Editor’s Introduction↩

The famous essay by Frédéric Bastiat on “The State” went through three extensive revisions and expansions between its first appearance as a very short article of about 400 words in a street magazine in June 1848 shortly before the June Days uprising, a second enlarged version of 2,000 words published in the up-market and prestigious Journal des débats in September 1848, [1]and its final version as a longer essay of 3,900 words in a pamphlet published sometime in April 1849 during the campaigns for the 13-14 May elections for the new National Assembly. [2]This third version is the one which is best known today.

The two most most significant changes were a discussion of the new Constitution for the Second Republic which was being drawn up over the summer of 1848 and which Bastiat added to the JDD version; and then the inclusion in the 1849 pamphlet version of a new 900 word section in which Bastiat directly attacked the electoral program of the radical republican and socialist “Mountain” faction (“Les Montagnards”, and also referred to as the “Démocs-socs” (democratic socialists)) named after the radical Jacobin and Robespierre-ist group of the 1790s. [3]In the 1848 and 1849 elections the Montagnards were led by Alexandre Ledru-Rollin [4]who had been Minister of the Interior and a member of the Executive Commission in the Provisional Government until he was ousted by General Cavaignac during the period of martial law which was imposed after the June Days riots if 1848. Ledru-Rollin stood in the Presidential election on 10 December 1848 for the Montagnard socialist party, coming third with 5% of the vote behind General Cavaignac with 20% (the candidate Bastiat supported), and Louis Napoléon with 74%. In the elections for the Constituent Assembly (April 1848) and the Legislative Assembly (May 1849) the radical republicans and socialists went from 6% to 26% of the vote respectively. [5]It was in order to counter this expected increase in votes for the Montagnards in the May 1849 election that lead Bastiat to rewrite his pamphlet in the form we know today. Thus, this third version should be seen as part of Bastiat’s and the Guillaumin publishing firm’s anti-socialist campaign for which Bastiat would eventually write 12 pamphlets between June 1848 and July 1850. (See below for details.)

Although Bastiat was talking to three different audiences with each of his versions of the essay, they all were written in his very distinctive conversational and witty style which he had perfected in his series of “economic sophisms.” He talks directly to the reader in a very familiar style (using “tu” when he is talking to workers in the street using the voice of “Jacques Bonhomme”) [6]and half jokingly offers the reader a prize for the best definition of the state, the value of which ranged from 500,000 fr. to the working class readers of Jacques Bonhomme to 1,000,000 fr. to the more upmarket readers of the JDD (an amount which he continued to offer to the more mixed group of voters in April 1849) along with assorted “bells and whistles” to make it even more attractive. Frustratingly for his working class readers in June he does not provide his own definition of the state and leaves the matter hanging. However, in both the JDD and the 1849 pamphlet versions he offers his own definition in the meantime, until all the entries are in and a winner declared. This is his famous definition of the state and what it should NOT do:

L’ÉTAT, c’est la grande fiction à travers laquelle TOUT LE MONDE s’efforce de vivre aux dépens de TOUT LE MONDE.

The state is the great fiction by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.

FEE translated this as: “The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” (Selected Essays, p. 144.)

David Wells: “Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expence of everybody else.” p. 160.

He would also conclude both the JDD and the 1849 pamphlet versions with a brief statement of what he thought the State SHOULD do, which he modified only slightly between the two versions. In the 1849 version he adds the phrases “spoliation réciproque” (reciprocal plunder) and “garantir à chacun le sien” (guaranteeing each person what is theirs). The JDD version is on the left; the 1849 version on the right:

“l’Etat (est) la force commune instituée, non pour être entre les citoyens un instrument d’oppression réciproque, mais au contraire pour faire régner entre eux la justice et la sécurité.”	“l’État (est) la force commune instituée, non pour être entre tous les citoyens un instrument d’oppression et de spoliation réciproque, mais, au contraire, pour garantir à chacun le sien, et faire régner la justice et la sécurité.”
“the state (is) the coercive power of the community, (which is) instituted not to be an instrument of reciprocal oppression of all of its citizens, but on the contrary to ensure the reign of justice and security among them.”	“the state (is) the coercive power of the community, (which is) instituted not to be an instrument of reciprocal oppression and plunder between all of its citizens, but on the contrary to guarantee to each person what is his and ensure the reign of justice and security.”

In all three versions he draws up a list of the things the voters are demanding the state should do. These differ slightly as one can see from the comparative table below.

Comparative Table Listing the Things the People are asking the State to do

JB version	JDD version	1849 Pamphlet version
They want the state to found crèches, homes for abandoned children, and free schools for our youth, national workshops for those that are older, and retirement pensions for the elderly.	Set up harmonious workshops.Provide children with milk.Educate the young.Assist the elderly.	Set up harmonious workshops.Provide children with milk.Educate the young.Assist the elderly.
	Organize work and the workers.	Organize work and the workers.
They want the state to go to war in Italy and Poland.They want the state to lay down the law in Europe.	Liberate Italy	Liberate Italy
They want the state to have a formidable army.They want the state to have an impressive navy.
They want the state to support agriculture.They want the state to found farming colonies.	Carry out research into fertiliser and egg production.Set up model farms.Send the inhabitants of towns to the country.	Carry out research into fertiliser and egg production.Set up model farms.Send the inhabitants of towns to the country.
	Repress the arrogance and tyranny of capital.	Repress the arrogance and tyranny of capital.
They want the state to build railways.		Criss-cross the country with railways.
They want the state to establish farming in Algeria.	Colonize Algeria.	Colonize Algeria.
They want the state to build embankments along the rivers.		Irrigate the plains.
They want the state to replant the forests on mountains.		Re-forest the mountains.
	Regulate the profits of all industries.	Regulate the profits of all industries.
They want the state to lend ten billion to land owners. They want the state to supply capital to workers.They want the state to pay interest on loans with money it doesn’t have.	Lend money	Lend money
They want the state to give subsidies to industry.
	Encourage art and train musicians and dancers (for our entertainment).	Encourage art and train musicians and dancers (for our entertainment).
	Breed and improve riding horses.	Breed and improve riding horses.
They want the state to protect trade.	Prohibit trade and at the same time create a merchant navy.	Prohibit trade and at the same time create a merchant navy.
	Root out selfishness.	Root out selfishness.
		Discover truth and knock a bit of sense into our heads. The state has set itself the mission of enlightening, developing, enlarging, fortifying, spiritualizing, and sanctifying the souls of the people.

Bastiat’s anti-socialist “Petits Pamphlets”↩

The Guillaumin publishing firm would eventually publish Bastiat’s essay on “The State” (c. April, 1849) [7]along with a dozen or so similar anti-socialist pamphlets he wrote between the summer of 1848 and the summer of 1850. They marketed them as a collection they called “Petits pamphlets de M. Bastiat” (Mister Bastiat’s Little Pamphlets). [8]The titles, date of publication, and person or group being criticized in these essays is as follows:

1. “Propriété et loi” (Property and Law), JDE, 15 May 1848, in CW2, pp. 43-59. Directed at Louis Blanc and critiques of property in general.
2. “Justice et fraternité” (Justice and Fraternity) JDE, 15 June 1848, in CW2, pp. 60-81. Directed against Pierre Leroux.
3. “Individualisme et fraternité” (Individualism and Fraternity) (c. June 1848), in CW2, pp. 82-92. Directed against Louis Blanc.
4. “Propriété et spoliation” (Property and Plunder), (Journal des débats, 24 July 1848), in CW2, pp. 147-184. Directed against Victor Considérant and against critics of ownership of land and the charging of rent.
5. “Le capital” (Capital), Almanach Républicain pour 1849 (1849). Written to appeal to ordinary people who were influenced by the ideas of Proudhon and Blanc concerning capital and the charging of interest on loans.
6. Protectionisme et Communisme. Lettre à M. Thiers (Protectionism and Communism. A Letter to M. Thiers) (Jan. 1849), in CW2, pp. 235-65. Directed against the conservative and protectionist Mimerel committee whom Bastiat accused of adopting communist ideas.
7. Capital et Rente (Capital and Rent) (Feb. 1849). Directed at Proudhon.
8. “Madit argent!” (Damn Money!), JDE, 15 April 1849. Directed at general misperceptions about the nature of money.
9. “L’État” (The State), (c. April, 1849), in CW2, pp. 93-104. Directed against the Ledru-Rollin and the radical “Montagnard” socialist faction in the Assembly.
10. Gratuité du Crédit. Correspondence entrer MM. F. Bastiat et Proudhon (Free Credit. Correspondence between Bastiat and Proudhon) (Oct. 1849 - Feb. 1850). Directed against Proudhon.
11. Baccalauréat et Socialisme (“Baccalaureate and Socialism”) (early 1850), in CW2, pp. 185-234. Written to oppose a bill before the Chamber in early 1850 on education reform which was supported by the conservative Adolphe Thiers.
12. “Spoliation et loi” (Plunder and Law), JDE, 15 May 1850, in CW2, pp. 266-76. Directed against Louis Blanc and the Luxembourg Commission.
13. La Loi (The Law) (Mugron, July 1850), in CW2, pp. 107-46. Against Louis Blanc and his 18th century predecessors including most notably Rousseau.
14. Ce qu’on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas, ou l’Économie politique en une leçon (What is Seen and What is Not Seen, or Political Economy in One Lesson) (July 1850), in CW3, pp. 401-52. Directed against all those who misunderstood the operation of the free market.

Bastiat wrote the last two pamphlets on “The Law” and “What is Seen and What is Not Seen” over the summer of 1850 when he probably knew he did not have long to live (he would die on Christmas Eve, 1850). Those two essays and his one on “The State” have become the essays for which Bastiat is perhaps fittingly best remembered.

Publishing and Translation History of “The State”↩

Publishing History

T.212 “L’État” (The State), Jacques Bonhomme, no. 1, 11-15 June 1848, p. 2. OC, vol. 7, 59. pp. 238-40; CW2, pp. 105-6. First version 376 words. The Institut Coppet has reprinted this essay in Jacques Bonhomme: L’éphémère journal de Frédéric Bastiat et Gustave de Molinari (11 juin – 13 juillet 1848). Recueil de tous les articles, augmenté d’une introduction. Ed. Benoît Malbranque (Paris: Institut Coppet, 2014), pp. 23-25.

T.222 “L’État,” Le Journal des débats politiques et littéraires (25 September 1848), pp. 1-2. Second revised and enlarged version 2,400 words.

T.320 A third revised and enlarged version with a new section on the Montagnards’ economic policies was published twice in 1849: as an article in Annuaire de l’économie politique et de la statistique pour 1849, par MM. Joseph Garnier et Guillaumin et al. Sixième année (Paris: Guillaumin, 1849), pp. 356-68; and in a pamphlet L’État. Maudit Argent (Paris: Guillaumin, 1849), pp. 5-23. The third version is 3,900 words. OC4, pp. 327-41; CW2, pp. 93-104.

Translation History

The first English translation (of the third version) appeared under the title “Government” in an anonymous translation published in 1853: Essays on Political Economy. By the Late M. Frederic Bastiat, Member of the Institute of France (London: W. & F.G. Cash, 1853). It contained “Capital and Interest,” “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen,” “Government” (Part III, pp. 3-19), “What is Money?, and “The Law. This was republished as a special “People’s Edition” (“expressly for the use of our British workmen”) by Provost & Co. in 1872.

An American edition by David Wells appeared in 1877: Essays on political economy. English translation Revised, with Notes by David A. Wells (G.P. Putnam Sons, 1880). First ed. 1877. It contains “Capital and Interest,” pp. 1-69; “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen,” pp. 70-153; “Government” (The State), pp. 154-73; “What is Money?” (Damned Money), pp. 174-220; “The Law,” pp. 221-91. Wells states that he revised the earlier anonymous English translation which he described as “exceedingly imperfect, and in some cases absolutely without meaning” (p. x).

The Foundation for Economic Education made a new translation by Seymour Cain in 1965: “The State,” in Selected Essays on Political Economy, translated from the French by Seymour Cain. Edited by George B. de Huszar (Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: The Foundation for Economic Education, 1968) (1st edition D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc. 1964. Copyright William Volker Fund), pp. 140-51.

The first and third versions of “The State” appeared in Liberty Fund’s 2012 translation: Frédéric Bastiat, CW2. “The State (draft)” (JB, 11 June 1848), in CW2, pp.105-6; and “The State”, in CW2, pp. 93-104 (this incorrectly cited the JDD as the source, which was in fact the 3rd Guillaumin pamphlet edition).

The JB version (11-15 June 1848)↩

Source

T.212 “L’État” (The State), Jacques Bonhomme, no. 1, 11-15 June 1848, p. 2. OC, vol. 7, 59. pp. 238-40; CW, vol. 2, pp. 105-6. First version 376 words.

The Institut Coppet has reprinted this essay in Jacques Bonhomme: L’éphémère journal de Frédéric Bastiat et Gustave de Molinari (11 juin – 13 juillet 1848). Recueil de tous les articles, augmenté d’une introduction. Ed. Benoît Malbranque (Paris: Institut Coppet, 2014), pp. 23-25.

Editor’s Note

During 1848 Bastiat and some of his more radical friends started two newspapers which they handed out on the streets of Paris in March and June. [9]They were written in the hope they could appeal to ordinary working people not to be seduced by the promises the socialists like Lous Blanc, [10]Victor Considerant, [11]Ledru-Rollin, and Proudhon [12]were making. The first was a daily, La République française, which first appeared the day after the February revolution began, and was edited by F. Bastiat, Hippolyte Castille, and Gustave de Molinari. It appeared from 26 February to 28 March in 30 issues. The second was a weekly called Jacques Bonhomme, which was founded by Bastiat, Gustave de Molinari, Charles Coquelin, Alcide Fonteyraud, and Joseph Garnier. It appeared approximately weekly with 4 issues between 11 June to 13 July; with a break between 24 June and 9 July because of the rioting during the June Days uprising.

The authorial voice in the journal Jacques Bonhomme was Jacques Bonhomme himself, the French everyman to whom Bastiat and the other economists were appealing. [13]The first issue (in which the first version of “L’État” appeared) begins with a brief history of Jacques and his role in French history. It then turns to commentary on current events by Jacques who sometimes speaks in the first person and at other times it is merely reported what he is thinking as he goes about Paris observing what is going on. In the first article on “Liberty” [14]Jacques begins by saying that “I have lived a long time, seen a great deal, observed much, compared and examined many things, and I have reached the following conclusion …”. He then proceeds to list the different kinds of liberty he believes in - freedom of belief and conscience, freedom of education, freedom of the press, the freedom of working (la liberté du travail), [15]freedom of association, and free trade. In the second article Jacques defends the idea of “laissez-faire.” [16]In the third article he talks about the many problems facing the National Assembly, especially the great financial difficulties France faced following the February Revolution when an economic recession occurred, unemployment rose, and tax receipts fell. [17]

The fourth article on “L’État” has to be seen as a response to the widespread popular belief that, if only a “financial expert” (un homme de finances) like ex-Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers, [18]the banker Achille Fould, [19]the new Minister of Finance in the Second Republic Michel Goudchaux, [20]or the successful press baron Émile de Girardin [21]were put in charge, they could solve France’s economic problems. Jacques believes that those who argue this are deceiving themselves. In his view, only the people themselves can solve France’s problems but only on the condition that they stop asking the state to do more things for them. They have to understand that the state cannot create wealth but only take from those who have created it. He then lists 16 things the people are currently demanding the state should do and concludes by saying that even financial experts cannot create something from nothing. Thus, in order to get people to truly understand what the State is, and what it can and cannot do, the magazine Jacques Bonhomme promises to offer a prize of 500,000 francs to the person who comes up with the best definition of “the State.” Jacques concludes that only with a correct understanding of this organisation can France’s financial and economic problems be solved, and thus the person who can do this will be “the savior of finance, industry, trade, and work.” This offer of a prize of course was not meant to be taken seriously as it was a huge amount of money at the time. [22]It was just part of Bastiat’s amusing rhetorical style. Unlike the two later versions of this essay Jacques does not offer his own definition of the state but leaves the issue hanging.

It should be noted that in the third issue of the magazine dated 20-23 June Bastiat published a direct appeal [23]to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alphonse de Lamartine, [24][25] and the Minister of the Interior and Montagnard socialist, Ledru-Rollin, to dissolve the National Workshops [26]which were being run out of the Luxembourg Palace by the socialist Louis Blanc, before they bankrupted the French nation. When they were finally closed down thousands of people took to the streets of Paris to protest the decision, thus starting the bloody June Days uprising of 23-26 June which was put down by the Army under General Cavaignac and lead to the imposition of martial law for the next four months. In his own election manifesto which he produced during the campaign for the May 1849 election Bastiat tells us that he took the dangerous step of plastering this article defending the closing of the National Workshops all over the walls of Paris and then was an eyewitness to the events that followed. In a letter to Julie Marsan dated 29 June 1848 (so just a fews later) he states that: [27]

(I do not have the French version)

My only role was to enter the Faubourg Saint-Antoine after the fall of the first barricade, in order to disarm the fighters. As we went on, we managed to save several insurgents whom the militia wanted to kill. One of my colleagues displayed a truly admirable energy in this situation, which he did not boast about from the rostrum.

Ten months later, in his “Profession de foi électorale d’avril 1849” (Statement of Electoral Principles) which he distributed in his electorate in Les Landes in April 1849 he explains in more detail that: [28]

Convaincu qu’il ne suffisait pas de voter, mais qu’il fallait éclairer les masses, je fondai un autre journal qui aspirait à parler le simple langage du bon sens, et que, par ce motif, j’intitulai Jacques Bonhomme, Il ne cessait de réclamer la dissolution, à tout prix, des forces insurrectionnelles. La veille même des Journées de Juin, il contenait un article de moi sur les ateliers nationaux. Cet article, placardé sur tous les murs de Paris, fit quelque sensation. Pour répondre à certaines imputations, je le fis reproduire dans les journaux du Département.

Convinced that voting was not enough—the masses needed to be enlightened—I founded another newspaper which aimed to speak the simple language of good sense and which, for this reason, I entitled Jacques Bonhomme. It never stopped calling for the disbanding of the forces of insurrection, whatever the cost. On the eve of the June Days, it contained an article by me on the national workshops. This article, plastered over all the walls of Paris, was something of a sensation. To reply to certain charges, I had it reproduced in the newspapers in the département.

La tempête éclata le 24 juin. Entré des premiers dans le faubourg Saint-Antoine, après l’enlèvement des formidables barricades qui en défendaient l’accès, j’y accomplis une double et pénible tâche : Sauver des malheureux qu’on allait fusiller sur des indices incertains ; pénétrer dans les quartiers les plus écartés pour y concourir au désarmement. Cette dernière partie de ma mission volontaire, accomplie au bruit de la fusillade, n’était pas sans danger. Chaque chambre pouvait cacher un piège ; chaque fenêtre, chaque soupirail pouvait masquer un fusil.

The storm broke on 24 June. One of the first to enter the Faubourg Saint Antoine following the removal of the formidable barricades which protected access to it, I accomplished a twin and difficult task, to save those unfortunate people who were going to be shot on unreliable evidence and to penetrate into the most far-flung districts to help in the disarmament. This latter part of my voluntary mission, accomplished under gunfire, was not without danger. Each room might have hidden a trap, each window or basement window a rifle.

One of the men addressed in his appeal of June 1848, Ledru-Rollin, will surface again in both the second and third versions of Bastiat’s essay as will be discussed below.

JB version in French

L’État.   70.  Il y en a qui disent : C’est un homme de finances qui nous tirera de là, Thiers, Fould, Goudchaux, Girardin. Je crois qu’ils se trompent.

— Qui donc nous en tirera ?

— Le peuple.

— Quand ?

— Quand il aura appris cette leçon : L’État, n’ayant rien qu’il ne l’ait pris au peuple, ne peut pas faire au peuple des largesses.

— Le peuple sait cela, car il ne cesse de demander des réductions de taxes.

— C’est vrai ; mais, en même temps, il ne cesse de demander à l’État, sous toutes les formes, des libéralités.

Il veut que l’État fonde des crèches, des salles d’asile et des écoles gratuites pour la jeunesse ; des ateliers nationaux pour l’âge mûr et de pensions de retraite pour la vieillesse.

Il veut que l’État aille guerroyer en Italie et en Pologne.

Il veut que l’État fonde des colonies agricoles.

Il veut que l’État fasse les chemins de fer.

Il veut que l’État défriche l’Algérie.

Il veut que l’État prête dix milliards aux propriétaires.

Il veut que l’État fournisse le capital aux travailleurs.

Il veut que l’État reboise les montagnes.

Il veut que l’État endigue les rivières.

Il veut que l’État paye des rentes sans en avoir.

Il veut que l’État fasse la loi à l’Europe.

Il veut que l’État favorise l’agriculture.

Il veut que l’État donne des primes à l’industrie.

Il veut que l’État protège le commerce.

Il veut que l’État ait une armée redoutable.

Il veut que l’État ait une marine imposante.

Il veut que l’État…

— Avez-vous tout dit ?

— J’en ai encore pour une bonne heure.

— Mais enfin, où en voulez-vous venir ?

— À ceci : tant que le peuple voudra tout cela, il faudra qu’il le paye. Il n’y a pas d’homme de finances qui fasse quelque chose avec rien. 

Jacques Bonhomme fonde un prix de cinquante mille francs à décerner à celui qui donnera une bonne définition de ce mot, l’ÉTAT ; car celui-là sera le sauveur des finances, de l’industrie, du commerce et du travail.

JB version in English

The State

There are those who say: A financier will get us out of this—Thiers, Fould, Goudchaux, Girardin. I believe they are mistaken.

— Who then will get us out?

— The people.

— When?

— When they have learned this lesson: The State, having nothing except what it takes from the people, cannot bestow gifts upon the people.

— The people know this, for they constantly demand tax reductions.

— That is true; but at the same time, they constantly demand all sorts of benefits from the State.

They want the State to establish nurseries, daycare centers, and free schools for the youth; national workshops for working-age adults and retirement pensions for the elderly.

They want the State to wage war in Italy and Poland.

They want the State to establish agricultural colonies.

They want the State to build railways.

They want the State to clear land in Algeria.

They want the State to lend ten billion francs to property owners.

They want the State to provide capital to workers.

They want the State to reforest the mountains.

They want the State to dam the rivers.

They want the State to pay rent without having any revenue.

They want the State to impose its law upon Europe.

They want the State to support agriculture.

They want the State to grant subsidies to industry.

They want the State to protect commerce.

They want the State to maintain a formidable army.

They want the State to have an imposing navy.

They want the State to …

— Have you listed everything?

— I could go on for another hour.

— But where are you going with this?

— To this: As long as the people want all these things, they must pay for them. No financier can create something out of nothing.

Jacques Bonhomme establishes a prize of fifty thousand francs to be awarded to whomever can provide a good definition of the word THE STATE—for that person will be the savior of public finance, industry, commerce, and labor.

The JDD version (25 Sept. 1848)↩

Source

T.222 “L’État,” Le Journal des débats politiques et littéraires (25 September 1848), pp. 1-2.

Editor’s Note

Three months after the first version of “LÉtat” appeared in print Bastiat’s expanded second version appeared in the prestigious JDD which was read by the intellectual and political elites. Here, Bastiat stops using the voice of Jacques Bonhomme but still uses his conversational style of writing, this time addressing his readers as “You, Sir” and “You, Madame.” He begins the essay with his offer of a prize instead of concluding with this as he did in the JB version, and the prize money has been doubled from 500,000 to the quite exorbitant figure of one million francs. Bastiat inserts some literary references, as was his want in the Economic Sophisms, [29]with quotes from Figaro, from Rossini’s opera “The Barber of Seville,” (one of which would be cut from the 3rd version of the essay). He then provides a slightly larger list of demands (now 18) the people are making of the State, and about half way through the essay he offers his own definition of the State for the first time.

This is followed by a comparison of the new constitution of the Second Republic which had been under discussion throughout the summer of 1848, and the American Constitution. The sticking point was the attempt by some socialist Deputies to have a clause in the constitution guaranteeing every French citizen the “right to work” (le droit au travail, which one might translate in English as the “right to a job” using “travail” as a noun). This had been a catch phrase of the socialists throughout the 1840s. What they meant by this term was that the state had the duty to provide work for all men who demanded it. In contrast, the classical liberal economists called for the “right of working,” or the “freedom to work” (la liberté du travail, or le droit de travailler using “travail” as a verb), by which they meant the right of any individual to pursue an occupation or activity without any restraints imposed upon him by the state. The latter point of view was articulated by Charles Dunoyer in his De la liberté du travail (1845) and by Bastiat in many of his writings. The socialist perspective was provided by Louis Blanc in L’Organisation du travail (1839) and Le Socialisme, droit au travail (1848) and by Victor Considérant in La Théorie du droit de propriété et du droit au travail (1848).

The socialists claimed that it was the duty of the government to provide every able-bodied Frenchman with a job and the job creation program initiated by the Constituent Assembly in the first days of the revolution, called the National Workshops, was designed to carry this out. Bastiat and the other Economists fiercely opposed this scheme and Bastiat used his position in the Chamber's Finance Committee to argue strenuously against it. Matters came to a head in May 1848, when a committee of the Constituent Assembly was formed to discuss the issue of “the right to work” just prior to the closing of the state-run National Workshops, which prompted widespread rioting in Paris. In a veritable “who’s who” of the socialist and liberal movements of the day, a debate took place in the Assembly and was duly published by the classical liberal publishing firm of Guillaumin later in the year along with suitable commentary by such leading liberal economists as Léon Faucher, Louis Wolowski, Joseph Garnier, and, of course, Bastiat. [30]Here is the beginning of the “opinion” Bastiat wrote for the volume, in which he distinguished between the right to work (droit au travail, where “work” is used as a noun and thus might be rendered as the “right to a job”) and the “right to work” (droit de travailler, where “work” is used as a verb): [31]

Si l’on entendait par droit au travail le droit de travailler (qui implique le droit de jouir du fruit de son travail), il ne saurait y avoir de doute. Quant à moi, je ne crois pas avoir jamais écrit deux lignes qui n’ait eu pour but de le défendre.	If one understands by the phrase “right to a job” (droit au travail) the right to work (droit de travailler) (which implies the right to enjoy the fruit of one’s labor), then one can have no doubt on the matter. As far as I’m concerned, I have never written two lines that did not have as their purpose the defense of this notion.
Mais par droit au travail on entend le droit qu’aurait l’individu d’exiger de l’État, et par force, au besoin, de l’ouvrage et un salaire. Sous aucun rapport cette thèse bizarre ne me semble pouvoir supporter l’examen.	But if one means by the “right to a job” that an individual has the right to demand of the state that it take care of him, provide him with a job and a wage by force, then under no circumstances does this bizarre thesis bear close inspection.

In spite of his and the Economists’ opposition Chapter 2, Article 13, of the Constitution of November 4, 1848 explicitly stated that: [32]

La Constitution garantit aux citoyens la liberté du travail et de l’industrie. La société favorise et encourage le développement du travail par l’enseignement primaire gratuit, l’éducation professionnelle, l’égalité de rapports, entre le patron et l’ouvrier, les institutions de prévoyance et de crédit, les institutions agricoles, les associations volontaires, et l’établissement, par l’État, les départements et les communes, de travaux publics propres à employer les bras inoccupés ; elle fournit l’assistance aux enfants abandonnés, aux infirmes et aux vieillards sans ressources, et que leurs familles ne peuvent secourir.

“The Constitution guarantees citizens the liberty of work and industry. Society favours and encourages the development of work by means of free primary education, professional education, equality of relations between employers and workers, institutions of insurance and credit, agricultural institutions, voluntary associations, and the establishment by the state, the departments and the communes of public works suitable for employing idle hands; it provides assistance to abandoned children, to the sick and the old without means, which their families cannot help.”

This article raised the problem which concerned Bastiat deeply of the difference between the free market idea of “the liberty of work and industry” (la liberté du travail et de l’industrie) and the socialist idea of the “right to a job” (la liberté au travail) which increasingly became an issue during the Revolution. The Constitution of November 1848 specifically refers to the former but also seems to advocate the latter with the phrase “public works suitable for reemploying the unemployed”. Other articles in the new Constitution which the economists opposed and tried to water down in the final version were Article VIII of the Preamble which asserted the duty of the French state to “to provide the means of existence to necessitous citizens” and Article 13 which promised “freedom of labor and of industry,” which was dear to the economists, but also promises of considerable financial assistance to the poor and the old, which was very dear to the socialists:

VIII. - La République doit protéger le citoyen dans sa personne, sa famille, sa religion, sa propriété, son travail, et mettre à la portée de chacun l’instruction indispensable à tous les hommes ; elle doit, par une assistance fraternelle, assurer l’existence des citoyens nécessiteux, soit en leur procurant du travail dans les limites de ses ressources, soit en donnant, à défaut de la famille, des secours à ceux qui sont hors d’état de travailler.

Article VIII of the Preamble: “It is the duty of the republic to protect the citizen in his person, his family, his religion, his prosperity, and his labor, and to bring within the reach of all that education which is necessary to every man; it is also its duty, by fraternal assistance, to provide the means of existence to necessitous citizens, either by procuring employment for them, within the limits of its resources, or by giving relief to those who are unable to work and who have no relatives to help them.”

Article 13. - La Constitution garantit aux citoyens la liberté du travail et de l’industrie. La société favorise et encourage le développement du travail par l’enseignement primaire gratuit, l’éducation professionnelle, l’égalité de rapports, entre le patron et l’ouvrier, les institutions de prévoyance et de crédit, les institutions agricoles, les associations volontaires, et l’établissement, par l’Etat, les départements et les communes, de travaux publics propres à employer les bras inoccupés ; elle fournit l’assistance aux enfants abandonnés, aux infirmes et aux vieillards sans ressources, et que leurs familles ne peuvent secourir.

Chapter 1, Article 13: “The Constitution guarantees to citizens the freedom of labor and of industry. Society favors and encourages the development of labor by gratuitous primary instruction, by professional education, by the equality of rights between the employer and the workman, by institutions for the deposit of savings and those of credit, by agricultural institutions; by voluntary associations, and the establishment by the State, the departments and the communes, of public works proper for the employment of unoccupied laborers. Society also will give aid to deserted children, to the sick, and to the destitute aged who are without relatives to support them.”

Bastiat refers to this debate in the JDD version of the essay by quoting the opening paragraph of the new French constitution which stated that: [33]

“La France s’est constituée en République. En adoptant cette forme définitive de gouvernement, elle s’est proposée pour but de marcher plus librement dans la voie du progrès et de la civilisation, d’assurer une répartition de plus en plus équitable des charges et des avantages de la société, d’augmenter l’aisance de chacun par la réduction graduée des dépenses publiques et des impôts, et de faire parvenir tous les citoyens, sans nouvelle commotion, par l’action successive et constante des institutions et des lois, à un degré toujours plus élevé de moralité, de lumières et de bien-être.”

“France has been constituted as a Republic. By adopting this final form of government it has put forward the goal of advancing more freely down the path of progress and civilisation, to ensure a more and more just distribution of the burdens and advantages of society, to increase the comfort of each person by the gradual reduction of public expenditure and taxes, and to enable (faire parvenir) all citizens to achieve, without any new shocks, and by the steady and gradual action of (our) institutions and law, an ever increasing level of morality, enlightenment, and well-being.”

Bastiat’s version of this which he quotes in the essay is:

“La France s’est constituée en République pour… appeler tous les citoyens à un degré toujours plus élevé de moralité, de lumière et de bien-être.”

“France has been constituted as a Republic in order to call (upon) all the citizens to (achieve) an increasingly higher level of morality, enlightenment, and well-being.”

What is interesting in Bastiat’s version is what he cut out (the clause dealing with cutting government expenditure and taxation - which he would have agreed with) and the verb he substituted for “faire parvenir” (to make or enable someone to reach or obtain something), namely “appeler” (to call or summon someone to do something). To use “faire parvenir” would have strengthened his argument against the socialists. Since the JDD version (Sept. 1848) was published before the promulgation of the new constitution on 4 November 1848 it is possible he was using a formulation used in an earlier draft.

In Bastiat’s view the French made the mistake of “personifying” the abstract notion of the state and believing that it could and should solve the people’s problems for them. By contrast, the Americans were under no such “illusion” as they stated in the opening lines of their constitution that “the people” established a state so they could have the liberty to go about solving their own problems as they saw fit.

Bastiat concludes by pointing out the contradiction this inevitably leads to:

Il faut donc que le peuple de France apprenne cette grande leçon : Personnifier l’Etat, et attendre de lui qu’il prodigue les bienfaits en réduisant les taxes, c’est une véritable puérilité, mais une puérilité d’où sont sorties et d’où peuvent sortir encore bien des tempêtes. Le gouffre des révolutions ne se refermera pas tant que nous ne prendrons pas l’Etat pour ce qu’il est, la force commune instituée, non pour être entre les citoyens un instrument d’oppression réciproque, mais au contraire pour faire régner entre eux la justice et la sécurité.

Thus the people of France must learn this important lesson: to personify the State and to expect that it will dispense benefits while (at the same time) reducing taxes, is pure childishness, but it is a childishness from which have come and could well still come great turmoil. The abyss of revolutions will never be closed as long as we do not accept the state for what it is: the coercive power of the community, (which is) instituted not to be an instrument of reciprocal oppression of all of its citizens, but on the contrary to ensure the reign of justice and security among them.

Perhaps unknown to Bastiat at the time he wrote the essay, his article would appear on the front page of the 25 September issue below a long article which reproduced the speech which the ex-Minister of the Interior and leader of the radical socialist Montagnard party, Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, had given the day before to commemorate the events of 22 September, 1792 when the Convention had proclaimed the First Republic. In it Ledru-Rollin talks about the historical connection between socialism and French republicanism and his hopes that socialism would again become an integral part of the policies of the Second Republic. In what might appear to be a direct response to Bastiat’s warnings about the limited funds of the French government and the growing demands being placed on it by the public, Ledru-Rollin argued there was a “river of money” available to the French state if only it would tap into it:

Citoyens, que répond-on? “L’État est pauvre; la République ne saurait faire de telles fondations, car l’argent manque!” J’avoue que je n’ai jamais compris cette objection dans un pays aussi fertile, aussi puissant que la France! Je dis, moi, que les sources sont innombrables, et qu’il ne faut que savoir leur tracer des canaux pour les conduire vers le Trésor, et de là les faire refluer jusqu’au pauvre.”

Citizens! what do they say in response (to our demands)? “The State is poor; the Republic could not be built on such foundations because we lack the money.” I confess I have never understood this objection in a country as fertile, as powerful as France! As for me, I say that the sources (of wealth, or sources of this river of money) are uncountable, and that we only have to know how to lay out the canals which will lead (these waters) to the Treasury, and from there to make them flow to the poor.

Although Bastiat also uses in his essay the metaphor of the State opening up “une source” (spring) in order to flood the country with benefits he does not seem to be aware of these remarks by Ledru-Rollin at this time. Ledru-Rollin was probably already campaigning for the Presidential election which would be held in 10 December 1848. He was the head of the socialist Montagnard party and would come third (5%) behind General Cavaignac (20%) and the winner Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (74%). Bastiat would have a chance to reply directly to Ledru-Rollin in April 1849 with his third expanded version of his essay when he too was campaigning for re-election as representative of his home district of Les Landes. [34]

JDD version in French

L'État

[1-c5]

Je voudrais qu’on fondât un prix, non de cinq cents francs, mais d’un million, avec couronnes, croix et rubans, en faveur de celui qui donnerait une bonne, simple et intelligible définition de ce mot l'ETAT.

Quel immense service ne rendrait-il pas à la société!

L’ETAT! Qu'est-ce? où est-il? que fait-il ? que devrait-il faire?

Tout ce que nous en savons, c'est que c'est un personnage mystérieux, et assurément le plus sollicité, le plus tourmenté, le plus affairé le plus conseillé, le plus accusé, le plus invoqué et le plus provoqué qu'il y ait au monde.

Car Monsieur, je n'ai pas l'honneur de vous connaître mais je gage dix contre un que depuis [2-c1] six mois vous faites des utopies, et si vous en faites, je gage dix contre un que vous chargez l'ETAT de les réaliser.

Et vous, Madame, je suis sûr que vous désirez du fond du coeur guérir tous les maux de la triste humanité, et que vous n'y seriez nullement embarrassée, si l’ETAT voulait seulement s'y prêter.

Mais, hélas! le malheureux, comme Figaro, ne sait ni qui entendre, ni de quel côté se tourner. Les cent mille bouches de la presse et de la tribune lui crient à la fois:

Organisez le travail et les travailleurs.
Extirpez l'égotisme.
Réprimez l'insolence et la tyrannie du capital.
Faites des expériences sur le fumier et sur les oeufs.
Fondez des fermes-modèles.
Fondez des ateliers harmoniques.
Colonisez l'Algérie.
Allaitez les enfans.
Instruisez la jeunesse.
Secourez la vieillesse.
Envoyez dans les campagnes les habitans des villes.
Pondérez les profits de toutes les industries.
Prêtez de l'argent, et sans intérêt, à ceux qui en désirent.
Affranchissez l'Italie, la Pologne et la Hongrie.
Elevez et perfectionnez le cheval de selle.
Encouragez l'art, formez-nous des musiciens et des danseuses.
Prohibez le commerce et créez une marine marchande.
Découvrez la vérité et jetez dans nos têtes un grain de raison. L'Etat a pour mission d'éclairer, de développer, d'agrandir, de fortifier, de spiritualiser et de sanctifier l'âme des peuples.

Eh! Messieurs, un peu de patience, répond l'ETAT d'un air piteux.

Uno a la volta, per carità!

J'essaierai de vous satisfaire, mais pour cela il me faut quelques ressources. J'ai préparé des projets concernant cinq ou six impôts tout nouveaux et les plus bénins du monde. Vous verrez quel plaisir on a à les payer.

Mais alors un grand cri s'élève. Haro! haro! le beau mérite de faire quelque chose avec des ressources! Il ne vaudrait pas la peine de s'appeler l'État. Loin de nous frapper de nouvelles taxes, nous vous sommons de retirer les anciennes. Supprimez:

L'impôt du sel,
L'impôt des boissons,
L'impôt des lettres,
L'octroi, les patentes, les prestations.

Au milieu de ce tumulte, et après que le pays a changé deux ou trois fois son Etat pour n'avoir pas satisfait à toutes ces demandes, j'ai voulu faire observer qu'elles étaient contradictoires. De quoi me suis-je avisé, bon Dieu! ne pouvais-je garder pour moi cette malencontreuse remarque ? Me voilà discrédité à tout jamais, et il est maintenant reçu que je suis un homme sans coeur et sans entrailles, un philosophe sec, un individualiste, et, pour tout dire en un mot, un économiste de l'école anglaise ou américaine.

Oh pardonnez-moi, écrivains sublimes, que rien n'arrête, pas même les contradictions. J'ai tort, sans doute, et je me rétracie de grand coeur. Je ne demande pas mieux, soyez-en sûrs, que vous ayez vraiment découvert, en dehors de nous, un être bienfaisant et inépuisable, s'appelant l'ETAT, qui ait du pain pour toutes les bouches, du travail pour tous les bras, des capitaux pour toutes les entreprises, du crédit pour tous les projets, de l'huile pour toutes les plaies, du baume pour toutes les souffrances, des conseils pour toutes les perplexités, des solutions pour tous les doutes, des vérités pour toutes les intelligences, des distractions pour tous les ennuis, du lait pour l'enfance et du vin pour la vieillesse, qui pourvoie à tous; nos besoins, prévienne tous nos désirs, satisfasse toutes nos curiosités, redresse toutes nos erreurs, répare toutes nos fautes, et nous dispense tous désormais de prévoyance, de prudence, de jugement, de sagacité, d'expérience, d'ordre, d'économie, de tempérance et d'activité.

Eh! pourquoi ne le désirerais-je pas? Dieu me pardonne, plus j'y réfléchis, plus je trouve que la chose est commode et il me tarde d'avoir moi aussi, à ma portée, cette source intarissable de richesses et de lumières ce médecin universel, ce trésor sans fonds, ce conseiller infaillible que vous nommez I'ETAT.

Aussi je demande qu'on me le montre, qu'on me lé définisse, et c'est pourquoi je propose la fondation d'un prix pour le premier qui découvrira ce phénix. Car enfin, on m'accordera bien que cette découverte précieuse n'a pas encore été faite puisque, jusqu'ici, tout ce qui se présente sous le [2-c2]nom d'ETAT, le peuple le renverse aussitôt, précisément parce qu'il ne remplit pas aux conditions le quelque peu contradictoires du programme.

Faut-il le dire? je crains que nous ne soyons, à cet égard, dupes d'une des plus bizarres illusions qui se soient jamais emparées de l'esprit humain.

La plupart, la presque totalité des choses qui peuvent nous procurer une satisfaction, ou nous délivrer d'une souffrance, doivent être achetées par un effort, une peine. Or à toutes les époques, on a pu remarquer chez les hommes un triste penchant à séparer en deux ce lot complexe de la vie, gardant pour eux la satisfaction et rejetant la peine sur autrui. Ce fut l'objet de l'Esclavage; c'est encore l'objet de la Spoliation, quelque forme qu'elle prenne, abus monstrueux, mais conséquens, on ne peut le nier, avec le but qui leur a donné naissance.

L'Esclavage a disparu, grâce au ciel, et la Spoliation directe et naïve n'est pas facile. Une seule chose est restée, ce malheureux penchant primitif à faire deux parts des conditions de la vie. Il ne s'agissait plus que de trouver le bouc émissaire (scapegoat) sur qui en rejeter la portion fatigante et onéreuse. L'ETAT s'est présenté fort à propos.

Donc, en attendant une autre définition, voici la mienne : L'Etat, c'est la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s'efforce de vivre aux dépens de tout le monde.

Car, aujourd'hui comme autrefois, chacun un peu plus, un peu moins voudrait bien vivre du travail d'autrui. Ce sentiment, on n'ose l'afficher, on se le dissimule à soi-même; et alors que fait-on ? On imagine un intermédiaire, et chaque classe tour à tour vient dire à l'Etat : « Vous qui pouvez prendre légalement, honnêtement, prenez au public et nous partagerons. » L'Etat n'a que trop de pente à suivre ce diabolique conseil. C'est ainsi qu'il multiplie le nombre de ses agens, élargit le cercle de ses attributions et finit par acquérir des proportions écrasantes. Quand donc le public s'avisera-t-il enfin de comparer ce qu'on lui prend avec ce qu'on lui rend? Quand reconnaîtra-t-il que le pillage réciproque n'en est pas moins onéreux, parce qu'il s'exécute avec ordre par un intermédiaire dispendieux?

Remontons à la source de cette illusion.

Nous sommes trente-cinq millions d'individualités, et de même qu'on nomme blancheur cette qualité commune à tous les objets blancs, nous désignons la réunion de tous les Français par ces appellations collectives France, République, Etat.

Ensuite, nous nous plaisons à supposer dans celle abstraction de l'intelligence, de la prévoyance, des richesses, une volonté, une vie propre et distincte de la vie individuelle. C'est cette abstraction que nous voulons follement substituer à l'Esclavage antique. C'est sur elle que nous rejetons la peine, la fatigue, le fardeau et la responsabilité des existences réelles et comme s'il y avait une France en dehors des Français, une cité en dehors des citoyens, nous donnons au monde cet étrange spectacle de citoyens attendant tout de la cité, de réalités vivantes attendant tout d'une vaine abstraction.

Cette chimère apparaît au début mème de notre Constitution.

Voici les premières paroles du préambule :

« La France s'est constituée en République pour appeler tous les citoyens à un degré toujours plus élevé de moralité, de lumières et de bien-être. »

Ainsi les citoyens qui sont les réalités en qui réside le principe de vie et d'intelligence d'où jaillissent la moralité, les lumières et le bien-être les attendent de qui? De la France, qui est l'abstraction. Pour montrer l'inanité de la proposition, il suffit de la retourner. Certes, il eût été tout aussi exact de dire : « Les citoyens se sont constitués en République pour appeler la France à un degré toujours plus élevé, etc. »

Les Américains se faisaient une autre idée des relations des citoyens et de l'Etat, quand ils placèrent en tête de leur Constitution ces simples paroles:

« Nous, le peuple des Etats-Unis, pour former une union plus parfaite, établir la justice, assurer la tranquillité intérieure, pourvoir à la défense commune, accroître le bien-être général et assurer les bienfaits de la liberté à nous-mêmes et à notre postérité, décrétons, etc. »

Il ne s'agit pas ici, comme on pourrait le croire, d'une subtilité métaphysique. Je prétends que cette personnification de l'Etat a été dans le passé et sera dans l'avenir une source féconde de calamités et de révolutions.

Voilà donc le public d'un côté, l'Etat de l'autre, considérés comme deux êtres distincts; celui-ci chargé d'épandre sur celui-là le torrent des félicités humaines. Que doit-il arriver?

Au fait, l'Etat ne peut conférer aucun avantage [2-c3] particulier à une des individualités qui composent le public sans infliger un dommage supérieur à la communauté tout entière.

Il se trouve donc placé, sous les noms de pouvoir, gouvernement, ministère, dans un cercle vicieux manifeste.

S'il refuse le bien direct qu'on attend de lui, il est accusé d'impuissance, de mauvais vouloir, d'impéritie. S'il essaie de le réaliser, il est réduit à frapper le peuple de taxes redoublées, et attire sur lui la désaffection générale.

Ainsi, dans le public, deux espérances dans le gouvernement, deux promesses : Beaucoup de bienfaits, et peu d'impôts; espérances et promesses qui, étant contradictoires, ne se réalisent jamais.

N'est-ce pas là la cause de toutes nos révolutions? Car entre l'Etat qui, prodigue les promesses impossibles, et le public qui a conçu des espérances irréalisables, viennent s'interposer deux classes d'hommes : les ambitieux et les utopistes. Leur rôle est tout tracé par la situation. Il suffit à ces courtisans de popularité de crier aux oreilles du peuple : « Le pouvoir te trompe si nous étions à sa place, nous te comblerions de bienfaits et t'affranchirions de taxes. »

Et le peuple croit, et le peuple espère, et le peuple fait une révolution.

Ses amis ne sont pas plutôt aux affaires, qu'ils sont sommés de s'exécuter. « Donnez-moi donc du travail, du pain, des secours, du crédit, de l'instruction, des colonies, dit le peuple, et cependant, selon vos promesses, délivrez-moi des serres du fisc. »

L'Etat nouveau n'est pas moins embarrassé que l'Etat ancien, car, en fait d'impossible, on peut bien promettre, mais non tenir. Il cherche à gagner du temps, il lui en faut pour mûrir ses vastes projets. D'abord il fait quelques timides essais d'un côté, il étend quelque peu l'instruction primaire; de l'autre, il modifie quelque peu l'impôt des boissons (1830). Mais la contradiction se dresse toujours devant lui : s'il veut être philanthrope, il est forcé de rester fiscal, et s'il renonce à la fiscalité, il faut qu'il renonce aussi à la philanthropie. De ces deux anciennes promesses, il y en a toujours une qui échoue nécessairement. Alors il prend bravement son parti, il réunit des forces pour se maintenir; il déclare qu'on ne peut administrer qu'à la condition d'être impopulaire, et que l'expérience l'a rendu gouvernemental.

Et c'est là que d'autres courtisans de popularité l'attendent. Ils exploitent la même illusion, passent par la même voie, obtiennent le même succès, et vont bientôt s'engloutir dans le même gouffre.

C'est ainsi que nous sommes arrivés en Février. A cette époque, l'illusion qui fait le sujet de cet article avait pénétré plus avant que jamais dans les idées du peuple, avec les doctrines socialistes. Plus que jamais, il s'attendait à ce que l'Etat, sous la forme républicaine, ouvrirait toute grande la source des bienfaits et fermerait celle de l'impôt.

« On m'a souvent trompé, disait le peuple, mais je veillerai moi-même à ce qu'on ne me trompe pas encore une fois. »

Que pouvait faire le gouvernement provisoire ? Hélas! ce qu'on fait toujours en pareille conjoncture promettre et gagner du temps. Il n'y manqua pas, et pour donner à ses promesses plus de-solennité il les fixa dans des décrets. « Augmentation de bien-être, diminution de travail, secours, crédits, instruction gratuite, colonies agricoles, défrichemens et en même temps réduction sur la taxe du sel, des boissons, des lettres, de la viande, tout te sera accordé, vienne l'Assemblée Nationale. »

L'Assemblée Nationale est venue, et comme on ne peut réaliser deux contradictions, sa tâche, sa triste tâche s'est bornée à retirer, le plus doucement possible, l'un après l'autre, tous les décrets du gouvernement provisoire.

Cependant, pour ne pas rendre la déception trop cruelle, il a bien fallu transiger quelque peu. Certains engagemens ont été maintenus, d'autres ont reçu un tout petit commencement d'exécution. Aussi l'administration actuelle s'efforce-t-elle d'imaginer de nouvelles taxes.

Maintenant je me transporte par la pensée à quelques mois dans l'avenir, et je me demande, la tristesse dans l'âme, ce qu'il adviendra quand des agens de nouvelle création iront dans nos campagnes prélever les nouveaux impôts sur les successions, sur les revenus, sur les profits de l'exploitation agricole. Que le ciel démente mes presentimens, mais je vois encore là un rôle à jouer pour les courtisans de popularité.

Il faut donc que le peuple de France apprenne cette grande leçon : Personnifier l'Etat, et attendre de lui qu'il prodigue les bienfaits en réduisant les taxes, c'est une véritable puérilité, mais une puérilité d'où sont sorties et d'où peuvent sortir encore bien des tempêtes. Le gouffre des révolutions ne [2-c4] se refermera pas tant que nous ne prendrons pas l'Etat pour ce qu'il est, la force commune instituée, non pour être entre les citoyens un instrument d'oppression réciproque, mais au contraire pour faire régner entre eux la justice et la sécurité.

FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT.

JDD version in English

The State

[1-c5]

I wish that a prize would be established—not of five hundred francs, but of a million, adorned with crowns, crosses, and ribbons—for whomever can provide a good, simple, and intelligible definition of this word: THE STATE.

What an immense service such a person would render to society!

THE STATE! What is it? Where is it? What does it do? What should it do?

All we know is that it is a mysterious person—undoubtedly the most solicited, the most tormented, the busiest, the most advised, the most accused, the most invoked, and the most provoked being in the world.

For, sir, though I do not have the honor of knowing you, I would wager ten to one that for the past [2-c1] six months you have been devising utopias. And if you have, I would wager ten to one that you are relying on THE STATE to realize them.

And you, madam, I am certain that you deeply wish to cure all the ills of suffering humanity, and that you would have no trouble doing so—if only THE STATE would lend itself to the task.

But alas! Like Figaro, the poor creature does not know to whom to listen, nor which direction to turn. The hundred thousand mouths of the press and the tribune cry out to it all at once:

Organize labor and workers.
Eradicate selfishness.
Repress the insolence and tyranny of capital.
Conduct experiments on manure and eggs.
Establish model farms.
Create harmonious workshops.
Colonize Algeria.
Nurse infants.
Educate the youth.
Assist the elderly.
Send city dwellers to the countryside.
Regulate the profits of all industries.
Lend money—without interest—to all who desire it.
Liberate Italy, Poland, and Hungary.
Breed and improve saddle horses.
Encourage the arts, train musicians and dancers.
Prohibit commerce and create a merchant navy.
Discover the truth and instill a grain of reason into our minds. The State’s mission is to enlighten, develop, expand, strengthen, spiritualize, and sanctify the soul of the people.

"Ah! Gentlemen, a little patience," replies THE STATE with a pitiful air.

"Uno a la volta, per carità!"

"I will try to satisfy you, but for that, I need resources. I have prepared proposals for five or six entirely new taxes, the mildest in the world. You will see what a pleasure it is to pay them."

But then a great outcry arises: Haro! Haro! What merit is there in doing something with resources? It wouldn’t even be worth calling oneself the State! Far from imposing new taxes on us, we demand that you repeal the old ones. Abolish:

The salt tax,
The beverage tax,
The postage tax,
The city tolls, licenses, and labor dues.

Amid this tumult, and after the country has changed its State two or three times for failing to satisfy all these demands, I dared to point out that they were contradictory. What was I thinking, good heavens! Could I not have kept this unfortunate observation to myself? Now I am forever discredited, and it is widely accepted that I am a heartless man, devoid of compassion—a cold philosopher, an individualist, and, to sum it up in a single word, an economist of the English or American school.

Oh, forgive me, sublime writers, who are hindered by nothing—not even contradictions! I am surely in the wrong, and I retract my words wholeheartedly. Rest assured, I would love nothing more than to believe that you have truly discovered, apart from us, a benevolent and inexhaustible being called THE STATE—one that has bread for every mouth, work for every hand, capital for every enterprise, credit for every project, oil for every wound, balm for every suffering, advice for every perplexity, solutions for every doubt, truths for every mind, distractions for every boredom, milk for childhood, and wine for old age—one that provides for all our needs, anticipates all our desires, satisfies all our curiosities, corrects all our errors, repairs all our faults, and relieves us henceforth of all foresight, prudence, judgment, wisdom, experience, order, economy, temperance, and activity.

And why would I not wish for this? God forgive me, but the more I think about it, the more I find it convenient! I, too, am eager to have at my disposal this inexhaustible source of wealth and wisdom—this universal healer, this bottomless treasury, this infallible counselor that you call THE STATE.

Thus, I demand that it be shown to me, that it be defined for me, and that is why I propose establishing a prize for the first person who discovers this phoenix. For in the end, one must admit that this precious discovery has yet to be made—since, until now, every entity that presents itself under the [2-c2] name STATE is overthrown by the people as soon as it fails to fulfill the somewhat contradictory conditions of its mandate.

Should I say it? I fear that, in this regard, we have fallen victim to one of the strangest illusions that has ever possessed the human mind.

Most, if not nearly all, of the things that can bring us satisfaction or relieve our suffering must be obtained through effort and hardship. Throughout all ages, men have shown a lamentable tendency to divide this dual condition of life, keeping satisfaction for themselves and shifting the burden onto others. This was the origin of slavery; it remains the basis of plunder—in whatever form it takes—monstrous abuses, yet undeniably consistent with the selfish aim that gave rise to them.

Slavery has disappeared, thank heaven, and outright, primitive plunder is no longer easy. Only one thing remains: the primal tendency to divide the burdens of life in two. All that was left was to find a scapegoat onto which the burdensome and costly portion could be shifted. THE STATE presented itself most opportunely.

Thus, while awaiting another definition, here is mine: The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.

For, today as in the past, each person—more or less—wishes to live off the labor of others. This sentiment is not openly displayed; one even hides it from oneself. And so, what is done? An intermediary is imagined, and each class, in turn, comes to the State and says: "You, who can lawfully and honestly take from the public, take—and we shall share it." The State is only too inclined to follow this devilish advice. Thus, it multiplies the number of its agents, broadens the scope of its functions, and eventually grows to overwhelming proportions. When will the public finally think to compare what is taken from it with what is given back? When will it realize that reciprocal plunder is no less burdensome simply because it is carried out in an orderly fashion through an expensive intermediary?

Let us trace this illusion back to its source.

We are thirty-five million individuals, and just as we call whiteness the common quality of all white objects, we designate the sum of all French people with collective terms such as France, Republic, State.

Then, we indulge in the notion that this abstraction possesses intelligence, foresight, wealth, a will, a life of its own, distinct from individual life. It is this abstraction that we foolishly wish to substitute for ancient slavery. It is upon it that we seek to cast the burden, toil, hardship, and responsibility of real existence. And as if there were a France apart from the French, or a society apart from its citizens, we present to the world this strange spectacle: citizens expecting everything from the city—living realities waiting for sustenance from a mere abstraction.

This illusion appears at the very beginning of our Constitution.

Here are the first words of the preamble:

"France has constituted itself as a Republic to call all citizens to an ever higher degree of morality, enlightenment, and well-being."

Thus, the citizens—who are the real things, in whom reside life and intelligence, from whom morality, enlightenment, and well-being must originate—expect these things from whom? From France, the abstraction. To expose the absurdity of this proposition, one need only reverse it. Surely, it would have been just as correct to say: "The citizens have constituted themselves into a Republic to call France to an ever higher degree, etc."

The Americans had a different view of the relationship between citizens and the State when they placed at the head of their Constitution these simple words:

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain, etc."

This is not a mere metaphysical subtlety, as some might think. I maintain that this personification of the State has been in the past, and will be in the future, a fertile source of disasters and revolutions.

Thus, we have the public on one side, the State on the other, considered as two distinct beings—the latter charged with showering the former with torrents of human happiness. What must inevitably happen?

In reality, the State cannot bestow any particular benefit [2-c3] upon one individual who makes up part of the public without inflicting a greater harm upon the entire community.

Thus, under the names power, government, ministry, it finds itself trapped in an obvious vicious circle.

If it refuses to grant the direct benefits expected of it, it is accused of impotence, ill will, or incompetence. If it attempts to grant them, it is forced to levy ever-increasing taxes upon the people, thus drawing upon itself universal resentment.

Thus, within the public, there are two expectations regarding the government, and two promises from the government: many benefits and few taxes. Expectations and promises that, being contradictory, are never fulfilled.

Is this not the cause of all our revolutions? For between the State, which lavishes impossible promises, and the public, which entertains unrealizable hopes, two groups of men interpose themselves: the ambitious and the utopians. Their role is clearly laid out by the situation. It is enough for these flatterers of popularity to whisper into the people's ears: "The current government is deceiving you! If we were in power, we would shower you with benefits and free you from taxation."

And the people believe, and the people hope, and the people make a revolution.

No sooner are their friends in power than they are called upon to fulfill their promises: "Give us work, bread, aid, credit, education, colonies," says the people, "and at the same time, according to your promises, free us from the grip of taxation."

The new State is no less troubled than the old, for when it comes to the impossible, one may promise but never deliver. It seeks to gain time—it needs it to mature its grand projects. First, it makes a few timid attempts: it slightly expands primary education in one area, it slightly modifies the beverage tax in another (as in 1830). But the contradiction always looms before it: if it wishes to be philanthropic, it must remain flush with tax money; and if it renounces taxation, it must also renounce philanthropy. Of its two former promises, one must necessarily fail. Then, it makes its choice: it gathers its forces to maintain itself, declares that administration is only possible if one accepts being unpopular, and claims that experience has made it behave in a governmental manner.

And that is where other flatterers of popularity await it. They exploit the same illusion, follow the same path, achieve the same success, and soon plunge into the same abyss.

This is how we arrived at February. At that time, the illusion at the heart of this article had penetrated the people's minds more deeply than ever, reinforced by socialist doctrines. More than ever, they expected that the State, in republican form, would throw open the floodgates of benefits and close those of taxation.

"I have often been deceived," said the people, "but this time, I will make sure I am not deceived again."

What could the Provisional Government do? Alas! The same as always in such circumstances—promise and buy time. It did not fail in this, and to give its promises greater solemnity, it enshrined them in decrees:

"Increase in well-being, reduction in labor, aid, credit, free education, agricultural colonies, land clearing, and at the same time, reductions on the tax on salt, alcohol, postage, and meat—everything shall be granted to you, once the National Assembly convenes."

The National Assembly has convened, and since it is impossible to realize two contradictions, its task—its sad task—has been to repeal, as gently as possible, one by one, all the decrees of the Provisional Government.

However, in order to soften the disappointment, it has been necessary to compromise somewhat. Some commitments have been upheld; others have been given only a token beginning. And so, the current administration is striving to invent new taxes.

Now, I cast my thoughts a few months into the future, and with sorrow in my heart, I ask myself: What will happen when newly appointed officials go into our countryside to collect new taxes on inheritances, on income, and on the profits of agricultural enterprises? Heaven grant that my forebodings prove false, but I see yet another role to be played by the flatterers of popularity.

Thus, the people of France must learn this great lesson: To personify the State, and to expect it to bestow benefits while reducing taxes, is sheer childishness—but a childishness from which many tempests have arisen, and from which many more may yet arise. The abyss of revolutions [2-c4] will not close until we recognize the State for what it is: the coercive power of the community ("la force commune"), established not to be among citizens an instrument of mutual oppression, but, on the contrary, to ensure justice and security among them.

FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT

The 1849 pamphlet version (c. April 1849)↩

Source

T.320 A third revised and enlarged version with a new section on the Montagnards’ economic policies was published twice in 1849: as an article in Annuaire de l’économie politique et de la statistique pour 1849, par MM. Joseph Garnier et Guillaumin et al. Sixième année (Paris: Guillaumin, 1849), pp. 356-68; and in a pamphlet L’État. Maudit Argent (Paris: Guillaumin, 1849), pp. 5-23. The third version is 3,900 words. OC4, pp. 327-41; CW2, pp. 93-104.

Editor’s Note

In this third version of the essay Bastiat added another 1,500 words (bringing the total up to 3,900 words) in which he directly addressed the Montagnard party’s policies. [35]We do not know exactly when he wrote this but it was included in a pamphlet published by the Guillaumin firm with another article on money, “Maudit argent!” (Damn Money!), which had been published in the 15 April 1849 issue of the JDE so must have been rewritten around then. Bastiat’s first reference to the “Manifesto of the Montagnards” was in a pamphlet he wrote in February 1849 on “Peace and Freedom or the Republican Budget.” [36]In his election manifesto which he distributed in his electorate in Les Landes in April 1849 he explicitly refers to the revised version of his essay “The State” in the following terms: [37]

L’École purement révolutionnaire veut faire intervenir l’État en toutes choses et ramener ainsi l’accroissement indéfini des impôts ; je fais la brochure intitulée : l’État, spécialement dirigée contre le manifeste montagnard.

The purely revolutionary school wanted the state to intervene in every matter and thus bring back a continuous increase in taxes. (So) I wrote the pamphlet entitled The State, which was particularly directed against the manifesto of the Montagnards.

The reason why his focus shifted to countering the Montagnard party at this time was because of the strong possibility that they would build upon the 5% of the vote Ledru-Rollin got in the December 1849 presidential election. This would turn out to be an accurate assessment as they got a healthy 180 seats or 26% of the 705 total seats in the new Legislative Assembly. Bastiat was also campaigning for re-election and would be successful in his home district of Les Landes.

The changes he made to the first part of the essay were numerous but relatively minor:

1. He added four more items to his list of things the people wanted the State to do (criss-cross the country with railways, irrigate the plains, re-forest the mountains - here he was actually reinstating things he had cut from his first list in JB) and a new item on “The state has set itself the mission of enlightening, developing, enlarging, fortifying, spiritualizing, and sanctifying the souls of the people.” [38]
2. He changed the word “L’égotisme”to “l’égoïsme.”
3. He cut the one of the quotes from Rossini’s Barber of Seville.
4. He expanded slightly the paragraph dealing with slavery.
5. He inserted two new paragraphs on the nature of oppressors and their use of legal plunder to achieve their purposes
6. He expanded a paragraph to include a discussion of some important “public choice” insights into the behaviour of bureaucrats and politicians
7. He cut out two paragraphs which dealt with the way the abstractions of “France” and “The State” were used as substitutes for ancient slavery
8. He expanded his discussion of the personification of the state and introduces the idea that the state has two hands, “la main rude et la main douce” (the rough hand and the gentle hand)
9. He added several more actions the government would take, including that “it stifles public opinion, it exercises arbitrary power, it mocks its own former slogans.”
10. He concluded with a revised statement about what the State should do.

A good example of the kind of changes he made to the JDD version is the paragraph dealing with the self-interested motives of politicians and bureaucrats to expand their powers, which immediately follows his definition of the State. A comparison of the two versions reveals the following differences. Here Bastiat expands into two paragraphs his discussion of the self-interested behaviour of public officials, the dangers of “reciprocal pillage,” and the “expensive intermediary” the State has now become. (JDD version on the left; 1849 pamphlet version on the right; with significant differences or additions in bold).

1848 JDD version	1849 pamphlet version
“Car, aujourd’hui comme autrefois, chacun un peu plus, un peu moins voudrait bien vivre du travail d’autrui. Ce sentiment, on n’ose l’afficher, on se le dissimule à soi-même; et alors que fait-on ? On imagine un intermédiaire, et chaque classe tour à tour vient dire à l’Etat : « Vous qui pouvez prendre légalement, honnêtement, prenez au public et nous partagerons. » L’Etat n’a que trop de pente à suivre ce diabolique conseil. C’est ainsi qu’il multiplie le nombre de ses agens, élargit le cercle de ses attributions et finit par acquérir des proportions écrasantes. Quand donc le public s’avisera-t-il enfin de comparer ce qu’on lui prend avec ce qu’on lui rend? Quand rcconnaîtra-t-il que le pillage réciproque n’en est pas moins onéreux, parce qu’il s’exécute avec ordre par un intermédiaire dispendieux?”	“Car, aujourd’hui comme autrefois, chacun, un peu plus, un peu moins, voudrait bien profiter du travail d’autrui. Ce sentiment, on n’ose l’afficher, on se le dissimule à soi-même ; et alors que fait-on ? On imagine un intermédiaire, on s’adresse à l’État, et chaque classe tour à tour vient lui dire : « Vous qui pouvez prendre loyalement, honnêtement, prenez au public, et nous partagerons. » Hélas ! l’État n’a que trop de pente à suivre le diabolique conseil ; car il est composé de ministres, de fonctionnaires, d’hommes enfin, qui, comme tous les hommes, portent au cœur le désir et saisissent toujours avec empressement l’occasion de voir grandir leurs richesses et leur influence. L’État comprend donc bien vite le parti qu’il peut tirer du rôle que le public lui confie. Il sera l’arbitre, le maître de toutes les destinées : il prendra beaucoup, donc il lui restera beaucoup à lui-même ; il multipliera le nombre de ses agents, il élargira le cercle de ses attributions ; il finira par acquérir des proportions écrasantes.”
	Mais ce qu'il faut bien remarquer, c'est l'étonnant aveuglement du public en tout ceci. Quand des soldats heureux réduisaient les vaincus en esclavage, ils étaient barbares, mais ils n'étaient pas absurdes. Leur but, comme le nôtre, était de vivre aux dépens d'autrui ; mais, comme nous, ils ne le manquaient pas. Que devons-nous penser d'un peuple où l'on ne paraît pas se douter que le pillage réciproque n'en est pas moins pillage parce qu'il est réciproque ; qu'il n'en est pas moins criminel parce qu'il s'exécute légalement et avec ordre ; qu'il n'ajoute rien au bien-être public ; qu'il le diminue au contraire de tout ce que coûte cet intermédiaire dispendieux que nous nommons l'État ?

For today, as in the past, each person more or less wants to live well from the work of others. We do not dare display this sentiment (openly); we even hide it from ourselves, and then what do we do? We design an intermediary, and each class in turn comes forward to say to it “You who can take things legally and honestly, take something from the general public and we will share it.” The state has a very ready tendency to follow this diabolical advice. It is in this way that it can increase the number of its officials, widen the circle (scope) of its functions, and end up acquiring an overwhelming size. So when will the public finally dare to compare what is taken from it with what is given back to it? When will it learn that reciprocal pillage is no less burdensome because it is carried out in an orderly fashion by an expensive intermediary?

For today, as in the past, each person more or less wants to profit from the work of others. We do not dare display this sentiment (openly); we even hide it from ourselves, and then what do we do? We design an intermediary, we address ourselves to the state, and each class in turn comes forward to say to it “You who can take things straightforwardly and honestly, take something from the general public and we will share it.” Alas! The state has a very ready tendency to follow this diabolical advice as it is made up of ministers and civil servants, in short, men, who like all men are filled with the desire and are always quick to seize the opportunity to see their wealth and influence increase. The state is therefore quick to understand the profit it can make from the role that the general public has entrusted to it. It will be the arbiter and master of every destiny. It will take a great deal; (and) therefore a great deal will be left (over) for itself. It will increase the number of its officials and widen the circle (scope) of its functions. It will end up acquiring an overwhelming size.

But what we should clearly note is the astonishing blindness of the general public in all this. When victorious soldiers reduced the conquered to slavery they were barbaric, but they were not absurd. Their aim, like ours, was to live at someone else’s expense, but unlike us, they (were able to ) achieve this. What should we think of a people who do not appear to have any idea that reciprocal pillage is no less pillage because it is reciprocal, that it is no less criminal because it is executed legally and in an orderly fashion, that it adds nothing to public well-being and that, on the contrary, it reduces well-being by everything that this expensive intermediary that we call the state costs us?

However, the biggest difference between the JDD and the 1849 pamphlet versions is the addition of an entirely new 900 word long section on the Montagnards’ political and economic policies. He discusses in some detail the “Manifesto of the Montagnards” which had been issued during Ledru-Rollin’s campaign in the December presidential election of 1848. [39]He summarised the aims of the Montagnard party as “The state must give a great deal to its citizens and take very little from them.” He then lists the things they wanted the government to do: provide free general education for all, free vocational education, ongoing enlightenment for all citizens, state compensation for accidents and natural disasters, regulate labor relations, provide credit, subsidise farming, nationalise the railways, canals, and mines, encourage and subsidise large economic undertakings, and (quite ominously in Bastiat’s view) use the French army to spread Montagnard ideas and policies to the rest of Europe.

Bastiat also lists the taxes the Montagnards wanted to cut. This is quite extensive and seems very similar to Bastiat’s own views on tax cuts [40]and also may explain why the Montagnards did so well in the elections, by appealing to the anti-tax sentiments of the people. They also wanted to cut taxes on essential items like food, salt, and drink; reform taxes on land, city tolls, occupational licenses, legal transactions, and stamps, but this was something Bastiat did not acknowledge in his essay. What he did point out was the contradiction that you can’t have both increased government benefits as well as tax cuts. If you want the “soft hand that gives and spreads benefits widely” you also have to have “the rough hand that goes rummaging and rifling in our pockets” to get the taxes to pay for them. In his mind there were only three different kinds of political systems: one where the State undertakes a lot of activity and also takes a lot from the taxpayers; one where it does very little and taxes are “peu sentir” (barely felt) (Bastiat’s preference); and a third hybrid system where the people expect a lot from the state and refuse to pay anything to support it. The latter was the dream of the Montagnards, one that he called “illusionary, absurd, puerile, contradictory, and dangerous.”

It should also be noted that he revised slightly his concluding statement about what the state ought to do. In the 1849 version he adds the phrases “spoliation réciproque” (reciprocal plunder) and “garantir à chacun le sien” (guaranteeing each person what is theirs). (See above for details.)

Pamphlet version in French

[IV-327]

Je voudrais qu’on fondât un prix, non de cinq cents francs, mais d’un million, avec couronnes, croix et rubans, en faveur de celui qui donnerait une bonne, simple et intelligible définition de ce mot : l’État.

Quel immense service ne rendrait-il pas à la société !

L’État ! Qu’est-ce ? où est-il ? que fait-il ? que devrait-il faire ?

Tout ce que nous en savons, c’est que c’est un personnage mystérieux, et assurément le plus sollicité, le plus tourmenté, le plus affairé, le plus conseillé, le plus accusé, le plus invoqué et le plus provoqué qu’il y ait au monde.

Car, Monsieur, je n’ai pas l’honneur de vous connaître, mais je gage dix contre un que depuis six mois vous faites des utopies ; et si vous en faites, je gage dix contre un que vous chargez l’État de les réaliser.

Et vous, Madame, je suis sûr que vous désirez du fond du cœur guérir tous les maux de la triste humanité, et que vous n’y seriez nullement embarrassée si l’État voulait seulement s’y prêter.

Mais, hélas ! le malheureux, comme Figaro, ne sait ni qui entendre, ni de quel côté se tourner. Les cent mille [IV-328] bouches de la presse et de la tribune lui crient à la fois :

« Organisez le travail et les travailleurs.
Extirpez l’égoïsme.
Réprimez l’insolence et la tyrannie du capital.
Faites des expériences sur le fumier et sur les œufs.
Sillonnez le pays de chemins de fer.
Irriguez les plaines.
Boisez les montagnes.
Fondez des fermes-modèles
Fondez des ateliers harmoniques.
Colonisez l’Algérie.
Allaitez les enfants.
Instruisez la jeunesse.
Secourez la vieillesse.
Envoyez dans les campagnes les habitants des villes.
Pondérez les profits de toutes les industries.
Prêtez de l’argent, et sans intérêt, à ceux qui en désirent.
Affranchissez l’Italie, la Pologne et la Hongrie.
Élevez et perfectionnez le cheval de selle.
Encouragez l’art, formez-nous des musiciens et des danseuses.
Prohibez le commerce et, du même coup, créez une marine marchande.
Découvrez la vérité et jetez dans nos têtes un grain de raison. L’État a pour mission d’éclairer, de développer, d’agrandir, de fortifier, de spiritualiser et de sanctifier l’âme des peuples. »

— « Eh ! Messieurs, un peu de patience, répond l’État, d’un air piteux. »

« J’essaierai de vous satisfaire, mais pour cela il me faut [IV-329] quelques ressources. J’ai préparé des projets concernant cinq ou six impôts tout nouveaux et les plus bénins du monde. Vous verrez quel plaisir on a à les payer. »

Mais alors un grand cri s’élève :

« Haro ! haro ! le beau mérite de faire quelque chose avec des ressources ! Il ne vaudrait pas la peine de s’appeler l’État. Loin de nous frapper de nouvelles taxes, nous vous sommons de retirer les anciennes. Supprimez :

L’impôt du sel ;
L’impôt des boissons ;
L’impôt des lettres ;
L’octroi ;
Les patentes ;
Les prestations. »

Au milieu de ce tumulte, et après que le pays a changé deux ou trois fois son État pour n’avoir pas satisfait à toutes ces demandes, j’ai voulu faire observer qu’elles étaient contradictoires. De quoi me suis-je avisé, bon Dieu ! ne pouvais-je garder pour moi cette malencontreuse remarque ?

Me voilà discrédité à tout jamais ; et il est maintenant reçu que je suis un homme sans cœur et sans entrailles, un philosophe sec, un individualiste, un bourgeois, et, pour tout dire en un mot, un économiste de l’école anglaise ou américaine.

Oh ! pardonnez-moi, écrivains sublimes, que rien n’arrête, pas même les contradictions. J’ai tort, sans doute, et je me rétracte de grand cœur. Je ne demande pas mieux, soyez-en sûrs, que vous ayez vraiment découvert, en dehors de nous, un être bienfaisant et inépuisable, s’appelant l’État, qui ait du pain pour toutes les bouches, du travail pour tous les bras, des capitaux pour toutes les entreprises, du crédit pour tous les projets, de l’huile pour toutes les plaies, du baume pour toutes les souffrances, des conseils pour toutes les perplexités, des solutions pour tous les doutes, [IV-330] des vérités pour toutes les intelligences, des distractions pour tous les ennuis, du lait pour l’enfance, du vin pour la vieillesse, qui pourvoie à tous nos besoins, prévienne tous nos désirs, satisfasse toutes nos curiosités, redresse toutes nos erreurs, toutes nos fautes, et nous dispense tous désormais de prévoyance, de prudence, de jugement, de sagacité, d’expérience, d’ordre, d’économie, de tempérance et d’activité.

Et pourquoi ne le désirerais-je pas ? Dieu me pardonne, plus j’y réfléchis, plus je trouve que la chose est commode, et il me tarde d’avoir, moi aussi, à ma portée, cette source intarissable de richesses et de lumières, ce médecin universel, ce trésor sans fond, ce conseiller infaillible que vous nommez l’État.

Aussi je demande qu’on me le montre, qu’on me le définisse, et c’est pourquoi je propose la fondation d’un prix pour le premier qui découvrira ce phénix. Car enfin, on m’accordera bien que cette découverte précieuse n’a pas encore été faite, puisque, jusqu’ici, tout ce qui se présente sous le nom d’État, le peuple le renverse aussitôt, précisément parce qu’il ne remplit pas les conditions quelque peu contradictoires du programme.

Faut-il le dire ? Je crains que nous ne soyons, à cet égard, dupes d’une des plus bizarres illusions qui se soient jamais emparées de l’esprit humain.

L’homme répugne à la Peine, à la Souffrance. Et cependant il est condamné par la nature à la Souffrance de la Privation, s’il ne prend pas la Peine du Travail. Il n’a donc que le choix entre ces deux maux. Comment faire pour les éviter tous deux ? Il n’a jusqu’ici trouvé et ne trouvera jamais qu’un moyen : c’est de jouir du travail d’autrui ; c’est de faire en sorte que la Peine et la Satisfaction n’incombent pas à chacun selon la proportion naturelle, mais que toute la peine soit pour les uns et toutes les satisfactions pour les [IV-331] autres. De là l’esclavage, de là encore la spoliation, quelque forme qu’elle prenne : guerres, impostures, violences, restrictions, fraudes, etc., abus monstrueux, mais conséquents avec la pensée qui leur a donné naissance. On doit haïr et combattre les oppresseurs, on ne peut pas dire qu’ils soient absurdes.

L’esclavage s’en va, grâce au Ciel, et, d’un autre côté, cette disposition où nous sommes à défendre notre bien, fait que la Spoliation directe et naïve n’est pas facile. Une chose cependant est restée. C’est ce malheureux penchant primitif que portent en eux tous les hommes à faire deux parts du lot complexe de la vie, rejetant la Peine sur autrui et gardant la Satisfaction pour eux-mêmes. Reste à voir sous quelle forme nouvelle se manifeste cette triste tendance.

L’oppresseur n’agit plus directement par ses propres forces sur l’opprimé. Non, notre conscience est devenue trop méticuleuse pour cela. Il y a bien encore le tyran et la victime, mais entre eux se place un intermédiaire qui est l’État, c’est-à-dire la loi elle-même. Quoi de plus propre à faire taire nos scrupules et, ce qui est peut-être plus apprécié, à vaincre les résistances ? Donc, tous, à un titre quelconque, sous un prétexte ou sous un autre, nous nous adressons à l’État. Nous lui disons : « Je ne trouve pas qu’il y ait, entre mes jouissances et mon travail, une proportion qui me satisfasse. Je voudrais bien, pour établir l’équilibre désiré, prendre quelque peu sur le bien d’autrui. Mais c’est dangereux. Ne pourriez-vous me faciliter la chose ? ne pourriez-vous me donner une bonne place ? ou bien gêner l’industrie de mes concurrents ? ou bien encore me prêter gratuitement des capitaux que vous aurez pris à leurs possesseurs ? ou élever mes enfants aux frais du public ? ou m’accorder des primes d’encouragement ? ou m’assurer le bien-être quand j’aurai cinquante ans ? Par ce moyen, j’arriverai à mon but en toute quiétude de conscience, car la loi elle-même aura [IV-332] agi pour moi, et j’aurai tous les avantages de la spoliation sans en avoir ni les risques ni l’odieux ! »

Comme il est certain, d’un côté, que nous adressons tous à l’État quelque requête semblable, et que, d’une autre part, il est avéré que l’État ne peut procurer satisfaction aux uns sans ajouter au travail des autres, en attendant une autre définition de l’État, je me crois autorisé à donner ici la mienne. Qui sait si elle ne remportera pas le prix ? La voici :

L’État, c’est la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s’efforce de vivre aux dépens de tout le monde.

Car, aujourd’hui comme autrefois, chacun, un peu plus, un peu moins, voudrait bien profiter du travail d’autrui. Ce sentiment, on n’ose l’afficher, on se le dissimule à soi-même ; et alors que fait-on ? On imagine un intermédiaire, on s’adresse à l’État, et chaque classe tour à tour vient lui dire : « Vous qui pouvez prendre loyalement, honnêtement, prenez au public, et nous partagerons. » Hélas ! l’État n’a que trop de pente à suivre le diabolique conseil ; car il est composé de ministres, de fonctionnaires, d’hommes enfin, qui, comme tous les hommes, portent au cœur le désir et saisissent toujours avec empressement l’occasion de voir grandir leurs richesses et leur influence. L’État comprend donc bien vite le parti qu’il peut tirer du rôle que le public lui confie. Il sera l’arbitre, le maître de toutes les destinées : il prendra beaucoup, donc il lui restera beaucoup à lui-même ; il multipliera le nombre de ses agents, il élargira le cercle de ses attributions ; il finira par acquérir des proportions écrasantes.

Mais ce qu’il faut bien remarquer, c’est l’étonnant aveuglement du public en tout ceci. Quand des soldats heureux réduisaient les vaincus en esclavage, ils étaient barbares, mais ils n’étaient pas absurdes. Leur but, comme le nôtre, était de vivre aux dépens d’autrui ; mais, comme nous, ils [IV-333] ne le manquaient pas. Que devons-nous penser d’un peuple où l’on ne paraît pas se douter que le pillage réciproque n’en est pas moins pillage parce qu’il est réciproque ; qu’il n’en est pas moins criminel parce qu’il s’exécute légalement et avec ordre ; qu’il n’ajoute rien au bien-être public ; qu’il le diminue au contraire de tout ce que coûte cet intermédiaire dispendieux que nous nommons l’État ?

Et cette grande chimère, nous l’avons placée, pour l’édification du peuple, au frontispice de la Constitution. Voici les premiers mots du préambule :

« La France s’est constituée en République pour… appeler tous les citoyens à un degré toujours plus élevé de moralité, de lumière et de bien-être. »

Ainsi, c’est la France ou l’abstraction, qui appelle les Français ou les réalités à la moralité, au bien-être, etc. N’est-ce pas abonder dans le sens de cette bizarre illusion qui nous porte à tout attendre d’une autre énergie que la nôtre ? N’est-ce pas donner à entendre qu’il y a, à côté et en dehors des Français, un être vertueux, éclairé, riche, qui peut et doit verser sur eux ses bienfaits ? N’est-ce pas supposer, et certes bien gratuitement, qu’il y a entre la France et les Français, entre la simple dénomination abrégée, abstraite, de toutes les individualités et ces individualités mêmes, des rapports de père à fils, de tuteur à pupille, de professeur à écolier ? Je sais bien qu’on dit quelquefois métaphoriquement : La patrie est une mère tendre. Mais pour prendre en flagrant délit d’inanité la proposition constitutionnelle, il suffit de montrer qu’elle peut être retournée, je ne dirai pas sans inconvénient, mais même avec avantage. L’exactitude souffrirait-elle si le préambule avait dit :

« Les Français se sont constitués en République pour appeler la France à un degré toujours plus élevé de moralité, de lumière et de bien-être ? »

Or, quelle est la valeur d’un axiome où le sujet et [IV-334] l’attribut peuvent chasser-croiser sans inconvénient ? Tout le monde comprend qu’on dise : la mère allaitera l’enfant. Mais il serait ridicule de dire : l’enfant allaitera la mère.

Les Américains se faisaient une autre idée des relations des citoyens avec l’État, quand ils placèrent en tête de leur Constitution ces simples paroles :

« Nous, le peuple des États-Unis, pour former une union plus parfaite, établir la justice, assurer la tranquillité intérieure, pourvoir à la défense commune, accroître le bien-être général et assurer les bienfaits de la liberté à nous-mêmes et à notre postérité, décrétons, etc. »

Ici point de création chimérique, point d’abstraction à laquelle les citoyens demandent tout. Ils n’attendent rien que d’eux-mêmes et de leur propre énergie.

Si je me suis permis de critiquer les premières paroles de notre Constitution, c’est qu’il ne s’agit pas, comme on pourrait le croire, d’une pure subtilité métaphysique. Je prétends que cette personnification de l’État a été dans le passé et sera dans l’avenir une source féconde de calamités et de révolutions.

Voilà le Public d’un côté, l’État de l’autre, considérés comme deux être distincts, celui-ci tenu d’épandre sur celui-là, celui-là ayant droit de réclamer de celui-ci le torrent des félicités humaines. Que doit-il arriver ?

Au fait, l’État n’est pas manchot et ne peut l’être. Il a deux mains, l’une pour recevoir et l’autre pour donner, autrement dit, la main rude et la main douce. L’activité de la seconde est nécessairement subordonnée à l’activité de la première. À la rigueur, l’État peut prendre et ne pas rendre. Cela s’est vu et s’explique par la nature poreuse et absorbante de ses mains, qui retiennent toujours une partie et quelquefois la totalité de ce qu’elles touchent. Mais ce qui ne s’est jamais vu, ce qui ne se verra jamais et ne se peut même concevoir, c’est que l’État rende au public plus qu’il [IV-335] ne lui a pris. C’est donc bien follement que nous prenons autour de lui l’humble attitude de mendiants. Il lui est radicalement impossible de conférer un avantage particulier à quelques-unes des individualités qui constituent la communauté, sans infliger un dommage supérieur à la communauté entière.

Il se trouve donc placé, par nos exigences, dans un cercle vicieux manifeste.

S’il refuse le bien qu’on exige de lui, il est accusé d’impuissance, de mauvais vouloir, d’incapacité. S’il essaie de le réaliser, il est réduit à frapper le peuple de taxes redoublées, à faire plus de mal que de bien, et à s’attirer, par un autre bout, la désaffection générale.

Ainsi, dans le public des espérances, dans le gouvernement deux promesses : beaucoup de bienfaits et pas d’impôts. Espérances et promesses qui, étant contradictoires, ne se réalisent jamais.

N’est-ce pas là la cause de toutes nos révolutions ? Car entre l’État, qui prodigue les promesses impossibles, et le public, qui a conçu des espérances irréalisables, viennent s’interposer deux classes d’hommes : les ambitieux et les utopistes. Leur rôle est tout tracé par la situation. Il suffit à ces courtisans de popularité de crier aux oreilles du peuple : « Le pouvoir te trompe ; si nous étions à sa place, nous te comblerions de bienfaits et t’affranchirions de taxes. »

Et le peuple croit, et le peuple espère, et le peuple fait une révolution.

Ses amis ne sont pas plus tôt aux affaires, qu’ils sont sommés de s’exécuter.

« Donnez-moi donc du travail, du pain, des secours, du crédit, de l’instruction, des colonies, dit le peuple, et cependant, selon vos promesses, délivrez-moi des serres du fisc. »

L’État nouveau n’est pas moins embarrassé que l’État ancien, car, en fait d’impossible, on peut bien promettre, [IV-336] mais non tenir. Il cherche à gagner du temps, il lui en faut pour mûrir ses vastes projets. D’abord, il fait quelques timides essais ; d’un côté, il étend quelque peu l’instruction primaire ; de l’autre, il modifie quelque peu l’impôt des boissons (1830). Mais la contradiction se dresse toujours devant lui : s’il veut être philanthrope, il est forcé de rester fiscal ; et s’il renonce à la fiscalité, il faut qu’il renonce aussi à la philanthropie.

Ces deux promesses s’empêchent toujours et nécessairement l’une l’autre. User du crédit, c’est-à-dire dévorer l’avenir, est bien un moyen actuel de les concilier ; on essaie de faire un peu de bien dans le présent aux dépens de beaucoup de mal dans l’avenir. Mais ce procédé évoque le spectre de la banqueroute qui chasse le crédit. Que faire donc ? Alors l’État nouveau prend son parti en brave ; il réunit des forces pour se maintenir, il étouffe l’opinion, il a recours à l’arbitraire, il ridiculise ses anciennes maximes, il déclare qu’on ne peut administrer qu’à la condition d’être impopulaire ; bref, il se proclame gouvernemental.

Et c’est là que d’autres courtisans de popularité l’attendent. Ils exploitent la même illusion, passent par la même voie, obtiennent le même succès, et vont bientôt s’engloutir dans le même gouffre.

C’est ainsi que nous sommes arrivés en Février. À cette époque, l’illusion qui fait le sujet de cet article avait pénétré plus avant que jamais dans les idées du peuple, avec les doctrines socialistes. Plus que jamais, il s’attendait à ce que l’État sous la forme républicaine, ouvrirait toute grande la source des bienfaits et fermerait celle de l’impôt. « On m’a souvent trompé, disait le peuple, mais je veillerai moi-même à ce qu’on ne me trompe pas encore une fois. »

Que pouvait faire le gouvernement provisoire ? Hélas ! ce qu’on fait toujours en pareille conjoncture : promettre, et gagner du temps. Il n’y manque pas, et pour donner à ses [IV-337] promesses plus de solennité, il les fixa dans des décrets.

« Augmentation de bien-être, diminution de travail, secours, crédit, instruction gratuite, colonies agricoles, défrichements, et en même temps réduction sur la taxe du sel, des boissons, des lettres, de la viande, tout sera accordé… vienne l’Assemblée nationale ».

L’Assemblée nationale est venue, et comme on ne peut réaliser deux contradictions, sa tâche, sa triste tâche, s’est bornée à retirer, le plus doucement possible, l’un après l’autre, tous les décrets du gouvernement provisoire.

Cependant, pour ne pas rendre la déception trop cruelle, il a bien fallu transiger quelque peu. Certains engagements ont été maintenus, d’autres ont reçu un tout petit commencement d’exécution. Aussi l’administration actuelle s’efforce-t-elle d’imaginer de nouvelles taxes.

Maintenant je me transporte par la pensée à quelques mois dans l’avenir, et je me demande, la tristesse dans l’âme, ce qu’il adviendra quand des agents de nouvelle création iront dans nos campagnes prélever les nouveaux impôts sur les successions, sur les revenus, sur les profits de l’exploitation agricole. Que le Ciel démente mes pressentiments, mais je vois encore là un rôle à jouer pour les courtisans de popularité.

Lisez le dernier Manifeste des Montagnards, celui qu’ils ont émis à propos de l’élection présidentielle. Il est un peu long, mais, après tout, il se résume en deux mots : L’État doit beaucoup donner aux citoyens et peu leur prendre. C’est toujours la même tactique, ou, si l’on veut, la même erreur.

« L’État doit gratuitement l’instruction et l’éducation à tous les citoyens. ».

Il doit :

« Un enseignement général et professionnel approprié, autant que possible, aux besoins, aux vocations et aux capacités de chaque citoyen. »

[IV-338]

Il doit :

« Lui apprendre ses devoirs envers Dieu, envers les hommes et envers lui-même ; développer ses sentiments, ses aptitudes et ses facultés, lui donner enfin la science de son travail, l’intelligence de ses intérêts et la connaissance de ses droits. »

Il doit :

« Mettre à la portée de tous les lettres et les arts, le patrimoine de la pensée, les trésors de l’esprit, toutes les jouissances intellectuelles qui élèvent et fortifient l’âme. »

Il doit :

« Réparer tout sinistre, incendie, inondation, etc. (cet et cætera en dit plus qu’il n’est gros) éprouvé par un citoyen. »

Il doit :

« Intervenir dans les rapports du capital avec le travail et se faire le régulateur du crédit. »

Il doit :

« À l’agriculture des encouragements sérieux et une protection efficace. »

Il doit :

« Racheter les chemins de fer, les canaux, les mines, » et sans doute aussi les administrer avec cette capacité industrielle qui le caractérise.

Il doit :

« Provoquer les tentatives généreuses, les encourager et les aider par toutes les ressources capables de les faire triompher. Régulateur du crédit, il commanditera largement les associations industrielles et agricoles, afin d’en assurer le succès. »

L’État doit tout cela, sans préjudice des services auxquels il fait face aujourd’hui ; et, par exemple, il faudra qu’il soit [IV-339] toujours à l’égard des étrangers dans une attitude menaçante ; car, disent les signataires du programme,

« liés par cette solidarité sainte et par les précédents de la France républicaine, nous portons nos vœux et nos espérances au-delà des barrières que le despotisme élève entre les nations : le droit que nous voulons pour nous, nous le voulons pour tous ceux qu’opprime le joug des tyrannies ; nous voulons que notre glorieuse armée soit encore, s’il le faut, l’armée de la liberté. »

Vous voyez que la main douce de l’État, cette bonne main qui donne et qui répand, sera fort occupée sous le gouvernement des Montagnards. Vous croyez peut-être qu’il en sera de même de la main rude, de cette main qui pénètre et puise dans nos poches ?

Détrompez-vous. Les courtisans de popularité ne sauraient pas leur métier, s’ils n’avaient l’art, en montrant la main douce, de cacher la main rude.

Leur règne sera assurément le jubilé du contribuable.

« C’est le superflu, disent-ils, non le nécessaire que l’impôt doit atteindre. »

Ne sera-ce pas un bon temps que celui où, pour nous accabler de bienfaits, le fisc se contentera d’écorner notre superflu ?

Ce n’est pas tout. Les Montagnards aspirent à ce que « l’impôt perde son caractère oppressif et ne soit plus qu’un acte de fraternité. »

Bonté du ciel ! je savais bien qu’il est de mode de fourrer la fraternité partout, mais je ne me doutais pas qu’on la pût mettre dans le bulletin du percepteur.

Arrivant aux détails, les signataires du programme disent :

« Nous voulons l’abolition immédiate des impôts qui frappent les objets de première nécessité, comme le sel, les boissons, et cætera. »

[IV-340]

« La réforme de l’impôt foncier, des octrois, des patentes. »

« La justice gratuite, c’est-à-dire la simplification des formes et la réduction des frais. » (Ceci a sans doute trait au timbre.)

Ainsi, impôt foncier, octrois, patentes, timbre, sel, boissons, postes, tout y passe. Ces messieurs ont trouvé le secret de donner une activité brûlante à la main douce de l’État tout en paralysant sa main rude.

Eh bien, je le demande au lecteur impartial, n’est-ce pas là de l’enfantillage, et, de plus, de l’enfantillage dangereux ? Comment le peuple ne ferait-il pas révolution sur révolution, s’il est une fois décidé à ne s’arrêter que lorsqu’il aura réalisé cette contradiction : « Ne rien donner à l’État et en recevoir beaucoup ! »

Croit-on que si les Montagnards arrivaient au pouvoir, ils ne seraient pas les victimes des moyens qu’ils emploient pour le saisir ?

Citoyens, dans tous les temps deux systèmes politiques ont été en présence, et tous les deux peuvent se soutenir par de bonnes raisons. Selon l’un, l’État doit beaucoup faire, mais aussi il doit beaucoup prendre. D’après l’autre, sa double action doit se faire peu sentir. Entre ces deux systèmes il faut opter. Mais quant au troisième système, participant des deux autres, et qui consiste à tout exiger de l’État sans lui rien donner, il est chimérique, absurde, puéril, contradictoire, dangereux. Ceux qui le mettent en avant, pour se donner le plaisir d’accuser tous les gouvernements d’impuissance et les exposer ainsi à vos coups, ceux-là vous flattent et vous trompent, ou du moins ils se trompent eux-mêmes.

Quant à nous, nous pensons que l’État, ce n’est ou ce ne devrait être autre chose que la force commune instituée, non pour être entre tous les citoyens un instrument [IV-341] d’oppression et de spoliation réciproque, mais, au contraire, pour garantir à chacun le sien, et faire régner la justice et la sécurité.

Pamphlet version in English

[IV-327]

I wish that a prize would be established—not of five hundred francs, but of a million,[41]adorned with crowns, crosses, and ribbons—for whomever can provide a good, simple, and intelligible definition of this word: The State.

What an immense service such a person would render to society!

The State! What is it? Where is it? What does it do? What should it do?

All we know is that it is a mysterious person—undoubtedly the most solicited, the most tormented, the busiest, the most advised, the most accused, the most invoked, and the most provoked being in the world.

For, sir, though I do not have the honor of knowing you, I would wager ten to one that for the past six months you have been devising utopias.[42]And if you have, I would wager ten to one that you are relying on the State to realize them.

And you, madam, I am certain that you deeply wish to cure all the ills of suffering humanity, and that you would have no trouble doing so—if only the State would lend itself to the task.

But alas! Like Figaro, the poor creature does not know to whom to listen, nor which direction to turn.[43]The hundred thousand [IV-328] mouths of the press and the political clubs[44]cry out to it all at once:

"Organize labor and workers.[45]
Eradicate selfishness.[46]
Repress the insolence and tyranny of capital.
Conduct experiments on manure and eggs.
Crisscross the country with railroads.[47]
Irrigate the plains.
Reforest the mountains.
Establish model farms.
Create harmonious workshops.[48]
Colonize Algeria.[49]
Nurse infants.
Educate the youth.
Assist the elderly.
Send city dwellers to the countryside.
Regulate the profits of all industries.
Lend money—without interest—to all who desire it.[50]
Liberate Italy, Poland, and Hungary.[51]
Breed and improve riding horses.
Encourage the arts, train musicians and dancers.
Prohibit commerce and, at the same time, create a merchant navy.
Discover the truth and plant a seed of reason in our minds. The State’s mission is to enlighten, develop, expand, strengthen, spiritualize, and sanctify the soul of the people."[52]

— "Ah! Gentlemen, have a little patience," replies the State with a pitiful air.[53]

"I will try to satisfy you, but for that, I need [IV-329] some resources. I have prepared proposals for five or six entirely new taxes, the mildest in the world. You will see what a pleasure it is to pay them."

But then a great outcry arises:

"Haro! Haro! the cry goes out. What merit is there in doing something with resources you already have? It wouldn’t even be worth calling oneself the State! Far from imposing new taxes on us, we demand that you repeal the old ones. Abolish:[54]

The salt tax;[55]
The alcohol tax;[56]
The postage tax;[57]
City tolls;[58]
Business licenses;[59]
Compulsory labor obligations."[60]

[IV-330]

Amid this tumult, and after the country has changed the form of its State two or three times for failing to satisfy all these demands, I dared to point out that they were contradictory. What was I thinking, good heavens! Could I not have kept this unfortunate observation to myself?

Now I am discredited forever; and it is now accepted that I am a man without heart or compassion,[61]a dry philosopher,[62]an individualist, a bourgeois[63] —and, to sum it up in a single word, an economist of the English or American school.

Oh! Forgive me, you sublime writers, whom nothing deters—not even contradictions. [64] I am surely in the wrong, and I retract my words wholeheartedly. Rest assured, I would love nothing more than to believe that you have truly discovered, apart from us, a benevolent and inexhaustible being called the State—one that has bread for every mouth, work for every hand, capital for every enterprise, credit for every project, oil for every wound, balm for every suffering, advice for all our problems, solutions for every doubt, [IV-330] truths for every mind, distractions for every boredom, milk for childhood, wine for old age—one that provides for all our needs, anticipates all our desires, satisfies all our curiosities, corrects all our errors, repairs all our faults, and relieves us henceforth of the need for foresight, prudence, judgment, wisdom, experience, order, economy, temperance, and action.

And why would I not wish for this? God forgive me, but the more I think about it, the more I find it convenient! I, too, am eager to have at my disposal this inexhaustible source of wealth and enlightenment—this universal healer, this bottomless treasury, this infallible counselor that you call the State.

Thus, I demand that it be shown to me, that it be defined for me, and that is why I propose establishing a prize for the first person who discovers this phoenix. For in the end, one must admit that this precious discovery has yet to be made—since, until now, every entity that presents itself under the name State is overthrown by the people as soon as it fails to fulfill the somewhat contradictory conditions of its programme.[65]

Should I say it? I fear that, in this regard, we have become the dupes[66] to one of the strangest illusions[67]that has ever possessed the human mind.[68]

Man recoils from pain and suffering. And yet, nature condemns him to the suffering of deprivation if he does not endure the pain of labor. He has only these two choices. How can he avoid both? So far, he has found only one means, and he will never find another: to enjoy the labor of others; to ensure that pain and satisfaction are not distributed according to their natural share, but that all the suffering is borne by some while all the satisfaction goes to [IV-331] others. Hence slavery, hence plunder in whatever form it might take: wars, deceit, violence, trade restrictions, fraud, etc.—monstrous abuses, yet entirely consistent with the thought that gave birth to them. One must hate and fight these oppressors, but one cannot say they are absurd.[69]

Slavery is disappearing,[70]thank heaven, and, on the other hand, our natural instinct to defend our property makes direct and open plunder increasingly difficult. However, one thing remains: this unfortunate primitive tendency inherent in all men to divide the burdens of life into two parts—shifting the pain onto others while keeping the satisfaction for themselves. What remains to be seen is the new form in which this sad inclination manifests itself.[71]

The oppressor no longer acts directly upon the oppressed with his own strength. No, our conscience has become too delicate for that. There is still a tyrant and a victim, but between them stands an intermediary—the State, that is, the law itself.[72]What better way to silence our moral scruples and, perhaps more importantly, to overcome our resistance? Thus, we all, in one way or another, under one pretext or another, appeal to the State. We say to it:

"I do not find the balance between my labor and my enjoyment satisfactory. To restore the balance I desire, I would like to take some small amont of property from other people. But this is dangerous. Couldn't you make it easier for me?Couldn't yougive me a well-paid job in the government? Or restrict the activity of my competitors? Or lend me capital interest free which you have already taken from its rightful owners? Or educate my children at public expense? Or grant me production subsidies? Or guarantee my well-being when I turn fifty? In this way, I will achieve my goal with a clear conscience, for the law itself [IV-332] will have acted on my behalf, and I will enjoy all the benefits of plunder without bearing its risks or its disgrace!"

Since it is certain, on one hand, that we all direct similar requests to the State, and on the other, that the State cannot grant benefits to some without increasing the burden of others, I believe I am justified in offering my own definition of the State—at least until a better one is found. Who knows? Perhaps it will win the prize! Here it is:

The State is the great fiction by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.[73]

For, today as in the past, each person—more or less—wishes to live off the work of others.[74]This sentiment is not openly displayed; one even hides it from oneself. And so, what is done? An intermediary is imagined, one turns to the State, and each class, in turn, comes to it and says:

"You, who can fairly and honestly take things from the public, take something and we will share it."

Alas! The State is only too inclined to follow this devilish advice, for it is composed of ministers, functionaries—men, after all—who, like all men, harbor desires and eagerly seize every opportunity to expand their wealth and influence.[75]The State quickly understands the advantage it can derive from the role the public entrusts to it. It will become the arbiter, the master of all destinies: it will take a great deal, and much of this will be left over for itself. It will multiply the number of its officials, broaden the scope of its functions, and eventually grow to overwhelming proportions.

But what must be noted is the astonishing blindness of the public in all this. When victorious soldiers reduced the conquered to slavery, they were barbaric—but they were not absurd. Their goal, like ours, was to live at the expense of others—but, unlike us, they [IV-333] did were able to achieve this. What should we think of a people who do not seem to realize that reciprocal pillage [76]is still pillage, even when it is mutual? That it remains criminal, even when carried out legally and in an orderly fashion? That it does not add to public well-being but rather diminishes it by the entire cost of that expensive intermediary we call the State?

And we have enshrined this great chimera, for the people's edification, in the very preamble of the Constitution. Here are its opening words:[77]

"France has been constituted as a Republic to… call all citizens to an ever-higher degree of morality, enlightenment, and well-being."[78]

Thus, it is France, the abstraction,[79]that calls upon the French people, who are real existing things, to embrace morality, well-being, and so forth. Is this not reinforcing the strange illusion that leads us to expect everything from some force other than our own? Is this not implying that, apart from and beyond the French people, there exists a virtuous, enlightened, wealthy being that can and must shower them with blessings? Is this not assuming—utterly without basis—that there exists between France and the French people, between this mere abbreviated and abstract naming of all individuals as a group and these individuals as individuals, a relationship akin to that between a father and his child, a teacher and his pupil? I am well aware that people sometimes say metaphorically, "The fatherland is a tender mother." But to expose the emptiness of this constitutional proposition, it suffices to show that it can be reversed—not just without difficulty, but even to advantage. Would accuracy suffer if the preamble had instead declared:

"The French people have constituted themselves as a Republic to call France to an ever-higher degree of morality, enlightenment, and well-being?"

Now, what is the value of an axiom in which the subject and [IV-334] the predicate can be swapped without consequence? Everyone understands the phrase: "The mother will nurse the child." But it would be ridiculous to say: "The child will nurse the mother."

The Americans had a different view of the relationship between citizens and the State when they placed at the head of their Constitution these simple words:

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain, etc."

Here, there is no fanciful creation, no abstraction from which citizens ask for everything. They expect nothing but that which comes from themselves and their own energy.

If I have allowed myself to criticize the opening words of our Constitution, it is because this is not, as one might think, a mere metaphysical subtlety. I assert that this personification of the State has been in the past, and will be in the future, a fertile source of disasters and revolutions.

Here is the Public on one side, the State on the other, treated as two distinct beings—the latter is expected to spread upon the former an outpouring of human happiness,[80]while the former believes itself entitled to demand from the latter an endless stream of benefits. What must be the outcome?

In reality, the State is not a person who only has one arm—it cannot be. It has two hands:[81]one for taking and the other for giving, in other words, a rough hand and a gentle hand. [82]The activity of the second is necessarily dependent on the activity of the first. Strictly speaking, the State can take and not give anything back. This has happened, and it is explained by the porous and absorbent nature of its hands, which always retain a portion—and sometimes the entirety—of whatever they touch. But what has never been seen,[83]what will never be seen, and what cannot even be conceived, is that the State will return to the public more than it [IV-335] has taken from it. Thus, how foolish it is for us to adopt the attitude of a humble beggar when in its presence! It is fundamentally impossible for the State to confer a particular benefit upon certain individuals within the community without inflicting greater damage upon the community as a whole.

It is therefore trapped, by our demands, in an obvious vicious circle.

If it refuses to provide the benefits demanded of it, it is accused of impotence, bad faith, and incompetence. If it attempts to provide them, it is forced to slap ever-increasing taxes on the people, inflicting more harm than good, and thereby attracting universal resentment from another quarter.

Thus, among the public there aregreat expectations and in the government there are two promises: lots of benefits and no taxes. Expectations and promises that, being contradictory, are never fulfilled.

Is this not the cause of all our revolutions? For between the State, which lavishly dispenses impossible promises, and the public, which harbors unrealizable hopes, two classes of men step in: the those who are ambitious and those who are utopian in their thinking. Their role is clearly defined by the situation. It is enough for these flatterers who seek popularity[84]to whisper into the people’s ears:

"The government is deceiving you. If we were in power, we would shower you with benefits and free you from taxation."

And the people believe this, and the people hope, and the people stage a revolution.

No sooner are their friends in power than they are called upon to fulfill their promises.

"So give us work, bread, aid, credit, education, colonies," says the people, "and at the same time, according to your promises, free us from the claws of "le fisc" (the taxation office)."

The new State is no less troubled than the old, for when it comes to the impossible, one may make promises [IV-336] but one can never keep them. It seeks to buy time—it needs it to bring its grand projects to fruition. First, it makes a few timid attempts: in one area, it slightly expands primary education;[85]in another, it slightly modifies the alcohol tax (as in 1830).[86]But the contradiction always looms before it: if it wishes to be philanthropic, it must have tax money at its disposal; and if it reduces taxation, it must also reduce philanthropy.

These two promises always[87]and necessarily obstruct each other. Resorting to credit—that is, devouring the future—is one temporary way to reconcile them; an attempt is made to do a little good in the present at the cost of great harm in the future. But this approach conjures up the specter of bankruptcy, which drives away credit. What then is to be done? At this point, the new State takes the course of boldness: it gathers its forces to keep itself in power, suppresses public opinion, resorts to authoritarian measures, mocks its former principles, and declares that one can only govern on the condition of being unpopular. In short, it declares that it is acting like a government.

And that is where other flatterers who seek popularity lie in wait. They exploit the same illusion, follow the same path, achieve the same success, and soon plunge into the same abyss.

This is how we got to the events of February.[88]At that time, the illusion which is the subject of this article had penetrated the people's minds more deeply than ever, reinforced by socialist doctrines. More than ever, they expected that the State, in republican form, would throw open the floodgates of benefits and close those of taxation.

"We have often been deceived," said the people, "but this time, we will make sure we are not deceived again."

What could the Provisional Government do? Alas! The same as always in such circumstances—make promises and buy time. It did not fail in this, and to give its [IV-337] promises greater solemnity, it enshrined them in decrees:

"An increase in well-being, a reduction in labor, public assistance, free credit, free education, agricultural colonies, land clearing, and at the same time, reductions on the tax on salt, alcohol, postage, and meat—everything shall be granted… once the National Assembly convenes."[89]

The National Assembly convened, and since it is impossible to reconcile two contradictions, its task—its sad task—was reduced to repealing, as gently as possible, one by one, all the decrees of the Provisional Government.

However, in order to soften the disappointment, some compromises had to be made. Certain commitments were upheld, others were given only a token beginning. As a result, the current administration is now striving to dream up new taxes.

Now, I will cast my thoughts a few months into the future, and with sorrow in my heart, I ask myself: what will happen when newly appointed government officials go into our countryside to collect new taxes on inheritances, on income, on the profits of agricultural enterprises? May Heaven prove my forebodings wrong, but I see yet another role to be played by the flatterers who seek popularity.[90]

Read the latest Manifesto of the Montagnards, the one they issued regarding the presidential election.[91]It is a bit long, but, after all, it boils down to just two words: The State must give a great deal to the citizens and take very little from them. It is always the same tactic—or, if you will, the same error.

"The State must provide free education and instruction to all citizens."[92]

It must:

"Offer general and vocational education tailored, as much as possible, to the needs, vocations, and abilities of each citizen."

[IV-338]

It must:

"Teach him his duties toward God, toward mankind, and toward himself; develop his sentiments, his aptitudes, and his faculties; give him, finally, knowledge of his work, understanding of his interests, and awareness of his rights."

It must:

"Make letters and the arts, the heritage of thought, the treasures of the mind, and all intellectual enjoyments that elevate and strengthen the soul accessible to all."

It must:

"Compensate for all disasters—fires, floods, etc. (this 'etc.' says more than it appears to)."

It must:

"Intervene in the relations between capital and labor and act as the regulator of credit."

It must:

"Provide serious encouragement and effective protection to agriculture."

It must:

"Buy back the railroads, canals, and mines," and undoubtedly also manage them with the industrial expertise that so distinguishes it.

It must:

"Encourage generous initiatives, support them, and aid them with all resources capable of ensuring their success. As the regulator of credit, it will generously finance industrial and agricultural associations to guarantee their prosperity."

The State must do all this, in addition to the services it already provides today. For example, it must [IV-339] always maintain a threatening stance toward foreign nations, for, as the signatories of the manifesto declare:

"Bound by this sacred solidarity and by the precedents of Republican France, we extend our hopes and aspirations beyond the barriers that despotism raises between nations. The rights we claim for ourselves, we also claim for all those oppressed under the yoke of tyranny. We want our glorious army to be, if necessary, once again the army of liberty."[93]

You can see that the gentle hand of the State, the benevolent hand that gives and distributes, will be quite busy under the Montagnard government. You might think that the same will be true for the rough hand—the hand that delves into our pockets?

Think again. The flatterers who seek popularity would not know their trade if they did not possess the art of showing the gentle hand while concealing the rough hand.

Their reign will surely be the golden age of the taxpayer.

"It is the superfluous, not the necessary, that taxation should target," they say.

Will it not be a wonderful time when, in order to shower us with benefits, the tax authorities will be satisfied with merely trimming away our excess?

But that is not all. The Montagnards aspire to a time when "taxation will lose its oppressive character and become nothing more than an act of fraternity."

Good heavens! I knew well that it was fashionable to insert fraternity everywhere,[94]but I never imagined it could be placed in the tax collector’s ledger.

Moving on to specifics, the signatories of the manifesto declare:

"We demand the immediate abolition of taxes on essential goods such as salt, alcohol, etc."

[IV-340]

"The reform of the land tax, city tolls, and business licenses."

"Free justice, meaning the simplification of legal procedures and the reduction of costs." (This undoubtedly refers to the stamp tax.)

Thus, land tax, city tolls, business licenses, stamp duty, salt tax, alcohol tax, postal fees—everything is to be abolished. These gentlemen have discovered the secret of giving the gentle hand of the State a feverish activity while at the same time paralyzing its rough hand.

Well, I ask the impartial reader: is this not sheer childishness? And even more, is it not dangerous childishness? How could the people refrain from staging revolution after revolution, once they have resolved to stop only when they have achieved this contradiction:

"Give nothing to the State and receive much from it!"

Does anyone believe that if the Montagnards were to come to power, they would not fall victim to the very means they used to seize it?

My fellow citizens, throughout history, two political systems have stood in opposition, and both can be defended with reasonable arguments. According to the first, the State must do a great deal, but it must also take a great deal. According to the second, its dual action of doing and taking should be scarcely felt. One must choose between these two systems. But as for the third system, which borrows from both of them and consists in demanding everything from the State while giving it nothing—this is a chimera, an absurdity, a childish fantasy, a contradiction, and a danger. Those who promote it—merely for the pleasure of accusing every government of impotence and exposing them to your wrath—are flattering and deceiving you, or at the very least, deceiving themselves.[95]

As for us, we believe that the State is, or should be, nothing more than the coercive power of the community [96] which is established—not to serve as an [IV-341] instrument of reciprocal oppression and plunder among citizens—but rather to ensure that each person receives what is rightfully his, and to uphold justice and security.

Endnotes to the English translation of the Pamphlet version (41-96)

[41] The original prize offered in the JB version was 500,000 francs which was doubled in both the JDD and this version.

[42] Bastiat did not change this figure of six months in this revised version written around April 1849. It should have been updated to twelve months. When he wrote the second version in September 1848 the “six months” would have referred to the period since the outbreak of Revolution in February 1848 during which time socialists like Louis Blanc had been running the National Workshops program, Victor Considerant had been lobbying the government to fund an experimental socialist community north of Paris, and Ledru-Rollin was Minister of the Interior and a member of the Executive Commission in the Provisional Government until he was ousted by General Cavaignac during the period of martial law which was imposed after the June Days riots. Ledru-Rollin would stand in the Presidential election on 10 December 1848 for the Montagnard socialist party (also known as the “Démocs-socs”(democratic socialists)), coming third with 5% of the vote behind Louis Napoléon with 74% and General Cavaignac with 20%. In the elections for the Constituent Assembly (April 1848) and the Legislative Assembly (January and May 1849) the radical republicans and socialists went from 6%, to 26% and 28% of the vote respectively. See “The Chamber of Deputies and Elections,” in Appendix 2: The French State and Politics, CW3, pp. 486-88.

[43] A reference to Figaro, the barber of Seville, in Pierre Beaumarchais’s play Le Barbier de Séville ou la Précaution inutile (The Barber of Seville or the Useless Precaution) (1773) which was turned into an opera of the same name by Giaochino Rossini in 1816. Bastiat referred to the same scene in ES2 12 "Salt, the Mail, and the Customs Service" (JDE, May 1846), in CW3, pp. 198-214.

[44] Bastiat uses the term "la tribune" which might mean the "rostrum" of the Chamber or the "speaker's platform" in the political clubs. Concerning the latter, when the Provisional Government was proclaimed on 25 February 1848 following the collapse of the July Monarchy censorship also collapsed and hundreds of small newspapers and political clubs sprang up in Paris as a result. The main socialist clubs were Auguste Blanqui’s “Le club de la société républicaine centrale” (Club of the Central Republican Society, also know as Club Blanqui),Étienne Cabet’s “La société fraternelle centrale” (the Central Fraternal Society), “Le club des travailleurs libres” (the Club of Free Workers), Alphonse Esquiros’s “Le club de la montagne” (the Club of the Mountain), and Armand Barbès’s “Le club de la révolution” (the Revolution Club). The classical liberal economists also had a newspaper (edited by Bastiat) which they handed out on the streets of Paris, La République française (26 Feb.-28 March), and a political club, “le club de la liberté du travail” (the Club for the Freedom of Working) which began on 31 March. See the glossary entries on “Political Clubs” and “La République française.”

[45] Under the influence of socialist writers like Charles Fourier, Louis Blanc, and Proudhon during the 1840s the words “organization” and “association” became slogans used by the socialists to oppose the advocates of free trade and free markets. For these socialists, “L’Organisation” meant the organisation of labor and industry by the state for the benefit of the workers; and “l’Association” meant cooperative living and working arrangements as opposed to private property,exchange on the free market, and the family. Louis Blanc was appointed by the Provisional Government to be the president of the “Commission du gouvernement pour les travailleurs” (Government Commission for the Workers) (also known as the Luxembourg Commission) which oversaw the National Workshops program and met in the Luxembourg Palace, the old meeting place for the Chamber of Peers (see “Luxembourg Palace”). The National Workshops were created on February 27, 1848, in one of the very first legislative acts of the Provisional government, to create government funded jobs for unemployed workers.

[46] “L’égotisme” was used in the JDD versions and changed to “l’égoïsme” in the 1849 version.

[47] This and the next two items on the plains and the mountains were added to the 1849 version. In 1842 the government decided to encourage the building of a national network. Under the Railway Law of 11 June 1842 the government ruled that 5 main railways would be built radiating out of Paris which would be built in cooperation with private industry. The government would build and own the right of way, bridges, tunnels and railway stations, while private industry would lay the tracks, and build and maintain the rolling stock and the lines. The government would also set rates and regulate safety. The first railway concessions were issued by the government in 1844-45 triggering a wave of speculation and attempts to secure concessions.

[48] Bastiat is mocking Louis Blanc’s socialist national workshops which were state run and hardly “harmonious” as their members often took to the streets to protest and attempt to intimidate the government. On 15 May, 1848 armed supporters of Blanc marched to the Chamber and forcibly entered in an attempt to seize control of the government. When the Chamber decided to close down the National Workshops its supporters took to the streets and began the bloody riots known as the June Days (23-26 June) which were suppressed by General Cavaignac with the loss of thousands of lives. Martial law was declared on 24 which lasted until 19 October.

[49] Algeria was invaded and conquered by France in 1830 and the occupied parts were annexed to France in 1834. According to the new constitution of the Second Republic (Nov. 1848) it was declared that Algeria was no longer a colony but an integral part of France (with three Départements) and that the emigration of French settlers would be officially encouraged and subsidized by the government.

[50] It was a pet scheme of Proudhon’s to set up a “Peoples Bank” which would issue zero or low interest rate loans to workers. Bastiat had a lengthy debate with Proudhon over “free credit” between October 1849 and March 1850: Free Credit (Oct. 1849 - March 1850, Voix de peuple).

[51] Uprisings took place in March 1848 in the Italian states, the German states, and the Austrian Empire. They were eventually suppressed by the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian armies by the summer and fall of 1849.

[52] The sentence “The state has set itself the mission of enlightening, developing, enlarging, fortifying, spiritualizing and sanctifying the souls of the people” comes from Lamartine’s "Declaration of Principles” which he published in October 1847. In spite of his many liberal sympathies and support for Bastiat’s free trade association, Lamartine had socialist views on things such as “the right to a job” and government welfare programs. Bastiat criticised him for this in two early essays he wrote for the JDE: “Letter from an Economist to M. de Lamartine. On the occasion of his article entitled: The Right to a Job” (Feb. 1845, JDE) and “Second Letter to M. de Lamartine (on price controls on food)” (Oct. 1846, JDE). Bastiat would quote this passage again in The Law (June 1850), in CW2, pp. 107-46. See Lamartine’s “Déclaration des principes” (21 octobre 1847), (which originally appeared in le Bien public), republished in Alphonse de Lamartine, La politique de Lamartine, choix de discours et écrits politiques: précédé d'une étude sur la vie politique de Lamartine (Paris: Hachette & Cie., 1878), vol. 2, pp. 273-82 . Quote on p. 280.

[53] In the JDD version Bastiat quotes a line from Figaro’s “Largo al facotum” from Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville: “uno alla volta, per carità” (one at a time, please, for heaven sake!” This was cut from the 1849 pamphlet.

[54] A description of the different kinds of taxes imposed by the French government is provided in “Taxation” in my essay" The French State and Politics". A full list of the amounts raised in 1848-49 can be found in the “French Government’s Budgets for Fiscal Years 1848 and 1849,” in Appendix 4, in CW3, pp. 509-16. In summary, in 1848 out of total revenue collected of fr. 1.391 billion, fr. 420 million came from direct taxes (mainly a land tax) (30%), fr. 308 million from indirect taxes (mainly from the tax on alcohol, tobacco, and sugar) (19%), fr. 263 million from stamp duty and registration taxes (14.5%), fr. 202 million from customs and the salt monopoly (14.5%), and fr. 51 million from the post tax (4%).

[55] Before the Revolution of 1789 the salt tax was known as the "gabelle.” Because of its symbolic association with the ancien régime, it was much hated and was one of the first things abolished after the Revolution. However, it soon returned as a more straight forward "salt tax." Bastiat expressed his opposition to this tax in “The Salt Tax” (20 June 1847, LE), as well as in the Chamber in “Speaks in a Discussion in the Assembly on a Proposal to change the Tariff on imported Salt” (11 Jan. 1849). See Coquelin, "Gabelle," in Dictionnaire de l'Économie Politique, vol. 1, pp. 814-15. See also, “Gabelle” in “Taxation” in my essay on "The French State and Politics".

[56] As a wine producer himself, Bastiat was very interested in the tax on alcohol and some of his earliest writings were on this topic. See for example, “Proposals for an Association of Wine Producers” (15 Jan. 1841) and "The Tax Authorities and Wine" (Jan. 1843), in CW2, pp. 10-23. He also gave a lengthy speech in the Chamber on cutting the tax on alcohol, "Speech on the Tax on Wines and Spirits" (12 Dec. 1849), in CW2, pp. 328-47.

[57] Eliminating the tax levied on sending letters and ending the government’s monopoly was another interest Bastiat had from early in his career. See for example, “Two Articles on Postal Reform I” (3-6 Aug. 1844, Sentinelle des Pyrénées) and “Two Articles on Postal Reform II” (April 1846, Mem. bord.), and his “Speech in the Assembly on Postal Reform” (24 August 1848).

[58] The "octrois" were another form of hated taxes during the pre-Revolutionary period. An octroi was a consumption tax levied by a town or city in order to pay for the activities of the communal administration. It was much abused during the ancien régime, because it was "farmed out" to private contractors. Although the octroi was abolished in the early years of the Revolution, it was reintroduced by Paris in 1798. See “Octroi,” in Appendix 3: Economic Policy and Taxation, CW3, p. 500.; and Coquelin, “Esquirou de Parieu, Octrois," in Le Dictionnaire de l'Économie Politique, vol. 2, pp. 284-91.

[59] "Patentes" were direct taxes imposed on any individual who carried out a trade, occupation, or profession. The patentes were first imposed in 1791 by the Constituent Assembly and were completely reformulated in 1844.

[60] The French word used here is "prestations," which is an abbreviation of "prestations en nature" (or "obligatory services in kind"), according to which all able-bodied men were expected to spend two days a year maintaining roads in and around their towns. The prestations were a reform of the much-hated and burdensome compulsory labor obligations known as the "corvée,” dating from the ancien régime. The corvée was abolished by Turgot in 1776; however, it returned, as did the “gabelle” (salt tax), in a less onerous form during the Consulate period under Napoléon, only to be abolished again in 1818. Under the law of 1824 the modern form of the prestations was introduced whereby the compulsory labor was used only for local roads. A further modification took place in 1836, when the labor service could be commuted to the payment of a money equivalent. See “The Prestation and Corvée,” in Appendix 3: Economic Policy and Taxation, CW3, pp. 501-2.; and also Courcelle Senueil, "Prestations," in Dictionnaire de l'Économie Politique, vol. 2, pp. 428-30.

[61] The socialists often accused the political economists of being “sans entrailles” (heartless - literally “without guts”) because of their support for the ideas of Thomas Malthus on population growth. Malthus had argued in An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) that unless the workers were able to use “moral restraint” to limit the size of their families they were doomed to poverty and even death. Since all of the economists were ardent Malthusians except for Bastiat, this comment is rather ironic. See “On Malthus and Malthusian Limits to the Growth of the State” in Further Aspects of Bastiat’s Thought, in CW3, pp. 461-64; and the editor’s introduction and notes to Bastiat’s article “On Population” (JDE, 15 Oct. 1846) for a discussion of this.

[62] This is another ironic comment on himself since one of the reasons he had become one of the greatest economic journalists who has ever lived is his clever and innovative use of humour to make economic ideas understandable to the general reader. He did not want to be accused of being “dry and dull” (de sécheresse et de prosaïsme) in his writing and so he deliberately used ridicule (as in his many uses of the reductio ad absurdum argument), jokes (la plaisanterie), and plays on words. See the discussion of his “rhetoric of liberty” in “Bastiat's Rhetoric of Liberty: Satire and the ‘Sting of Ridicule’,” in the Introduction to CW3, pp. lviii-lxiv.

[63] The word “un bourgeois” was not in the JDD version.

[64] This is a reference to his exasperation with Proudhon who revelled in the use of contradictions and antinomies in his criticism of the legitimacy of profit, interest, and rent. See, Free Credit (Oct. 1849 - March 1850, Voix de peuple).

[65] This phrase “the somewhat contradictory conditions of the program” appears in both the JDD version and the 1849 version. In the former, whose “program” is not specified but one would suppose it referred to the socialist plans put forward by Louis Blanc in the National Workshops program which he had run between late February and June 1848, or those of Victor Considerant in the Chamber of Deputies who was lobbying for a government-funded experimental socialist community to be set up north of Paris, or the ideas of Alexandre Ledru-Rollin who was Minister of the Interior under the Provisional Government and who would later lead the socialist Montagnard group in the Chamber in 1849. During the Second Republic deputies on the extreme left adopted the name "Montagnards" (or Mountain), which had first been used during the French Revolution by Robespierre and his supporters. In the 1849 version of this essay, Bastiat explicitly mentions the electoral program or Manifesto of the Montagnards and which he discusses at some length in a new section. See below.

[66] The idea of deception and trickery was central to Bastiat’s understanding of economic sophisms. According to him, individuals were deprived of their property directly by means of “la force” (coercion or force) or indirectly by means of “la ruse” (fraud or trickery) or “la duperie” (deception). The beneficiaries of this force and fraud used “les sophismes” (misleading and deceptive arguments) to deceive ordinary people whom he referred to as “les dupes” (dupes). See “Bastiat on Enlightening the ‘Dupes’ about the Nature of Plunder,” in the Introduction to CW3, pp. lv-lviii.

[67] A couple of weeks after the revolution broke out in February 1848 Bastiat wrote an article on the illusions which seemed to have taken hold in the peoples’s minds: "Disastrous Illusions" (JDE, March, 1848), in CW3, pp. 384-99.

[68] The following paragraph expands on what he said more briefly in the JDD version.

[69] In The Law (June 1850) Bastiat distinguishes between three types of plunder: “partial plunder” which was plunder by the few of the many (which could be very profitable for the few as history had repeatedly shown); “universal plunder” where everybody plunders everybody else (which he thought was absurd and impossible to sustain in the long term but which he believed the socialists were trying to introduce during the 1848 Revolution); and “the absence of plunder” where nobody plunders anybody. See “Bastiat’s Theory of Class: The Plunderers vs. the Plundered” in Further Aspects of Bastiat’s Thought, in CW3, pp. 473-85.

[70] In the JDD version Bastiat stated that slavery already “had disappeared” but now he seems not so sure. Slavery had been abolished in 1794 during the Revolution and a number of freed blacks were elected to various French legislative bodies. Napoléon reintroduced slavery in 1802 and fought a bloody but unsuccessful war in order to prevent a free black republic from emerging in Haiti. In 1807, under pressure from such abolitionists as William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, Britain passed an act that abolished the slave trade, much of which was carried in British vessels. The United States followed suit in 1808 with a similar ban. Slavery was abolished in the British Caribbean in 1833, again in the French colonies during the 1848 revolution (27 April), and in the United States in 1865 (the Thirteenth Amendment).

[71] The following paragraph on the “Oppressors” was added to the 1849 version. In the JDD version, the reference to the state being used to find a “bouc émissaire” (scapegoat), namely modern taxpayers, on whom the burden of work could be placed, instead of slaves in previous centuries, was deleted.

[72] In his pamphlet The Law (June 1850) Bastiat makes the distinction between “la spoliation extra-légale” (extra-legal plunder) which is done without the sanction or approval of the state such as by thieves and highway robbers, and “la spoliation légale” (legal plunder) which is done by the state itself or with its sanction and approval by others. See The Law, in CW2, pp. 115-16.

[73] In the original French this important definition is: “L'État, c'est la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s'efforce de vivre aux dépens de tout le monde.” FEE translated this as: “The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” David Wells translated it as “Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live a the expence of everybody else.” p. 160

[74] The following section has been expanded and revised from the JDD version.

[75] This is an example of Bastiat’s “public choice” insights into the behaviour of bureaucrats and politicians. Another important one is his speech in the Chamber on the formation of committees: “Speaks in a Discussion in the Assembly on the Formation of Committees” (13 May 1848).

[76] Bastiat used several expressions for this concept. “La spoliation” (plunder), “le pillage” (pillage), “le vol” (theft), and “le monopole” (monopoly) could be “réciproque” (reciprocal), “mutuelle” (mutual), or “universelle” (universal). His most detailed discussion of the different types of plunder can be found in The Law, in CW2, pp. 117ff.

[77] Bastiat paraphrases the opening paragraph of the new Constitution: “La France s’est constituée en République pour… appeler tous les citoyens à un degré toujours plus élevé de moralité, de lumière et de bien-être.”

[78] For a discussion of the opening paragraph and other clauses in the new Constitution which concerned Bastiat and the other economists, see the Introduction.

[79] Bastiat here cuts an interesting passage from the JDD version on the way the abstractions of “France” and “The State” are now used as substitutes for ancient slavery: “Nous sommes trente-cinq millions d'individualités, et de même qu'on nomme blancheur cette qualité commune à tous les objets blancs, nous désignons la réunion de tous les Français par ces appellations collectives France, République, Etat. Ensuite, nous nous plaisons à supposer dans cette abstraction de l'intelligence, de la prévoyance, des richesses, une volonté, une vie propre et distincte de la vie individuelle. C'est cette abstraction que nous voulons follement substituer à l'Esclavage antique. C'est sur elle que nous rejetons la peine, la fatigue, le fardeau et la responsabilité des existences réelles et comme s'il y avait une France en dehors des Français, une cité en dehors des citoyens, nous donnons au monde cet étrange spectacle de citoyens attendant tout de la cité, de réalités vivantes attendant tout d'une vaine abstraction.”

[80] Amusingly, the word “épandre” is often used in the sense of “spreading manure” over a field.

[81] The following paragraph on the two-handed nature of the state was not in the JDD version

[82] This is the only occasion where Bastiat uses the terms “la main rude et la main douce” (the rough hand and the gentle or soft hand).

[83] Here is another example of Bastiat’s distinction between “the seen” and “the unseen.” See the last pamphlet he wrote before he died: What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen (July 1850), in CW3, pp. 401-52.

[84] Bastiat uses the phrase “ces courtisans de popularité “ (flatterers who seek popularity) which FEE translated as “demogogues.”

[85] Important revisions to the education system were the Guizot Law of 1833 and the Falloux Law of 1850. Battles were fought in the 1830s and 1840s over the right of Catholic schools to operate independently of the state and the right to establish additional private schools, the so-called struggle for “liberty of education”. The Guizot Law required every commune to set up an elementary school for boys, created a corps of school inspectors, and set a minimum salary for teachers. It did not make attendance compulsory (this was enacted in 1882 by Jules Ferry). The Falloux Law of 1850 permitted a considerable expansion of Catholic schools and created a two tier system of state funded government schools run by the communes, departments or the central government, and private “free” schools.”

[86] Bastiat put the date 1830 in brackets here with no explanation. What he meant to say was that the new July Monarchy (which came to power in August 1830) launched an initiative to review French tariff and tax policies after the increases enacted in the 1820s during the Bourbon Restoration. It published a report which contained its very modest suggestions for cuts: Procès-verbal des séances de la Commission instituée pour examiner les impôts sur les boissons (1830). Paris 23 August, 1830. Bastiat briefly discusses these reforms in "The Tax Authorities and Wine" (Jan. 1843), in CW2, p. 15

[87] The first half of this paragraph is new to the 1849 version

[88] The February Revolution of 1848 took place over three days: 22-24 February. On 25 February a new Provisional Government of the Second Republic was declared.

[89] Elections for the Constituent Assembly were held 23-24 April 1848 and the Assembly met on 4 May. Bastiat was elected to represent Les Landes and was selected by the Chamber to sit on its Finance Committee, of which he was Vice-President. The Provisional Government issued many important decrees before the Assembly met, some of which it later tried to reverse. Key pieces of legislation included a declaration of “the right to work,” the formation of the National Workshops, the abolition of the death penalty for political crimes, amnesty for violations of the censorship laws, the abolition of noble titles, confiscation of the property of the monarch (25 Feb.); the working day is reduced to 10 hours in Paris and 11 hours elsewhere; declaration of universal manhood suffrage in elections (2 March); laws guaranteeing freedom of the press and association (4 March); abolition of prison for debtors (9 March); abolition of corporal punishment (12 March); the central Bank suspends specie payments; the government increases direct taxes by 45% (the so-called 45 centimes tax) (15 March); abolition of the salt tax (21 April); abolition of slavery (27 April).

[90] The two pages of text which follows were not in the JDD version, which suggests that this section was written around April 1849 when the elections for the new National Assembly (the new constitution having been ratified on 4 November the previous year) were being held. The election for the first president of the Second Republic had been held on 10 December 1848.

[91] See the Appendix for a translation of this Manifesto. The election for the first president of the Second Republic had been held on 10 December 1848. It was won convincingly by Louis Napoléon with 74% of the vote;General Cavaignac got 20%, and Ledru-Rollin representing the socialist Montagnard party (also known as the “Démocs-socs” (democratic socialists)), came third with a paltry 5%. Bastiat quotes from a pamphlet used by Ledru-Rollin is this campaign put out by the Democratic Electoral Committee of the Jura Department and which contains a five page “Manifesto of the Representatives of the Mountain.” See, Canditature du citoyen Ledru-Rollin. Le Comité électoral démocratique du Jura. Aux Républicains démocrates de ce département. (Arbois, Imprimerie d’Aug. Javel, (no date)). 8 pp. “Manifeste des représentants de la Montagne,” pp. 3-8.

[92] Unless otherwise indicated, all these quotations come from “Manifeste des représentants de la Montagne,” pp. 6-8

[93] “Manifeste des représentants de la Montagne,” p. 4.

[94] See his pamphlets on "Justice and Fraternity" (JDE, 15 June 1848), in CW2, pp. 60-81.

[95] In this version Bastiat cuts from the concluding paragraph a second reference to the “personification of the state” (the first is above, pp. 000): “Il faut donc que le peuple de France apprenne cette grande leçon : Personnifier l'Etat, et attendre de lui qu'il prodigue les bienfaits en réduisant les taxes, c'est une véritable puérilité, mais une puérilité d'où sont sorties et d'où peuvent sortir encore bien des tempêtes.” (Thus the people of France must learn this important lesson: to personify the State and to expect that it will dispense benefits while (at the same time) reducing taxes, is pure childishness, but it is a childishness from which have come and could well still come great turmoil.)

[96] Bastiat uses the phrase "la force commune" which we have translated as "the coercive power of the community".

The Montagnards' Election Manifesto↩

The Editor's Introduction

The Montagnards in 1848 were radical socialists and republicans who modelled themselves on “the Mountain” faction during the first French Revolution, the leader of which had been the lawyer Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-94). They were called “the Mountain” because they sat as a group in the highest seats at the side or the back of the Chamber.

During 1848-49 the Montagnard group were also known as the “démoc-socs” (democratic socialists) and were led by Alexandre Ledru-Rollin. In the Second Republic the Montagnards did not do well in the first election for the Constituant Assembly held on 23-24 April 1848. In the 880 seat Chamber the moderate republicans had 600 deputies (68%), the monarchist group had 200 (23%), radical republicans and socialists had 80 (9%) of which 6% were Montagnards. In the election for President of the Republic held on 10-11 December1848 the Montagnard candidate Ledru-Rollin came third with 5% of the vote, behind Louis Napoléon with 74% and General Cavaignac with 20%. The Montagnards’ best showing was in the election for the new Legislative Assemble held on 13-14 May 1849. In the 705 seat Chamber they quintupled their vote to win 180 (26% of the seats), behind “The Party of Order” which was a composite group of anti-republican monarchists and Bonapartists which won 450 seats (64%), while the moderate republicans were reduced to 75 seats (11%).

In the first major clash with the new government the Montagnards vigorously opposed Louis Napoléon’s decision to send French troops to Rome to assist Pope Pius IX in his struggle agains the Italian republicans led by Mazzini. On 13 June 1849 they organized a demonstration in which about 6,000 people participated. It was put down by troops led by General Nicolas Changarnier. Ledru-Rollin and about 30 Montagnards Deputies then attempted to form a new provisional government which was quickly broken up with the arrest or the going into hiding of the participants. Thirty seven Montagnard deputies were stripped of their office, some were tried and imprisoned or deported, and many (like Ledru-Rollin) went into voluntary exile for 20 years in London. Louis Napoléon used the demonstration to close down Montagnard newspapers and political clubs and to impose other limits on freedom speech and association.

The manifesto of the Montagnards can be found in Ledru-Rollin’s campaign literature for the Presidential election of December 1849: Candidature du citoyen Ledru-Rollin. Le Comité électoral démocratique du Jura. Aux Républicains démocrates de ce département. (Arbois, Imprimerie d’Aug. Javel, (no date)). 8 pp. “Manifeste des représentants de la Montagne,” pp. 3-8.

Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Philosophie, histoire, sciences de l'homme Online elsewhere.

“The Election Manifesto of the Montagnards” (Manifeste des représentants de la Montagne) (en français)

Note: Passages quoted by Bastiat are in bold.

[3]

Elus du peuple, investis par lui du suprême honneur de le représenter, nous lui devons une sincère et solennelle exposition des principes que nous avons pris pour règle dans l'accomplissement de notre mandat. Nous connaissons la grandeur des devoirs que ce mandat nous impose ; et, résolus àles remplir avec autant d'énergie que de constance, nous voulons dire au peuple comment nous les comprenons. Fidèles àla sainte tradition de nos pères, pleins de foi dans [4] les maximes fécondes qu'ils nous ont léguées, prêts àles développer et àles constituer dans la mesure de nos forces et de notre temps , nous nous adressons àla France entière. Elle jugera,

PRINCIPES GÉNÉRAUX. — ”Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, voilànotre dogme, la plus haute expression des lois souveraines , destinées àrégir l'humanité.

La liberté , l'Egalité, c'est le droit; la Fraternité, c'est le devoir; le droit cl le devoir sont les conditions radicales, premières, les éternelles conditions de l'ordre, sans lesquelles nulle société, non seulement ne subsisterait, mais ne pourrait se concevoir. Le droit protège l'individu , le conserve, lui assure la pleine jouissance de soi; le devoir le subordonne àla société , et unit ainsi, au profit de tous, les individus entre eux. Mais qui dit union, union réelle et vraie, dit solidarité. Nous croyons donc àla solidarité nécessaire de tous les membres d'une même société, et àla solidarité de toutes les sociétés partielles, simples membres de la société générale appelée l'humanité.

De cette intime solidarité qui constitue la vie, car la vie est une, dérivent, comme ses conséquences immédiates, la concorde, la paix, l'obligation poulies peuples de se prêter un secours mutuel toutes les fois que leur liberté, leur indépendance, leur droit souverain sont attaqués. Liés par cette solidarité sainte et par les précédents de la France républicaine , nous portons nos voeux et nos espérances au-delàdes barrières que le despotisme élève entre les nations. Le droit que nous voulons pour tous , nous le voulons pour tous ceux qu'opprime le joug des tyrannies; nous voulons que notre glorieuse armée soit encore, s'il le faut, l'armée de la liberté.

Tout peuple a pour principe la famille, base éternelle des sociétés, qu'elle engendre par son développement naturel. La famille est le type de toute organisation et la condition de toute existence. Ebranler la famille, toucher aux liens naturels qui unissent le père , la mère et l'enfant, qui font d'eux comme un seul être, l'homme complet, c'est attentera la vie même du genre humain.

La propriété est à nos yeux sacrée comme le travail, dont elle est le mobile et le prix. En ce qui fait son essence, elle est de droit absolu ; en ce qui touche sa garantie et sa distribution, elle est de droit relatif et soumise aux lois positives.

Loin de vouloir détruire la propriété, nous voulons l'étendre, la généraliser, la rendre accessible àtous, afin que, dans un temps donné, par l'essor même des institutions sociales et les effets du travail personnel, chaque citoyen arrive àce suprême complément de son individualité : la famille et la propriété. Telle est l'aspiration de ce peuple intelligent et probe qui, dans les journées de juillet 1850 et de février 1848, fusillait les voleurs et proclamait le droit au travail, associant ainsi , dans une sublime unité, les deux grands principes d'ordre et de progrès : le travail et la propriété.

Le travail, c'est la puissance de l'homme; c'est la force intelligente, active, qui s'empare de la nature extérieure et la soumet. Ce n'est pas un devoir imposé par une loi fatale ; c'est un besoin , c'est-à -dire un droit, le plus inviolable de tous. Le droit au travail c'est le droit àla vie. Il est parallèle et même antérieur au droit de propriété, qui n'en est que le résultat. Entre la propriété et le travail , il n'y a pas antagonisme, il y a identité. La propriété, c'est le travail réalisé. Entre le travail àfaire et le capital qui est le travail fait, il faut une répartition conforme àla loi d'équité. Il faut enfin que l'Etat intervienne , non pour fournir le travail , mais les moyens , les instruments de travail ; non pour être chef d'industrie , mais régulateur du crédit ; le droit au travail est le droit au crédit.

Les institutions démocratiques ont pour but la réalisation des principes éternels que nous venons de reconnaître, et, par suite, l'amélioration progressive [5] de l'état physique, intellectuel et moral de tous les citoyens. Ce but est le nôtre.

Héritiers du nom de la Montagne , nous nous glorifions de ce nom, auquel nous n'osions pas prétendre, et que nos adversaires nous ont jeté comme une injure. Nous acceptons, sous bénéfice dos moyens nouveaux que le temps et la science nous ont acquis , nous acceptons la pensée politique et sociale de nos devanciers, leur profond amour pour le droit et le peuple, leur haine vertueuse contre les privilèges elles aristocrates , le courage de leur dévouement et leur foi dans l'avenir. Nos principes , nos votes et nos actes diront qui, de nous ou de nos ennemis , a le plus avant dans le coeur les sentiments de justice et d'humanité; qui d'eux ou de nous a recueilli la part des traditions sanglantes; nous qui, dans l'ardeur de noire démocratie, avons voulu abattre l'échafaud; eux qui, dans le calme de leur modération, ont voulu le maintenir et l'on maintenu.

Le progrès est l'éternelle loi de l'humanité. L'humanité ne s'arrête jamais sur la route que lui trace la Providence. Tout progrès a été , dans le passé, le prix d'une lutte violente entre l'erreur et la vérité ; mais, grâce àla forme nouvelle d'un gouvernement où tout émane de la volonté de tous , la lutte , c'est notre espoir, sera désormais pacifique. Pour être solide et durable, toute amélioration doit sortir de la libre discussion , du consentement de la raison publique , être enfin le développement normal des institutions dont le germe est semé dans le sein fécond de la démocratie.

Les principes du gouvernement républicain sont :

L'unité du pouvoir;
La liberté pour chacun ;
L'égalité pour tous;
La fraternité de chacun pour tous et de tous pour chacun.

De I'UNITÉ résultent :

La souveraineté réelle, morale et matérielle du peuple, sans fédéralisme, sans despotisme ;
La république une et indivisible dans le pouvoir comme dans le sol;
Le pouvoir unique et les fonctions distinctes;
Une assemblée législative suprême directement élue par tous les citoyens;
Les fonctions executives et judiciaires temporaires, dépendantes et révocables;
La vie donnée aux départements et aux communes par un double mouvement du centre aux extrémités, et des extrémités au centre, qui anime ainsi les parties comme le tout; la centralisation, mais non l'absorption.

De làLiberté découle :

Le droit de réunion ;
Le droit d'association ;
Le droit d'exercer son culte;
Le droit de manifester, de propager et d'enseigner sa pensée par la parole, par la presse et par tout autre mode d'exprimer l'idée humaine;
L'abolition de toutes les lois préventives et fiscales, cautionnements de journaux, privilèges d'imprimerie, censure et autres entraves attentatoires au droit inaltérable dépenser, de se réunir et de s'associer;
En un mot, l'exercice et le développement de toutes nos facultés.

De l'Egalité découle :

Le suffrage universel, fondement nécessaire de toutes les institutions, qu'il peut, seul, légitimer et assurer;
L'application la plus large possible de l'élection et du concours pour les fonctions publiques, civiles et militaires, politiques et religieuses ; [6]
La répartition équitable de l'impôt et du service militaire ;
L'affranchissement des prolétaires ;
La reconnaissance de tous les droits méconnus et de tous les droits acquis ; la représentation de tous les intérêts anciens et nouveaux ; la satisfaction de tous les besoins légitimes.

De la Fraternité découlent :

La solidarité de tous les citoyens;
Les institutions de crédit, de prévoyance, d'assurance , d'assistance et de mutualité;
L'association libre du travail pour la production, l'équité dans la distribution;
L'harmonie et la paix par l'abondance et la justice.

La révolution de Février a un caractère éminemment fraternel et social; elle doit, un jour, mettre fin àl'exploitation de l'homme par l'homme. Sans nous enfermer dans aucun système, nous voulons réaliser les idées pratiques et applicables qui peuvent assurer l'émancipation du travail. Nous voulons, nous devons combattre et abattre les deux derniers tyrans du peuple : I'IGNORANCE et la MISÈRE ; l'ignorance, par un mode d'enseignement qui donne gratuitement, àchacun, l'instruction générale et professionnelle; la misère, par la réforme complète de l'impôt, par le crédit et l'association.

DE L'ENSEIGNEMENT. — L'Etat doit gratuitement l'instruction et l'éducation à tous les citoyens.

L'enseignement général et professionnel approprié, autant que possible, aux besoins , aux vocations et aux capacités de chaque citoyen, lui apprendra ses devoirs envers Dieu , envers les hommes, envers lui-même ; développera ses sentiments , ses aptitudes et ses facultés ; lui donnera, enfin , la science de son travail, l'intelligence de ses intérêts et la connaissance de ses droits.

Il faut, pour cela, rehausser la fonction des instituteurs, de ces hommes modestes et dévoués , qui font les citoyens.

Il faut mettre, enfin, à la portée de tous, les lettres et les arts, le patrimoine de la pensée, les trésors de l'esprit, toutes ces jouissances intellectuelles qui élèvent et fortifient l'âme, et dont le peuple, si bien fait pour les comprendre, a été jusqu'ici déshérité.

DE L'IMPÔT. — La société a des besoins, les citoyens doivent y pourvoir : c'est l'objet de l'impôt.

Tous les citoyens étant égaux, la répartition de l'impôt a pour règle l'égalité; la fortune et les ressources de chacun doivent déterminer sa part de contribution dans les charges communes.

L'impôt actuel pèse plus sur le pauvre que sur le riche ; il aggrave le fardeau de la misère, loin de la soulager.

L'impôt n'est pas même proportionnel.

Il n'est pas proportionnel, car la piquette du pauvre paie comme le vin du riche; la lucarne de la chaumière comme la fenêtre du château; car le sel se paie tant par livre, et la cote personnelle tant par tête; l'enregistrement tant pour cent, et le timbre un droit fixe; car la prestation en nature prend au laboureur des journées, et au bourgeois des écus ; car la patente, si lourde au marchand, est légère au banquier ; car six milliards de créances sur l'Etat et onze milliards de créances privées échappent àla taxe ; car on peut jouir en France de vingt, trente, cinquante, cent mille francs de revenu, sans contribuer aux frais de l'Etat.

Il n'est pas proportionnel, car, sur les seuls droits indirects , l'ouvrier paie àParis quatre fois plus que le riche; dans les départements, deux fois plus.

Et cependant la répartition, même proportionnelle, ne satisfait pas encore [7] l'égalité. C'est le superflu, non le nécessaire, que l'impôt doit atteindre; et puisque le superflu suit la progression de la fortune, comme le superflu, l'impôt doit être progressif suivant le revenu. Il est plus facile de payer 2,000 fr. d'impôts sur 10,000 fr. de rente, que d'en payer 100 sur 1,000. Dans le premier cas, on donne une partie du superflu ; dans le second, une partie du nécessaire.

Les chiffres établissent que, par l'impôt simplement proportionnel, le travailleur, le petit marchand elle petit propriétaire seraient dégrevés annuellement de plus de 400 millions. Le pauvre paie donc aujourd'hui la dette du riche, et c'est làce que nos adversaires appellent la République honnête.

Mais l'impôt ne doit pas être seulement une charge pour le citoyen , c'est le prix de la garantie que lui donnera l'Etat. Ainsi l'assurance, tentée déjà par l'industrie privée, deviendra une institution sociale. Tout sinistre (incendie, inondation, etc.), éprouvé par un citoyen, sera réparé par la contribution de tous. L'impôt, étant ainsi le gage de la sécurité de chacun, perdra son caractère oppressif et ne sera plus qu'un acte de fraternité.

DU CRÉDIT. — C'est par de bonnes institutions de crédit que l'Etat peut assurer le droit au travail et réaliser les promesses de la révolution de février.

Ici tout est àfaire. Sans discuter maintenant aucun des projets proposés, nous disons que l'Etat doit intervenir dans les rapports du capital avec le travail et se faire régulateur du crédit.

Le crédit privé, qui cause, quand il est seul, des désastres périodiques et d'incessantes iniquités , doit être modéré et complété par un vaste crédit social, établi, non dans l'intérêt de quelques-uns, mais au profit de tous.

Des banques cantonnales , liées àdes banques départementales, et par elles àune banque centrale, fonctionnant toutes sous la surveillance et le contrôle de l'Etat, distribueraient partout le crédit aux travailleurs. Le travail serait ainsi délivré des exigences et des timidités du capital, ces deux grands obstacles de l'industrie. Les escomptes et les transactions entreraient dans les attributions de ces banques , qui mettraient alors en mouvement toutes les activités, vivifieraient tous les travaux, et, par l'accroissement de la production dûment répartie, développeraient vite le bien-être général, permettraient enfin la réduction de l'impôt.

L'agriculture, cette cause première de toute richesse nationale, profiterait, comme l'industrie, de l'organisation du crédit. Elle serait sauvée de l'exploitation de l'usure qui la ruine. Négligée par la monarchie, l'agriculture doit trouver, sous la République, des encouragements sérieux et une protection efficace, qu'elle lui rendra en prospérité et en sécurité.

En ajoutant, d'ailleurs, le rachat des chemins de fer, des canaux, les mines, de toutes les propriétés qui sont évidemment sociales , et qui ne son livrées àl'industrie particulière qu'au mépris des principes, l'Etat relèvera la fortune publique, source de toute fortune privée , et accomplira la Révolution.

DE L'ASSOCIATION. — L'association fait la-puissance du capital ; c'est elle qui a créé les plus grandes entreprises de notre temps ; pourquoi ne ferait-elle pas aussi la puissance du travail ?

Par l'association, l'homme multiplie ses forces. Le travail collectif permet cette division des fonctions, qui économise les moyens et augmente les produits. Par l'association seule, le travailleur arrivera àla réalisation de l'égalité.

L'association doit être l'oeuvre de la liberté. L'Etat ne peut contraindre les individus àtravailler dans le même atelier, àhabiter sous le même toit, às asseoir àla même table. Il ne peut forcer les citoyens au régime du travail ou de la vie en commun; ce serait attenter àleur liberté. La violence même légale ne pourrait que nuire àl'association : c'est aux hommes qui ont foi dans le [8] principe,àle propager par la parole, par la presse et par l'exemple, àle faire pénétrer dans le coeur et dans l'esprit, dans la conscience de tous. Le rôle de l'Etat doit être de provoqueras tentatives généreuses , de les encourager cl de les aider par toutes les ressources capables de les faire triompher. Régulateur du crédit, il commanditera largement les associations industrielles el agricoles, afin d'en assurer le succès, qui les imposera mieux que la force.

En résumé, nous voulons ce que veut le peuple :

L'unité du pouvoir;
La distinction des fonctions ;
La liberté de la pensée ;
La liberté de réunion et d'association ;
L'éducation gratuite ;
La révision des lois sur le service militaire;
L'abolition immédiate des impôts qui frappent les objets de première nécessité , comme le sel, les boissons , etc. ;
La réforme de l'impôt foncier, des octrois et des patentes ;
L'établissement de l'impôt proportionnel el progressif sur le revenu net;
Le rachat par l'Etat des chemins de fer, des canaux, des mines, etc. ;
La réforme administrative, judiciaire et pénale; la justice gratuite, c'est-à dire la simplification des formes et la réduction des frais ;
Le droit au travail ;
Le crédit ;
L'association.

Enfin, nous voulons pacifiquement et progressivement toutes les conséquences de ces trois grands principes de la révolution française : Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, c'est-à -dire le gouvernement de tous, par tous et pour tous.

LA RÉPUBLIQUE UNE' ET INDIVISIBLE, DÉMOCRATIQUE ET SOCIALE.

LES REPRÉSENTANTS DU PEUPLE :

Astaix (Puy-de-Dôme).--- Bac (Théodore) (Haute-Vienne).-- Baune (Loire).-- Bertholon (Isère). -- Benoit (Rhône). -- Bravard-Toussaint (Puy-deDôme).--Breymand (Haute-Loire).--Brives (Hérault).--Bruys (Amédée) (Saône-et-Loire).--Buvignier (Isidore) (Meuse).--Gales (Haute-Garonne). -- Cholat (Isère).---Clément-Auguste (Isère). --David (d'Angers) (Maineet-Loire).--Dain (Charles) (Guadeloupe).--James Demontry (Côle-d'Or). -- Détours (Tarn-el-Garonne). -- Deville (Hautes-Pyrénées). -- Doutre (Rhône). -- Dubarry (Hautes-Pyrénées). -- Fargin-FayoIIe (Allier). -- Gambon (Nièvre).-- Germain-Sarrut (Loir-et-Cher). -- Guinard (Seine). --Greppo (Rhône).--Jandeau (Saône-et-Loire).--Joigneaux (Côle-d'Or). --Joly (Haute-Garonne).--Joly (Edmond) (Aude). -- Lagrange (Charles) (Seine).---Lasteyras (Puy-de-Dôme).--Laurent (Ardèche).-- Ledru-Rollin (Seine). -- Lefranc(Pierre) (Pyrénées-Orientales). -- Madet (Allier). -- Maichain (Deux-Sèvres).-- Martin-Bernard (Loire).--Mathé (Félix) (Allier). -- Mathieu (Drame). -- Ménand (Saône-et-Loire). -- Michot (Loiret). -- Mulé (Haute-Garonne).--Ollivier (Démosthènes) (Bouches-du-Rhône).-- Durieu (Paulin) (Cantal). -- Pégot-Ogier (Haute-Garonne). -- Pelletier (Rhône).--Perdiguier (Agricole) (Seine).-- Pyat (Félix) (Cher). -- Raspail (Eugène) (Vaucluse). -- Robert (Yonne). --Ronjat (Isère).-- Schoelcher (Martinique). -- Signard (Haute-Saône). -- Terrier (Allier). -- Vignerte (Hautes-Pyrénées.)

The Montagnard Manifesto in English

Note: Passages quoted by Bastiat are in bold.

[3]

Elected by the people, invested by them with the supreme honor of representing them, we owe them a sincere and solemn exposition of the principles we have adopted as the rule for fulfilling our mandate. We are aware of the magnitude of the duties this mandate imposes upon us; and, resolved to fulfill them with as much energy as constancy, we wish to tell the people how we understand them. Faithful to the sacred tradition of our forefathers, full of faith in [4] the fruitful maxims they have bequeathed to us, ready to develop and establish them as far as our strength and our time allow, we address the entire nation. Let France judge.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"—this is our creed, the highest expression of the sovereign laws destined to govern humanity.

Liberty and Equality are rights; Fraternity is duty. Right and duty are the fundamental, primary, and eternal conditions of order, without which no society could not only persist but even be conceived. Right protects the individual, preserves him, and ensures his full possession of himself; duty subordinates him to society and thus unites individuals for the benefit of all. But where there is union—a real and true union—there is solidarity. We therefore believe in the necessary solidarity of all members of a society, as well as the solidarity of all partial societies, which are but members of the general society called humanity.

From this profound solidarity, which constitutes life itself—for life is one—arise, as its immediate consequences, concord, peace, and the obligation of nations to assist one another whenever their liberty, their independence, or their sovereign rights are threatened. Bound by this sacred solidarity and by the precedents of Republican France, we extend our hopes and aspirations beyond the barriers that despotism erects between nations. The rights we claim for ourselves, we also claim for all those oppressed under the yoke of tyranny. We want our glorious army to be, if necessary, once again the army of liberty.

Every people is founded upon the family, the eternal foundation of societies, from which they spring through natural development. The family is the model of all organization and the condition of all existence. To weaken the family, to interfere with the natural bonds uniting the father, the mother, and the child—which make them, as it were, one being, a complete human unit—is to attack the very life of the human race.

Property is, in our eyes, as sacred as labor, for it is both labor’s motive and its reward. In its essence, it is an absolute right; in its guarantees and its distribution, it is a relative right, subject to positive laws.

Far from seeking to destroy property, we seek to expand it, generalize it, make it accessible to all, so that, in time, through the natural development of social institutions and the effects of personal labor, every citizen may attain the supreme complement of his individuality: family and property. Such was the aspiration of that intelligent and upright people who, in the days of July 1830 and February 1848, shot thieves while proclaiming the right to work—thus uniting, in a sublime harmony, the two great principles of order and progress: Labor and Property.

Labor is man’s power; it is the intelligent, active force that seizes and subjugates nature. It is not a duty imposed by some fatal law; it is a need, and thus a right—the most inviolable of all. The right to work is the right to life. It is parallel to, and even prior to, the right to property, which is merely its result. Between property and labor, there is no antagonism—there is identity. Property is labor realized. Between labor yet to be performed and capital, which is labor already completed, distribution must conform to the law of justice.

Finally, the State must intervene—not to provide work, but to provide the means and instruments of labor; not to be an industrial leader, but the regulator of credit. The right to work is the right to credit.

Democratic institutions exist to fulfill these eternal principles and, consequently, to ensure the progressive improvement [5] of the physical, intellectual, and moral condition of all citizens. This is our goal.

Heirs to the name of La Montagne, we take pride in this name, which we never dared to claim for ourselves but which our opponents hurled at us as an insult. We accept it—on the condition of incorporating the new means that time and science have provided us. We accept the political and social vision of our predecessors, their deep love for justice and the people, their virtuous hatred of privilege and aristocracy, their courageous dedication, and their faith in the future. Our principles, our votes, and our actions will reveal who among us—ourselves or our enemies—harbors the deepest sentiments of justice and humanity; who among us—ourselves or our enemies—has inherited the bloody traditions of the past. We, in our ardent democracy, sought to abolish the scaffold. They, in the calm of their so-called moderation, sought to maintain it—and did.

Progress is the eternal law of humanity. Humanity never halts on the path that Providence has laid out for it. Every progress in the past has been won through violent struggles between error and truth; but, thanks to the new form of government in which everything emanates from the will of all, the struggle—so we hope—will henceforth be peaceful. For any improvement to be solid and lasting, it must arise from free discussion, from the consent of public reason, and, ultimately, from the normal development of institutions whose seeds have been sown in the fertile soil of democracy.

The principles of republican government are:

the unity of power,
liberty for each individual,
equality for all, and
fraternity of each for all and of all for each.

From unity results:

the real, moral, and material sovereignty of the people—without federalism, without despotism.
The Republic is one and indivisible, both in power and in territory.
Power is unified, but functions remain distinct.
A supreme legislative assembly is directly elected by all citizens, while
executive and judicial functions remain temporary, accountable, and subject to recall.
Departments and municipalities gain life through a two-way movement—from the center to the periphery and from the periphery to the center—which animates both the parts and the whole. There is centralization, but not absorption.

From liberty flows

the right to assemble,
the right to associate,
the right to practice one's faith, and
the right to express, propagate, and teach one's thoughts through speech, the press, and all other means of expressing human ideas.
It requires the abolition of all preventive and fiscal laws—such as newspaper deposits, printing privileges, censorship, and other restrictions that violate the inalienable right to spend, to assemble, and to associate.
In sum, liberty demands the exercise and development of all human faculties.

From equality flows

universal suffrage, the necessary foundation of all institutions, which alone can legitimize and ensure them.
It requires the broadest possible application of election and merit-based selection for public, civil, military, political, and religious offices. [6]
It ensures the equitable distribution of taxes and military service,
the emancipation of the working class,
the recognition of all previously denied rights and all acquired rights,
the representation of all interests, both old and new, and the fulfillment of all legitimate needs.

From fraternity flows:

the solidarity of all citizens,
institutions of credit, foresight, insurance, assistance, and mutual aid,
the free association of labor for production, and equity in distribution.
It seeks harmony and peace through abundance and justice.

The February Revolution has an eminently fraternal and social character; one day, it must put an end to the exploitation of man by man. Without confining ourselves to any single system, we seek to implement practical and applicable ideas that can secure the emancipation of labor. We want, and we must, fight and overthrow the two last tyrants of the people: ignorance and misery. Ignorance must be overcome by a system of education that provides, free of charge, both general and vocational instruction to all. Misery must be vanquished through a complete reform of taxation, through credit, and through association.

On education, the State must provide free instruction and education to all citizens.

General and vocational education, tailored as much as possible to the needs, vocations, and abilities of each citizen, will teach him his duties toward God, toward mankind, and toward himself; will develop his sentiments, aptitudes, and faculties; and will finally give him knowledge of his work, understanding of his interests, and awareness of his rights.

To achieve this, the role of teachers—these modest and devoted men who make citizens—must be elevated.

Finally, letters and the arts—the heritage of thought, the treasures of the mind, and all those intellectual joys that elevate and strengthen the soul—must be made accessible to all. The people, who are so well suited to understand them, have thus far been deprived of them.

ON TAXATION. — Society has needs, and it is the duty of citizens to provide for them. This is the purpose of taxation.

Since all citizens are equal, taxation must be distributed according to the principle of equality; the wealth and resources of each individual should determine his share in the common burden.

The current tax system weighs more heavily on the poor than on the rich; instead of alleviating misery, it only adds to its burden.

Taxation is not even proportional.

It is not proportional, for the poor man's thin wine is taxed the same as the rich man's fine wine; the small attic window of the cottage is taxed the same as the grand window of the château. Salt is taxed by weight, and the personal tax is levied per capita. Stamp duties and registration fees are charged at fixed rates, without regard to means. The requirement to contribute labor to public works takes days from the farmer and coins from the bourgeois. The license tax, so burdensome to the small merchant, is light for the banker. Six billion francs in government bonds and eleven billion francs in private claims escape taxation altogether. In France, one can enjoy an income of twenty, thirty, fifty, or even one hundred thousand francs without contributing to the costs of the State.

It is not proportional, for in indirect taxes alone, the worker in Paris pays four times more than the wealthy; in the provinces, he pays twice as much.

Yet even proportional taxation is insufficient to satisfy [7] the principle of equality. It is the superfluous, not the necessary, that taxation must target. Since the superfluous increases with wealth, taxation, like the superfluous, must be progressive according to income. It is easier to pay 2,000 francs in taxes on a 10,000-franc income than to pay 100 francs on an income of 1,000. In the first case, only a portion of the superfluous is taken; in the second, a portion of the necessary.

Figures show that under a simple proportional tax system, workers, small merchants, and small landowners would collectively be relieved of more than 400 million francs annually. The poor today are made to pay the debt of the rich, and this, our opponents call honest Republicanism.

But taxation should not be merely a burden for the citizen; it should be the price of the protection granted to him by the State. Insurance, already attempted by private industry, will become a social institution. Any disaster—fire, flood, or otherwise—suffered by a citizen will be compensated by the contributions of all. Thus, taxation, becoming the guarantor of security for each individual, will lose its oppressive character and become nothing more than an act of fraternity.

ON CREDIT. — It is through sound credit institutions that the State can ensure the right to work and fulfill the promises of the February Revolution.

In this area, everything remains to be done. Without debating the merits of specific proposals, we assert that the State must intervene in the relationship between capital and labor and act as the regulator of credit.

Private credit, when left to itself, causes periodic crises and ceaseless injustices; it must be moderated and supplemented by a vast system of social credit, established not for the benefit of a few, but for the profit of all.

Local banks, linked to departmental banks, which in turn are connected to a central bank, all functioning under the supervision and control of the State, would distribute credit to workers across the country. Thus, labor would be freed from the demands and hesitations of capital—two of the greatest obstacles to industry. The activities of these banks would include discounting and commercial transactions, thus stimulating all forms of work, invigorating industry, and, through increased and fairly distributed production, rapidly improving general well-being. This, in turn, would make it possible to reduce taxation.

Agriculture, the primary source of all national wealth, would benefit from this credit system just as industry would. It would be rescued from the exploitation of usury, which currently ruins it. Neglected under the monarchy, agriculture must find under the Republic serious encouragement and effective protection, which it will repay with prosperity and security.

Moreover, by nationalizing railroads, canals, and mines, as well as all properties that are evidently of social character—currently handed over to private industry in violation of principle—the State will restore public wealth, the source of all private wealth, and in so doing, will accomplish the Revolution.

ON ASSOCIATION. — Association is the source of capital’s strength; it has created the greatest enterprises of our time. Why should it not also be the source of labor’s strength?

Through association, man multiplies his abilities. Collective labor allows for the division of tasks, which reduces costs and increases output. Only through association will the worker achieve true equality.

Association must be the work of liberty. The State cannot force individuals to work in the same workshop, to live under the same roof, to sit at the same table. It cannot compel citizens to adopt a communal system of labor or life; such coercion would be an assault on their freedom. Even legal force could only harm association. It is for those who believe in [8] the principle to spread it through speech, the press, and example, to instill it in the hearts, minds, and consciences of all. The role of the State should be to foster generous initiatives, to encourage and assist them with all resources capable of ensuring their success. As the regulator of credit, it must provide broad financial backing for industrial and agricultural associations, ensuring their success, which will impose them better than force ever could.

In summary, we seek what the people seek:

the unity of power,
the distinction of functions,
freedom of thought,
freedom of assembly and association,
free education,
the revision of laws on military service,
the immediate abolition of taxes on essential goods such as salt and beverages,
the reform of land tax, city tolls, and business licenses,
the establishment of a proportional and progressive tax on net income,
the nationalization of railroads, canals, and mines, etc.
the reform of the administrative, judicial, and penal systems, free justice—meaning the simplification of legal procedures and the reduction of legal costs,
the right to work,
access to credit, and
association.

Finally, we seek—peacefully and progressively—the full realization of the three great principles of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, which is to say, government of all, by all, and for all.

THE REPUBLIC, ONE AND INDIVISIBLE, DEMOCRATIC AND SOCIAL.

THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE: 629.Astaix (Puy-de-Dôme), Bac (Théodore) (Haute-Vienne), Baune (Loire), Bertholon (Isère), Benoit (Rhône), Bravard-Toussaint (Puy-de-Dôme), Breymand (Haute-Loire), Brives (Hérault), Bruys (Amédée) (Saône-et-Loire), Buvignier (Isidore) (Meuse), Gales (Haute-Garonne), Cholat (Isère), Clément-Auguste (Isère), David (d’Angers) (Maine-et-Loire), Dain (Charles) (Guadeloupe), James Demontry (Côte-d’Or), Détours (Tarn-et-Garonne), Deville (Hautes-Pyrénées), Doutre (Rhône), Dubarry (Hautes-Pyrénées), Fargin-Fayolle (Allier), Gambon (Nièvre), Germain-Sarrut (Loir-et-Cher), Guinard (Seine), Greppo (Rhône), Jandeau (Saône-et-Loire), Joigneaux (Côte-d’Or), Joly (Haute-Garonne), Joly (Edmond) (Aude), Lagrange (Charles) (Seine), Lasteyras (Puy-de-Dôme), Laurent (Ardèche), Ledru-Rollin (Seine), Lefranc (Pierre) (Pyrénées-Orientales), Madet (Allier), Maichain (Deux-Sèvres), Martin-Bernard (Loire), Mathé (Félix) (Allier), Mathieu (Drôme), Ménand (Saône-et-Loire), Michot (Loiret), Mulé (Haute-Garonne), Ollivier (Démosthènes) (Bouches-du-Rhône), Durieu (Paulin) (Cantal), Pégot-Ogier (Haute-Garonne), Pelletier (Rhône), Perdiguier (Agricole) (Seine), Pyat (Félix) (Cher), Raspail (Eugène) (Vaucluse), Robert (Yonne), Ronjat (Isère), Schoelcher (Martinique), Signard (Haute-Saône), Terrier (Allier), Vignerte (Hautes-Pyrénées).