Author(s): Frederic Bastiat
Publisher: Evergreen Review, Inc.
Binding: Kindle Edition
You have to put the author in context--writing in mid-19th Century France--and, if you do, you'll be most impressed with Bastiat's partial mastery of economics and even greater mastery of fundamentals, such as the virtue of self-interest. He's encumbered somewhat by religion, but probably no more so than America's Founders, and what's more important than his weakness here is his strength: His ability to see that laissez-faire capitalism is the only answer to socialism, communism, or any form of statism. Keep in mind that Bastiat wrote this work long before the 20th century was forced (in part of the world) to endure the terror of Communism, a system based on the opposite of Bastiat's viewpoints. His condemnation of collectivism reads like an after-the-fact condemnation of Soviet Communism. At times, he even sounds like Ayn Rand, although he did not have her full philosophical grasp and he struggles because of it. Some of his comments are review to those familiar with the classical works of the more technically skilled economists Ludwig von Mises and (in contemporary times) George Reisman, but he does offer some original points, such as the notion that competition is essentially a state of liberty, as opposed to the conventional understanding of competition as "beat the other guy." On the whole, a highly worthwhile read.