You may have noticed that I was busy all weekend. I was studying Bastiat for a blog assignment and babysitting* the kids.
*A most inaccurate term for playing with, supervising, protecting, instructing, feeding, bathing, dressing, taking to church, shopping, etc. On the weekends, I try not to make any of these things seem to be a chore, and I avoid rushing (and football analogies).
....
Some preliminary notes:
It's amazing what you miss in a first reading. I'm trying to think of something to write about him that introduces the subject, adequately explains his heroism and doesn't rely too heavily on quotes. The problem with Bastiat is, what do you not quote. Every paragraph is brilliant, and builds on the previous ones.
He has one weakness. His theory of value is too much based on Turgot, Smith and Say, and thus remains little more than an elaboration of the Labor Theory of Value. An improvement on Ricardo, Malthus and Marx, but not a breakthrough which could explain, say, the diamond/water paradox [Why are diamonds, which are almost useless, more vastly more expensive than water, which is almost infinitely useful?].
Anyway, in his introduction/dedication to Economic Harmonies, To The Youth of France, he says,
If the laws of Providence are harmonious, they can be so only when they operate under conditions of freedom, for otherwise harmony is lacking. Therefore, when we perceive something inharmonious in the world, it cannot fail to correspond to some lack of freedom or justice. Oppressors, plunderers, you who hold justice in contempt, you cannot take your place in the universal harmony, for you are the ones who disrupt it.
Does this mean that the effect of this book would be to weaken the power of government, endanger its stability, lessen its authority? The goal I have in view is precisely the opposite. But let us understand one another.
The function of political science is to determine what should and what should not fall under government control; and in making this important distinction, we must not lose sight of the fact that the state always acts through the instrumentality of force. Both the services it renders us and those it makes us render in return are imposed upon us in the form of taxes.
The question then amounts to this: What are the things that men have the right to impose upon one another by force? Now, I know of only one, and that is justice. I have no right to force anyone to be religious, charitable, well educated, or industrious; but I have the right to force him to be just: this is a case of legitimate self-defense.
Now, there cannot exist for a group of individuals any new rights over and above those that they already possessed as individuals. If, therefore, the use of force by the individual is justified solely on grounds of legitimate self-defense, we need only recognize that government action always takes the form of force to conclude that by its very nature it can be exerted solely for the maintenance of order, security, and justice.
All government action beyond this limit is an encroachment upon the individual's conscience, intelligence, and industry—in a word, upon human liberty.
I force myself, with difficulty, to cut off the quote.
Some of you may have noticed that I have difficulty excerpting. To a large degree, it's because I have an aversion to it. RTWT [Read The Whole Thing] is almost a religious tenet to me. When I exerpt, I'm trying to sell you on reading the rest.
My goal, in the end, is to give you a basic feel for the audience he faced and the courage of the man who faced them. [Those who know the story are chuckling, in a rueful way; but not to the extent they might if we were discussing Thomas More or John Lilburne.] And to hint at the convictions that gave him such courage and that there is good reasoning behind them.
And why you should read them yourself.
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