English (though with the spelling modernized):

For the young men that were able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children, without recompense. The strong, or men of parts, had no more division of food, clothes, etc. then he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labor, and food, clothes, etc. with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignant and disrespect unto them. And for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc. they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could their husbands brook it.

Because of the disincentives and resentments that spread among the population, crops were sparse and the rationed equal shares from the collective harvest were not enough to ward off starvation and death. Two years of communism in practice had left alive only a fraction of the original number of the Plymouth colonists.

Realizing that another season like those that had just passed would mean the extinction of the entire community, the elders of the colony decided to try something radically different: the introduction of private property rights and the right of the individual families to keep the fruits of their own labor.
As Governor Bradford put it:

And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number for that end . . .This had a very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little-ones with them to set corn, which before would alledge weakness, and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

The Plymouth Colony experienced a great bounty of food. Private ownership meant that there was now a close link between work and reward. Industry became the order of the day as the men and women in each family went to the fields on their separate private farms. When the harvest time came, not only did many families produce enough for their own needs, but they had surpluses that they could freely exchange with their neighbors for mutual benefit and improvement.
In Governor Bradford’s words:

By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God. And the effect of their planting was well seen, for all had, one way or other, pretty well to bring the year about, and some of the abler sort and more industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day.

Hard experience had taught the Plymouth colonists the fallacy and error in the ideas of that since the time of the ancient Greeks had promised paradise through collectivism rather than individualism. As Governor Bradford expressed it:

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that amongst the Godly and sober men, may well convince of the vanity and conceit of Plato’s and other ancients; -- that the taking away of property, and bringing into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.

Was this realization that communism was incompatible with human nature and the prosperity of humanity to be despaired or be a cause for guilt? Not in Governor Bradford’s eyes. It was simply a matter of accepting that altruism and collectivism were inconsistent with the nature of man, and that human institutions should reflect the reality of man’s nature if he is to prosper. Said Governor Bradford:

Let none object this is man’s corruption, and nothing to the curse itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in his wisdom saw another course fitter for them.

The desire to “spread the wealth” and for government to plan and regulate people’s lives is as old as the utopian fantasy in Plato’s Republic. The Pilgrim Fathers tried and soon realized its bankruptcy and failure as a way for men to live together in society.

Let us remember that what we are really celebrating is the birth of free men and free enterprise in that New World of America.

They, instead, accepted man as he is: hardworking, productive, and innovative when allowed the liberty to follow his own interests in improving his own circumstances and those of his family. And even more, out of his industry result the quantities of useful goods that enable men to trade to their mutual benefit.

In the wilderness of the New World, the Plymouth Pilgrims had progressed from the false dream of communism to the sound realism of capitalism. At a time of economic uncertainty, it is worthwhile recalling this beginning of the American experiment and experience with freedom.

This is the lesson of the First Thanksgiving. This year, when we sit around our dining table with our family and friends, let us also remember that what we are really celebrating is the birth of free men and free enterprise in that New World of America.

The real meaning of Thanksgiving, in other words, is the triumph of capitalism over the failure of collectivism in all its forms.

Richard M. Ebeling

Richard M. Ebeling is BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. He was president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) from 2003 to 2008.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

What Socialism Actually Looks Like by T. Hodgson 1906

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THE WORKHOUSE THE MOST PERFECT EXAMPLE OF SOCIALISM by T. Hodgson, Chaplain at Shoreditch Workhouse 1906

What has socialism to say for itself, so far as present examples of its operations and effects are concerned? The postal department is usually cited as the example of what a socialistic State would be like. It is, say the advocates of socialism, the most successful department of State, and has conferred many benefits upon the community. But the postal department is, as compared with other departments, a very simple department to work; and a system like this would not necessarily succeed if applied to the whole complex relations of life. It is always easy to manage simple bodies; it is when you come to deal with complex organisms that you are confronted with difficulties. But even this department, simple as it is, is not perfect; neither are those who live and work under it entirely contented. They have their grievances, like other folks, and they do not appear to be any better provided for than workers in other spheres of life. Nay, it is distinctly certain that they are not so well provided for as many other workers are; and, if proof be needed of this, it will be found in the fact that postmen find it necessary to augment their State income by engaging, as far as they can, in other branches of work, and so helping to complicate and intensify the labour problem. The postal system, indeed, presents some features of what a socialistic State would be like, such as low wages, a uniform dress, a monotonous routine, and a strict and severe supervision.

But the postal department is not the most perfect example that we have of what a socialistic State would be like. If you want to see a real example of what socialism absolute would be, you must look to the workhouse [in the UK it is a public institution in which the destitute of a parish received board and lodging in return for work]. In the workhouse you may find a socialistic State in miniature. In the workhouse you will see all the ghastly features of socialism displayed, and observe the effects of a system which is held up to working men and others as the most perfect means of salvation from our social ills, and as the best possible paradise of an intelligent and liberty-loving people. Here you may learn what absolute State control means; what a monotonous routine can do; and how possible it is for one supreme hand to recognise the merits, rights, and deserts of either single individuals or groups of them. Under the Poor Laws there is no recognition of the essence of law, as set forth in the words, "The law was made for evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well." All come under the same stern and unbending rule. Neither respectability, desert, skill, nor payment receives the slightest recognition. The reward of labour, so far as it is performed, is paid in the shape of food—good or bad, as the case may be—and clothes of a particular and stereotyped kind. Here liberty is entirely lost; everything is by permission or command. The State, in fact, determines everything, and exacts an implicit obedience from all alike. And so life is reduced to a dull, dead, dreary monotony—a paralysing and degrading routine.

Perhaps you will say, "Reform the system." Our reply is, Reform as you like, you cannot permanently improve it. You can only pass it from one kind of monotony to another. You may prescribe a better diet, dress, and kind of work; but the absoluteness of the State will remain, and the influence of these will be the same, howsoever they may be expressed. The most that can be done is to supply the spirit with a different body, and it is just the spirit that colours and determines everything. The only effectual way of dealing with our workhouses is by reforming them off the face of the earth. I sincerely hope that an enterprising, humane, and intelligent people will soon effect this reform, for workhouses are a standing disgrace to civilisation, a menace to, and a degradation of, human nature. They are costly and cruel, expensive and useless, a temptation and a shame. They are cruel to the respectable and worthy poor; they are useless as regards the lazy and the bad; and they are a temptation to capital, to labour, to all alike, to neglect their reasonable duty, and to forego the exercise of some of their best and noblest faculties. Brother Englishmen, let us sweep them away! Let us demand that our respectable and worthy fellow-men, who have reasonably and honestly done their work and served the community faithfully, shall have better treatment, when their health and strength have failed them, than imprisonment by the State at the cost and with the consent of their toiling brethren. And for the rest, those who do not come under the foregoing head, we shall know how to provide some fitting reward.

I have said very little about the influence which this example wields over those who are not inmates. But from experience and observation I am in a position to tell you that it is most disastrous. It spoils, by its monotony and dreariness, the temper, and nature, and disposition of all those who come under it. It is only by the most desperate efforts that you can counteract it—only, at times, by actually doing something desperate that you can keep yourself above the dull level, and overcome what, for convenience sake, I will call the workhouse law of gravitation.

And this is our present most representative example of what socialism would be. If I am right, or even if I am only partially right, socialism is not desirable. It will bring no relief to the worker, it will not increase wages, it will not bring in the golden age; but it will destroy liberty, it will introduce monotony, it will prevent individual and national progression, it will take away all incentives to ennoblement of character; it will supersede our family life, which is our best and highest source of joy; it will curtail our pleasures, complicate and make impossible our relations with surrounding nations; it will place us all under an absolute State, and all this implies a tyranny.
               

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Democracy is Communism, by Ernest Belfort Bax 1912

Democracy is Communism, by Ernest Belfort Bax (Socialist) 1912

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The term Socialism is usually supposed to date from Robert Owen. It is doubtful, however, whether Owen's claim to having invented the word is altogether sustainable. Pierre Leroux, Louis Reybaud, and others have similar claims to have been its originators. The truth would seem to be that it came into being about the same time in more than one quarter. It soon began to be applied indifferently to the theories of the three great Utopian systems which arose during the early part of the nineteenth century, namely, those of Owen, Fourier, and Saint Simon. Now these three systems had this in common, they proposed to revolutionise human life in its various aspects, primarily its economic basis, the mode under which production and distribution of its wealth takes place. This economic reconstruction was regarded as a lever for revolutionary changes in other departments of human life, notably in marriage and the family relation, and in the mental and moral attitude of man towards society and the universe. As will be seen, the word arose at a time when the new capitalist class, based upon the machine industry, was rising to power. It thus connoted on its negative side the antithesis to the individualism —"each for himself and the devil take the hindmost" — which was the expression of the new capitalist view of social life.

It should be remarked that the systems to which the term Socialism was originally applied, one and all included revolutionary changes in the relations of the sexes and in religious belief, in addition to economic reconstruction, as part and parcel of their programme. In 1848, with the national workshops scheme of Louis Blanc, the term Socialism first came within the sphere of practical politics. The principle of co-operative production at the basis of all the Utopian systems to which the name of Socialism had been hitherto applied, was now about to enter the arena, as it seemed, of actual social and political life. (Of course, as every man knows, who cares to know at the present day, Louis Blanc's scheme, defective as it was, never had a chance on this occasion. But this has nothing to do with our present subject.)

From the revolution of 1848 may possibly be dated the tendency to narrow down the definition of Socialism to an exclusively economic issue. In 1847, less than a year before the outbreak of the great revolutionary movement, Marx and Engels drew up a document which may be regarded as the literary inauguration of the Modern Socialist Movement, to wit, the celebrated Communist Manifesto. Under the name of Communism—the word Socialism having by that time become somewhat usé, owing to its association not only with the three great Utopian systems of the beginning of the century, but with inferior imitations, and crude theories emanating from them—the two protagonists of the modern movement drew up a statement of the scientific and historical conditions of which the co-operative commonwealth, which constituted the essential ideal of what had hitherto gone under the name of Socialism, would be the issue. The term "Communism" adopted throughout the manifesto soon fell into disuse and became supplanted by the phrase Social Democracy, and by the old word Socialism, which seems destined to triumph finally over all competitors. In the Communist Manifesto, as is well known, the point of view of historic evolution of the class-struggle under the paramountcy of the economic side of human affairs, was expounded for the first time in a succinct and definite form. That democracy was the essential condition of Communism (Socialism) was emphatically insisted upon, and that the transformation of the Civilisation of to-day into the Socialism of to-morrow must be brought about through a political revolution involving a change in the possessors of power, was made clear. Henceforward the Socialist movement in the modern sense began slowly to shape itself. We come now to the main question...namely, as to the definitions of Socialism in its modern acceptation....The idea of democracy has always formed an essential element in the conception of Socialism as such.

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From Utopia to Animal Farm

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From Utopia to Animal Farm

In a society such as ours … is appears crazy at first to want revolution. For we have whatever we want. But the aim here is to transform the will itself so that people no longer want what they now want… .The question with which we had to deal … amounts to the question of whether … in order to set free these needs, a dictatorship appears necessary…
–Herbert Marcuse, “The End of Utopia” (1967)

All ‘favourable’ Utopias seem to be alike in postulating perfection while being unable to suggest happiness ... The inhabitants of various [Utopias] are chiefly concerned with avoiding fuss. They live uneventful, subdued, ‘reasonable’ lives, free not only from quarrels, disorder or insecurity of any kind, but also from passion … Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary. The wiser course would be to say that there are certain lines along which humanity must move, the grand strategy is mapped out, but detailed prophecy is not our business. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.
–George Orwell, “Why Socialists Don’t Believe in Fun” (1943)

If another group tie takes the place of the religious one – and the socialistic tie seems to be succeeding in doing so – then there will be the same intolerance towards outsiders as in the age of the Wars of Religion.
–Sigmund Freud, “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” (1921).

The actual distribution of income or wealth has often been compared with a hypothetical ideal (Utopia), rather than actual experience in any country at any time.

Many Westerners once believed incomes were nearly equal in the former Soviet Union, for example, but we now know that substantial privileges did exist for a select few – based on political power rather than economic contribution. Even aside from bribery and corruption, special access to health care, education, housing and special shops was often granted to the Communist Party hierarchy and the bureaucratic elite. Urban people in general were subsidized at the expense of rural areas.
By the late 70s, only a handful of Western leftists continued to defend such dictatorships as Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Castro’s Cuba, or North Korea’s Kim Jong-il/Kim Jong-un feudal dynasty.

In recent years, the left’s previous romanticism of communism has sometimes been briefly salvaged by relabeling similar authoritarian regimes as “socialist” (Chavez in Venezuela), which sounds nicer, but isn’t. Others have switched to romanticizing some golden age of the past. In the US, for example, the Golden Age of greater equality was said to have occurred between 1930 and 1973. Yet the relatively egalitarian (“fair”?) suffering of 1930-39 is difficult to romanticize, for obvious reasons, as is the post-1973 stagflationary collapse of Nixon’s authoritarian price controls.

Political or Economic Criteria?
Vague allusions to social justice are often employed to suggest that a larger fraction of the economy’s benefits (food, housing, health care, etc.) could and should be distributed by government rather than by markets. In theory, we could turn over all of our income to democratically elected officials and let them decide who gets what. But distribution on the basis of political criteria is not necessarily fairer than distribution on the basis of economic criteria. Political markets also tend toward one-size-fits-all solutions, with less variety and innovation than in economic markets.

Those currently expecting politicians to make various goods or services “affordable” or “free” are really just asking government officials to force someone else to pay. But artificially low prices (e.g., for colleges or physicians) inflate demand and discourage supply, requiring some bureaucrat to use nonprice rationing such as waiting lists, lotteries or preferential treatment for those with the most political clout.

The only alternative to a free market is a politically rigged market, and that invariably turns out to be neither fair nor pleasant.

The only way to ban markets is to beat them down with force. And since markets are abstractions, the force is used against people. So the alternative to a market-oriented society in which everyone is required to respect everyone else’s rights is a society in which those in power use force on whomever they can get away with using it on.”
–David R. Henderson, The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics (1997)

This first appeared at Cato.

Alan Reynolds

Alan Reynolds is one of the original supply-side economists. He is Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and was formerly Director of Economic Research at the Hudson Institute.

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Pictures of the Socialistic Future

Pictures of the Socialistic Future

There was a school of German liberals in the nineteenth century, and this is a masterpiece to emerge from that school. Eugene Richter saw what socialism would mean, and he traced it all out in a marvelous novel that is so prescient that it’s spooky. I had to close the book several times to get over the chills. One reason it is so chilling is that it is written from the point of view of a defender of socialism. To see how the narrator comes to terms with the poverty, the horror, the death—it is all just a bit too realistic a forecast of twentieth-century intellectual life.

I can’t recommend this book too highly. This book is a remarkable discovery, as fresh today as when it was first translated in 1893. It is a novel of life under socialism by Eugene Richter, a German liberal of the nineteenth century.

Prophetic is not quite the word for this book. Richter saw with chilling clarity what would happen under socialistic control. The economy would be smashed. Families would be destroyed. The population would grow poorer by the day. The state would be unleashed to crush political dissent and lock everyone into a national prison. None of the ideals would be achieved.

The novel’s narrative voice, however, is blinded by ideological loyalty to the cause. As he describes the calamity, he justifies it all in the name of progress, equality, and fairness to all. The reader, then, experiences the horrors of the events and then also the horrors of the intellectual twists and turns that some people will undertake to keep the disaster happening as long as possible.

To remember that this was written before any country actually experienced the total state is astonishing, page by page. The tone of the narrative is chillingly light and detached. Meanwhile, the events taking place make the blood run cold. The novel not only fulfills Mises’s own predictions of life under socialism; it anticipates them long before any country embraced socialism as a system.
This is the book that shouts out, as clearly as any ever written: we were warned!

It is also the longest example of writing from the great generation of German liberals, and it is surely one of the best, literary proof to English readers that stunning prescience existed in those days.
Pictures of a Socialistic Future even succeeds as a novel. It is gripping to read, even deeply painful in many places. One can imagine that this work is capable of shaking the faith of even the most diehard socialist.

Bryan Caplan of George Mason University writes the new introduction to the book. “Only the Richterian theory can readily explain why the most devoted surviving child of German socialism grew up to be the prison-state of East Germany: Self-righteous brutality was the purists’ plan all along. Decades before the socialists gained power, Eugene Richter saw the writing on the wall. The great tragedy of the twentieth century is that the world had to learn about totalitarian socialism from bitter experience, instead of Richter’s inspired novel. Many failed to see the truth until the Berlin Wall went up. By then, alas, it was too late.”

- Jeffrey Tucker

Eugen Richter

Eugen Richter (July 30, 1838 in Düsseldorf – March 10, 1906 in Lichterfelde, Berlin) was a German politician and journalist in Imperial Germany. He was one of the leading advocates of liberalism in the Prussian Diet and the German Reichstag.

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Why Does Mike Rowe Love This Economics Book?

Why Does Mike Rowe Love This Economics Book?

They say that authors are not the best judges of their greatest work. Only the wisdom of time can determine that. This seems especially true of Henry Hazlitt. Seventy years after he wrote Economics in One Lesson, the book is still going strong. Most recently, it was recommended by Mike Rowe:

Spend a few hours every week studying American history, human nature, and economic theory. Start with “Economics in One Lesson.” Then try Keynes. Then Hayek. Then Marx. Then Hegel. Develop a worldview that you can articulate as well as defend. Test your theory with people who disagree with you. Debate. Argue. Adjust your philosophy as necessary. Then, when the next election comes around, cast a vote for the candidate whose worldview seems most in line with your own.
Or, don’t. None of the freedoms spelled out in our Constitution were put there so people could cast uninformed ballots out of some misplaced sense of civic duty brought on by a celebrity guilt-trip. The right to assemble, to protest, to speak freely – these rights were included to help assure that the best ideas and the best candidates would emerge from the most transparent process possible.

Just last week, I heard Mike speak. He loves the real world – and I can understand his conviction of the sheer fakeness of the world imagined by politicians. Hazlitt shared that same view, and this comes through in the text.

This brings to mind one of the special moments in my life. Before his death in 1993, I sat in the back of a limousine on the way to dinner with Henry Hazlitt and discussed the book. I asked him if he felt pride that his book was still a best seller. He said that he did not, since he didn’t think it was very good. A book he felt genuinely proud of was Foundations of Morality – probably one of his least known works.

Pushed Out by the New York Times
Before starting his next job, Hazlitt decided to take a few weeks to write a primer on basic economics. His attitude is understandable when you consider the context in which Lesson was written. For twelve years, he had been writing daily editorials, mostly unsigned, for the New York Times. He was also writing book reviews under his own name for the Sunday paper. He was aware of the ideological conflicts at the paper. There were many partisans for the New Deal. He was not among them. But his status was protected there because of the desire for diversity of opinion.

But as the war was ending, the paper had to make a choice. Powerful elites had gathered to cobble together a post-war planning apparatus that included a world bank and a new system of monetary management. It was the new dollar standard – one not entirely divorced from gold, but the US dollar would be the only currency tied to gold. The rest of the developed world would tie their currencies to the dollar.

Hazlitt knew that it couldn’t work. The US was not in a position to determine the fiscal policies of other nations. They would not feel the discipline that gold would impose and would be incentivized to spend freely without facing downward currency pressure. This would ultimately cause gold outflows from the US as the demand for gold would rise, even as its dollar price was fixed. This would prompt unsustainable gold outflows. The imbalances would cry out for correction and the whole system would collapse.

Fired (Sort of)

Hazlitt explained this day after day. But as time went on, it became ever more clear that the Bretton Woods system was a foregone conclusion. The paper would have to adjust. The editor brought Hazlitt in and told him to stop editorializing against it. Hazlitt complied but also began to tidy his desk to prepare his resignation. He left in 1946.

His next job was writing for Newsweek, while also helping Leonard Read get the newly formed Foundation for Economic Education going. He had also become good friends with Ludwig von Mises, and eagerly anticipated serving as his literary champion.

It is doing for us in 2016 what it did for people in 1946: teaching the fundamental truths.But before starting his new job, Hazlitt decided to take a few weeks to write a primer on basic economics. After all, it was what the world needed now. He wrote it in a white heat, putting on paper all the apparatus he carried in his head. He avoided hard theory but jumped straight to the large lesson: economics is about the effects of policies on all groups over the long run, not isolated groups in the short run. He applied it as broadly as possible to all existing political and economic controversies.

Why does a book become a wild best seller? The title. The timing. The clarity of content. The benefit it provides to the reader. There are many reasons, and, for whatever reason, it all came together for Hazlitt in this one book. It would secure his reputation. To his private dismay, it would be the text that would define his legacy.

Since Rowe recommended it, FEE.org has been blowing up with hits and downloads of the book. Good. It is doing for us in 2016 what it did for people in 1946: teaching the fundamental truths. And given the way things are going in this election, which has provided frequent occasions for  head-slapping for many months now, it is once again serving its intended purpose.

Economics must be taught anew in every generation. Hazlitt continues to be the world’s teacher.
Bretton Woods is long dead. But this book lives on.

Jeffrey Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education and CLO of the startup Liberty.me. Author of five books, and many thousands of articles, he speaks at FEE summer seminars and other events. His latest book is Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World.  Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook. Email. Tweets by @jeffreyatucker

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Frédéric Bastiat Deserves a Posthumous Nobel by Lawrence W Reed

Frédéric Bastiat Deserves a Posthumous Nobel

If a posthumous Nobel Prize was awarded for crystal-clear writing and masterful storytelling in economics, no one would be more deserving of it than Frédéric Bastiat (June 30, 1801–December 24, 1850). He set the standard over a century and a half ago.

This remarkable Frenchman was an economist in more than the traditional sense. He understood the way the economic world works, and he knew better than anybody how to explain it with an economy of words. He employed everyday language and a conversational tone, an innate clarity that flowed from his logical and orderly presentation. Nothing he wrote was stilted, artificial, or pompous. He was concise and devastatingly to the point. To this day, nobody can read Bastiat and wonder, “Now what was that all about?”

Economic writing these days can be dull and lifeless, larded with verbosity and presumptuous mathematics. Bastiat proved that economics doesn’t have to be that way: the core truths of the science can be made lively and unforgettable. In literature, we think of good storytelling as an art and stories as powerful tools for understanding. Bastiat could tell a story that stabbed you with its brilliance. If your misconceptions were his target, his stories could leave you utterly, embarrassingly disarmed.

If you aspire to be an economist or a policy maker or a teacher or just an influential communicator, take time to study at the feet of this 19th-century master.

At the end of his short life, Bastiat served two years in France’s Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, where he worked tirelessly to convince fellow members of the merits of freedom and free markets. They proved to be his toughest audience. Most were far more interested in selfish and ephemeral satisfactions (such as power, money, reelection, and the dispensing of favors to friends) than in enduring truths. Biographer Dean Russell writes,

It is true that every one of Bastiat’s major proposals in the Assembly was defeated! But if that is to be the sole or primary test of influence, we might be led to the absurd conclusion that the influence of Socrates’ ideas was settled by the poisoned cup.

Bastiat’s most famous work is The Law, a book that FEE is proud to have revived and kept alive for decades. Now we aim to introduce a new generation of readers to three of his lesser-known works: Economic Sophisms, Economic Harmonies, and Selected Essays on Political Economy. Each is a masterpiece of clear writing and powerful storytelling.

Protectionism comes under relentless assault by Bastiat in these three volumes. Why should two countries that dig a tunnel through their mountainous border to facilitate travel and trade then seek to undo its advantages by imposing burdensome taxes at both ends? If the sun offers free sunlight, why shouldn’t we accept it heartily instead of decrying it as unfair competition for candle makers? And if an exporter sells his goods abroad for more than they were worth at home, then buys valuable goods with the proceeds to bring back to his homeland, why would anyone in his right mind condemn the transactions as yielding a balance of trade “deficit”? If you’re a protectionist before reading Bastiat, you’ll either repent or forever remain in darkness with no excuse.

The world in the 21st century is beset with economic fallacies that are, for the most part, modern versions of those that Bastiat demolished 16 decades ago. The answers to the vexing problems those fallacies produce are not to be found in proposals that empower bureaucracy while imposing tortuous regulations on private behavior. It’s far more likely that the answers lie in the profound and permanent principles that Frédéric Bastiat did so much to illuminate.

Sound economics and radiant exposition converge in these works. His brilliance is the gift that never gives up.

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is President of the Foundation for Economic Education and the author of the forthcoming book, Real Heroes: Inspiring True Stories of Courage, Character and Conviction. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.