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Claude Frédéric Bastiat – The Father of Libertarianism

June 4, 2016

Claude Frédéric Bastiat – The Father of Libertarianism 

Bastiat Claude Frédéric (1801 – 1850)

Claude Frédéric Bastiat (b. 1801-1850) was a French, classical liberal theorist, political economist, Freemason, and member of the French National Assembly whose fundamental ideas have provided a foundation for libertarianism. In economics, Bastiat is remembered for his concept of opportunity cost and for introducing the parable of the broken window or the “glazier’s fallacy.” Essentially, a boy breaks a pane of glass in a shopkeeper’s store. The owner gets angry for it will cost him six francs. The argument is that this is good for the economy, for now the glazier profits by installing a new pane of glass, thereby increasing the flow of money within the system. Thus, the linear conclusion is to go around and break all the windows in town to stimulate the economy. But what if the glazier paid the boy to go break windows in town? Then it becomes fraud.

Hiroshima, 1945

Bastiat argued that there was an opportunity cost that was not being viewed. The six francs the shopkeeper must spend on the pane of glass may have been spent in a completely different sector to stimulate that part of the economy. Some have taken the “glazier’s fallacy” and applied it to war. Granted, war is seen as good for the economy for it reduces unemployment (and population) and compels defense spending.

The Invisible Hand entered and compelled developments in weaponry, such as the creation of nuclear weapons. True, nuclear blasts ended the war in the Pacific. However, it is also true that further development led to nuclear energy for power. The opportunity cost cannot be determined so easily because the question of nuclear energy could have taken perhaps 10 to 20 more years to develop, yet it would have been possible to do so without war.

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