Economic Sophisms and “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen”. Bastiat Frédéric
What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen
| WSWNS | [Author’s Introduction] |
| WSWNS 1 | The Broken Window |
| WSWNS 2 | Dismissing Members of the Armed Forces |
| WSWNS 3 | Taxes |
| WSWNS 4 | Theaters and the Fine Arts |
| WSWNS 5 | Public Works |
| WSWNS 6 | The Middlemen |
| WSWNS 7 | Trade Restrictions |
| WSWNS 8 | Machines |
| WSWNS 9 | Credit |
| WSWNS 10 | Algeria |
| WSWNS 11 | Thrift and Luxury |
| WSWNS 12 | The Right to Work and the Right to Profit |
OTHER WORKS REFERRED TO IN THIS VOLUME
CW: The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat
CW1: The Man and the Statesman: The Correspondence and Articles on Politics
CW2: “The Law,” “The State,” and Other Political Writings, 1843–1850
DEP: Dictionnaire de l’économie politique. 2 vols. Paris: Librairie de Guillaumin et cie., 1852–53.
Economic Harmonies, FEE edition: Economic Harmonies. Translated by W. Hayden Boyers. Edited by George B. de Huszar. Introduction by Dean Russell. Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1994.
Economic Sophisms, FEE edition: Economic Sophisms (First and Second
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Series). Translated and edited by Arthur Goddard. Introduction by Henry Hazlitt. Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1964.
JDE: Le Journal des économistes
OC: Œuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat
Selected Essays, FEE edition: Selected Essays on Political Economy. Translated by Seymour Cain. Edited by George B. de Huszar. Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1968.
WSWNS, FEE edition: What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen. In Selected Essays on Political Economy, translated by Seymour Cain and edited by George B. de Huszar; introduction by F.A. Hayek, 1–50. Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1995.
“Budget Papers” refers to the summary data on government revenue and expenditure provided by the editor in appendix 4.
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In addition to the guidance of the general editor, Jacques de Guenin, this translation is the result of the efforts of a team comprising Jane and Michel Willems; Dr. Dennis O’Keeffe, Professor of Social Science at the University of Buckingham and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, who carefully read the translation and made very helpful suggestions at every stage; Dr. David M. Hart, Director of the Online Library of Liberty Project and Academic Editor of the Bastiat translation series at Liberty Fund, who supplied much of the scholarly apparatus and provided the translation with the insights of a historian of nineteenth-century European political economy; Professor Aurelian Craiutu, Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, who read the final translation and contributed his considerable knowledge of nineteenth-century French politics to this undertaking; and Dr. Laura Goetz, senior editor at Liberty Fund, who organized and coordinated the various aspects of the project from its inception through to production. This volume thus has all the strengths and all the weaknesses of a voluntary, collaborative effort. We hope Bastiat would approve, especially as no government official was involved at any stage.
It is with great sadness that we acknowledge here the deaths of two individuals who played a large role in the publication of The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, namely the General Editor Jacques de Guenin and the Translation Editor Dennis O’Keeffe.
Jacques de Guenin, a retired French businessman, passed away in October 2015. He was instrumental in getting the Bastiat translation off the ground after it was first proposed at the bicentennial Bastiat Conference held in Mugron in 2001. It was he who organized the texts, arranged for the translation to be done, and wrote many of the footnotes and glossaries which accompany each volume. Unfortunately, he lived only long enough to see the first two volumes in print. In addition to working on Liberty Fund’s edition, Jacques also published the first French edition of Bastiat’s works in one hundred fifty
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years, as well as heading the Bastiat Cercle, which meets regularly in Bastiat’s home region to discuss topics which would have been of great interest to Bastiat as well. Jacques’s work in reviving interest in Bastiat’s economic and political ideas will be his lasting legacy.
The Translation Editor for the Bastiat project, the Anglo-Irish professor of sociology Dennis O’Keeffe, also passed away before the translation could be completed. He died in December 2014 after a long illness. Dennis translated two other works for Liberty Fund in addition to his work on Bastiat: Benjamin Constant’s Principles of Politics (2003) and Gustave de Molinari’s Evenings on the Rue Saint-Lazare (forthcoming). His wit and clever turn of phrase will be sorely missed.
It is with remembrance and thanks that we dedicate this volume to Jacques and Dennis.
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A Chronology of Bastiat’s Life and Work
| 1801 | Born in Bayonne, 30 June. |
| Grandfather establishes a trading business with his son Pierre and nephew Henri Monclar. | |
| 1808 | Death of mother, 27 May. |
| Trading business in Spain suffers difficulties. | |
| Moves to Mugron with father, grandfather, and Aunt Justine. | |
| 1810 | Death of father, 1 July. |
| Closing of the Bastiat-Monclar trading business. | |
| 1812 | Attends school run by the Abbot Meilhan in Bayonne. |
| 1813 | Attends College of Saint-Sever for one year. |
| 1814–18 |
Attends school at Sorèze. Does not graduate. Forms a close friendship with Victor Calmètes.
|