Economic Sophisms and “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen”. Bastiat Frédéric

Bastiat has been justly recognized for his excellent style by economists such as Friedrich Hayek and the historian of economic thought Joseph Schumpeter, but his methodology has not been studied in any detail. Schumpeter described Bastiat in very mixed terms as a brilliant economic journalist but as “no theorist” at all:

      Admired by sympathizers, reviled by opponents, his name might have gone down to posterity as the most brilliant economic journalist who ever lived.… I do not hold that Bastiat was a bad theorist. I hold that he was no theorist.24

      Friedrich Hayek seems to agree with Schumpeter that Bastiat was not a major theorist but that he was “a publicist of genius” who did pioneering work in exposing economic fallacies held by the general public.25 Nevertheless, Schumpeter did acknowledge a key aspect of Bastiat’s style, noting that “[a] series of Sophismes économiques followed, whose pleasant wit … has ever since been the delight of many.” However, some contemporary economists reject this view and see Bastiat as fundamentally challenging the classical school of economics by attempting to go beyond its theoretical limitations, especially concerning Malthusian population theory (Bastiat believed that technological innovation and free markets would enable people to break free of the Malthusian trap) and the Ricardian theory of rent (Bastiat believed there was nothing especially productive about land and that it was just another form of an exchange of “service for service” as was profit and interest).

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      His innovations in a number of areas suggest that had he lived long enough to complete Economic Harmonies he might have taken his insights into subjective value theory (predating the Marginal Revolution of the 1870s by twenty years) and public choice theory about the behavior of political actors (predating the work of James Buchanan and others by over a hundred years), into realms that were much ahead of their time.

      A list of the rhetorical devices used by Bastiat in the Sophisms shows the breadth and complexity of what one might call his “rhetoric of liberty,” which he formulated to expose the follies of the policies of the ruling elite and their system of “legal plunder” and to undermine their authority and legitimacy with “the sting of ridicule”:

      1. A standard prose format which one would normally encounter in a newspaper.

      2. The single authorial voice in the form of a personal conversation with the reader.

      3. A serious, constructed dialogue between stock figures who represented different viewpoints (in this Bastiat was influenced by Jane Marcet and Harriet Martineau; Gustave de Molinari continued Bastiat’s format in some of his writings in the late 1840s and 1850s).

      4. Satirical “official” letters or petitions to government officials or ministers, and other fabricated documents written by Bastiat (in these Bastiat would usually use a reductio ad absurdum argument to mock his opponents’ arguments).

      5. The use of Robinson Crusoe “thought experiments” to make serious economic points or arguments in a more easily understandable format.

      6. “Economic tales” modeled on the works of classic French authors, such as La Fontaine’s fables and Andrieux’s short stories.26

      7. Parodies of well-known scenes from French literature, such as Molière’s plays.

      8. Quoting scenes of plays where the playwright mocks the pretensions of aspiring bourgeois who want to act like the nobles who disdain commerce (e.g., Molière, Beaumarchais).

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      9. Quoting poems with political content, such as Horace’s ode on the transience of tyrants.

      10. Quoting satirical songs about the foolish or criminal behavior of kings or emperors (such as Napoléon). Bastiat seems to be familiar with the world of the goguettiers (political song writers, especially Béranger) and their interesting sociological world of drinking and singing clubs.

      11. The use of jokes and puns (such as the names he gave to characters in his dialogues [Mr. Blockhead], or place names [Stulta and Puera], and puns on words such as Highville and gaucherie).

      Our study of Bastiat’s Sophisms reveals a well-read man who was familiar with classic French literature, contemporary songs and poems, and opera. The sheer number and range of materials which Bastiat was able to draw upon in his writings is very impressive. It not only includes the classics of political economy in the French, Spanish, Italian, and English languages but also a very wide collection of modern French literature which includes the following: fables and fairy tales by La Fontaine and Perrault; plays by Molière, Beaumarchais, Victor Hugo, Regnard, Désaugiers, and Collin d’Harleville; songs and poems by Béranger and Depraux, short stories by Andrieux, odes by Horace, operas by Rossini, poems by Boileau-Despréaux and Viennet, and satires by Courier de Méré. The plays of Molière were Bastiat’s favorite literary source from which to quote, and he used Le Tartuffe, ou l’imposteur (Tartuffe, or the Imposter, 1664), Le Misanthrope (The Misanthrope, 1666), L’Avare (The Miser, 1668), Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (The Would-Be Gentleman, 1670), and Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid, or the Hypochondriac, 1673).

      Sometimes Bastiat goes beyond quoting a famous scene from a well-known classic work and adapts it for his own purposes by rewriting it as a parody. A good example of this is Molière’s parody of the granting of a degree of doctor of medicine in the last play he wrote, Le malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid, or the Hypochondriac), from which Bastiat quotes in “Theft by Subsidy” (ES2 9). Molière is suggesting that doctors in the seventeenth century were quacks who did more harm to their patients than good, as this translation of his dog Latin clearly suggests:

      I give and grant you

      Power and authority to Practice medicine,

      Purge,

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      Bleed,

      Stab,

      Hack,

      Slash,

      and Kill

      With impunity

      Throughout the whole world.27

      Bastiat takes Molière’s Latin and writes his own pseudo-Latin, this time with the purpose of mocking French tax collectors. In his parody Bastiat is suggesting that government officials, tax collectors, and customs officials were thieves who did more harm to the economy than good, so Bastiat writes a mock “swearing in” oath which he thinks they should use to induct new officials into government service:

      I give to you and I grant

      virtue and power

      to steal

      to plunder

      to filch

      to swindle

      to defraud

      At will, along this whole

      road

      If a pattern emerges from the examples cited above, it is that Bastiat likes to use literary references to show his readers that economic issues need not be “dry and dull” and to help him expose the nature of politicians and the political and economic power they wield. Thus in a witty and clever way he induces readers to share his disdain for those who misuse their power and, through this unfiltered view of reality, to no longer think like “dupes.”

      The Sophisms also reveal a man who has a very good sense of humor and an understanding of how humor can be used for political purposes as well as to make political economy less “dry and dull” for average readers. Sprinkled throughout the Sophisms are Bastiat’s own jokes, plays on words, and puns. For example, in “The Tax Collector” (ES2 10), Bastiat creates a dialogue

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      between Jacques Bonhomme (a wine producer like Bastiat himself) and a tax collector, a M. “Lasouche.” Lasouche is a made-up name which Bastiat creates to poke fun at his adversaries. In the FEE edition,28 “M. Lasouche” is translated