● The Man and the Statesman: The Correspondence and Articles on Politics
By Frédéric Bastiat
Review via The Wall Street Journal
Bastiat’s short essays, which he grouped under the title “Economic Sophisms,” are beloved by friends of laissez-faire. Late in the 19th century, small-government Democrats quoted him on the floor of the House against the high-tariff schemes of the GOP. The Republicans groaned when they heard Bastiat’s name. Unable to answer his arguments against government economic intervention, they charged him with being French. Familiar though Bastiat’s economic writings may be, his letters, until now, have been available only in their original language. “The Man and the Statesman,” the first in a projected English-language edition of Bastiat’s collected works, encompasses 209 letters as well as a sampler of his political essays and notes and a helpful glossary from the editors (Jacques de Guenin, Jean-Claude Paul-Dejean and David M. Hart). But the letters are the thing. Through them shines the most charming economist you have ever met.
