Bastiat, Claude Frédéric (1801–1850)

Abstract

French economist and publicist, born at Bayonne on 30 June 1801, the son of a merchant in the Spanish trade; died in Italy, at Rome, on 24 December 1850. Orphaned at the age of nine, Bastiat nevertheless received an encyclopedic education before entering his uncle’s business firm in 1818. By 1824 he was expressing dissatisfaction with his employment. Upon inheriting his grandfather’s estate in 1825, he left business and became a gentleman farmer at Mugron, but showed no more aptitude for agriculture than he had for commerce. So he became a provincial scholar, establishing a discussion group in his village and reading voraciously. His later writings show familiarity with the works of French, British, American and Italian authors, among them Say, Smith, Quesnay, Turgot, Ricardo, Mill, Bentham, Senior, Franklin, H.C. Carey, Custodi, Donato and Scialoja.

This chapter was originally published in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, 2008. Edited by Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume