Papers given at the Libertarian Scholars Conference, NYC, 21 Sept. 2019.

Posted on by

Was Molinari a true Anarcho-Capitalist?

(1.) “Was Molinari a true Anarcho-Capitalist?: An Intellectual History of the Private and Competitive Production of Security”. A paper given at the Libertarian Scholars Conference, NYC, 21 Sept. 2019 [Full paper HTML and PDF – Slides – Handout ]. See the abstract of the paper below.

Some Thoughts on an ‘Austrian Theory of Film’: Ideas and Human Action in a Film about Frédéric Bastiat

(2.) “Some Thoughts on an ‘Austrian Theory of Film’: Ideas and Human Action in a Film about Frédéric Bastiat”. A paper given at the Libertarian Scholars Conference, NYC, 21 Sept. 2019. [Full paper in HTML and PDF – Slides ] [ Screenplay – Illustrations ].

Abstract: When thinking about the problems a filmmaker faces when trying to make a “movie of ideas” I was struck by the relevance of the works of two economists, that of Ludwig von Mises’ theory of “human action” and Frédéric Bastiat’s theory of “the seen and the unseen,” in helping the filmmaker think about the problems of depicting economic ideas and economic actions in a visual medium like film. It made me think that perhaps we should develop an “Austrian theory of Film” to help us do this. If there can be a feminist theory of film and a Marxist theory of film, why not an Austrian theory of film?

Mises is relevant because according to his theory of human action people act upon the ideas they have about what their interests are (in many cases these are economic interests), what their alternatives might be, and how best they can attempt to satisfy those interests given their scarce resources and other options. In essence then, human action is based upon the ideas people hold. Bastiat is relevant because the ideas people hold in their heads are a textbook example of what is invisible to outsiders, in other words they are “the unseen” perhaps even the unseeable, yet the actions which people take based upon the ideas they have about themselves, their interests, and the world around them can be “seen” in the actions they take.

A few questions I pose and attempt to answer are: can the filmmaker use these theories about economic behavior to make an interesting film with economic themes? can the ordinary film viewer correctly infer the ideas which lie behind a person’s choices and actions as depicted in a film? and how subtle should a screenplay writer or director be in giving the viewer hints (or what I cake visual “nudging”)? I use the screenplay I have have written about Bastiat’s activities during the revolution of 1848 and the Second Republic, called “Broken Windows”, to discuss these and other matters. See the screenplay, “Broken Windows” and the accompanying “illustrated essay” of the life and times of Bastiat.

Some Key Terms used by Bastiat in his Economic Theory

Posted on by

Here are the “concept maps” or what I call “vocabulary clusters” of some of Bastiat’s key ideas which I have drawn up to assist me in my editing and translating work. I have done ones for Class, Disturbing Factors, Harmony and Disharmony, Human Action, and Plunder (images below).

What the digitization of the collected works of Bastiat and the compilation of those texts into one searchable file allowed me to do were the following things:

  1. to check the consistency of our and previous translations (Stirling, FEE) – I found that key terms (like “le ricochet” or “human action”) were not translated consistently
  2. to note when a key term was first used and to track his use of it over time
  3. to note the other terms which he associated with it, what I call “clusters”, which often involved related terms or opposite terms

My conclusion is that Bastiat developed a rich and diverse vocabulary of terms which was unique to him, which appeared in an advanced state for the first time in early 1845 in two articles he wrote before he entered the orbit of the Parisian economists, and which evolved slightly over the course of the final six years of his life.

I have identified a number of such “vocabulary clusters” of key words for some of his main ideas which are listed below. I used the “mind mapping” software “Scrapple” to show the relationships between the words in a visual way. I have completed five so far (class, disturbing factors, harmony and disharmony, human action, and plunder) and have plans to do a dozen more on the ricochet effect, the domains of the community (or the commons) and of private property, the social mechanism vs. mechanics, the apparatus of exchange, service for service, the seen and the unseen, responsibility and solidarity, perfectibility and progress, sophisms and the dupes, the telling of stories to explain economic concepts.

See “APPENDIX 1: CONCEPT MAPS OF THE TERMS USED BY BASTIAT” at my website

Was Molinari a true Anarcho-Capitalist?

Posted on by

As part of the bicentennial celebrations of the birth of Gustave de Molinari, the world’s first true anarcho-capitalist, I wrote the following paper: “Was Molinari a true Anarcho-Capitalist?: An Intellectual History of the Private and Competitive Production of Security” a paper given at the Libertarian Scholars Conference, New York City, 28 Sept. 2019. http://davidmhart.com/liberty/Papers/Molinari/ProductionSecurity/index.html>]

The paper explores two topics relating to Gustave de Molinari’s pathbreaking article “De la production de la sécurité” (On the Production of Security) (JDE, Feb. 1849). The first is an exploration of the intellectual history leading up to this theoretical breakthrough, that private insurance companies in a competitive free market, or “les producteurs de la sécurité” (producers of security) or “entrepreneurs in the security industry,” can and would be able to supply protection of life, liberty, and property, in other words police and national defense services, to private individuals, or “les consommateurs de la sécurité” (consumers of security), by voluntarily charging premiums for their services in a competitive market. The deeper roots of Molinari’s idea lay in the work of Destutt de Tracy and J.B. Say in the 1810s on the question of whether or not government activity was “productive” and if so, in what way. Closer to his own time, the conservative politician Adolphe Theirs and the socialist publisher Émile de Girardin in the late 1840s both likened the state metaphorically speaking to an “insurance company” which provided services to taxpayers/shareholders who paid taxes/premiums to that company.

Molinari’s contribution to the debate was to see how the metaphor could be turned into reality, where actual private property insurance companies (“les compagnies d’assurances sur la propriété” (property insurance companies) ) would contractually and voluntarily provide protection services to their policy holders. Molinari first developed his ideas in a series of articles and books written between 1846 and 1855 (the article “Le droit électorale” Courrier français (July, 1846); the article ” in JDE, Feb. 1849; Soirée 11 inLes Soirées de la rue Saint-Lazare(1849); scattered references in several articles he wrote for the Dictionnaire de l’économie politique (1852-53); the chapter on “Public Consumption” (Douzième leçon, “Les consommations publiques,” in his treatise Cours d’économie politique (1855)), and then returned to the topic again later in the 1880s and 1890s (the chapter Chap. X “Les Gouvernements de l’avenir,” in L’Évolution politique et la Révolution (1884); his book on Esquisse de l’organisation politique et économique de la société future (Sketch of the political and economic organisation of the future society (society in the future)) (1899); and the late article “Où est l’utopie?” (Where is Utopia?) (JDE, 1904).

The second topic to be explored is the question of how much of an “anarcho-capitalist” Molinari really was and whether or not he remained one over the course of his long life. The term itself is anachronistic to use about Molinari as it was coined by Rothbard to describe his own views which were emerging in the 1950s and 1960s under the influence of Molinari’s original 1849 article, along with the writings of other members of the Paris School of economists, such as Charles Dunoyer, Charles Comte, and Frédéric Bastiat. Molinari himself referred to his views as “la liberté de gouvernement” (the liberty of government, or free government) or “la concurrence politique” (political competition, or competing governments). I will argue that Molinari was a “true” or “hard” anarcho-capitalist when it came to the question of the private production and provision of police and defense services (“la sécurité) – for which he used the very “capitalist” expressions such as “producers of security,” “consumers of security,” the “security industry,” “entrepreneurs in the security industry,” etc – until he reached his seventies when he “backtracked” slightly during the 1890s. He was also a “true” or “hard” anarcho-capitalist when it came to the question of the private production and provision of justice by means of competing law courts which charged “fees for service” and remained one for his entire life. He had several insights about how law might evolve privately but he did not develop it as far as he did with the private production of security. My conclusion is that he came came very close to being an early (perhaps the first) “Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist” but did not go all the way there. This fact in itself was quite extraordinary for his day and age and his achievements should be duly recognized by historians and economists.

The Books on Harmony and Disharmony Bastiat never wrote

Posted on by

It is not well known that Bastiat planned to write a multi-volume treatise on “the harmonies” and “the disharmonies” which he observed at work both in the economy and in the broader society which surrounded it. This treatise would have a volume or volumes on the “social harmonies,” the “economic harmonies”, and the various “disharmonies” which disturbed, or prevented from appearing, these social and economic harmonies. The volume on “the disharmonies” would also have included a “history of plunder” where Bastiat would analyze how the practice of plunder (la spoliation) had emerged in Europe and how it evolved into the system of “legal plunder” which existed in his own day.

Sadly, Bastiat was not able to even complete the first part of this ambitious project before he died at the age of 49, probably from throat cancer. What we know as the book Economic Harmonies was only half finished – he himself published a volume with the first 10 chapters in early 1850, and his fiends cobbled together an expanded edition using drafts and sketches of chapters they found among Bastiat’s papers which they published posthumously in mid-1851. The latter is the edition readers today know. He never wrote the volume on the Social Harmonies and left several essays and sketches of his theory and history of plunder.

I discuss the ideas behind this ambitious project and attempt a reconstruction of what it might have looked like (also see the list of chapters below), had he been able to finish it, in a new “paper” on “Bastiat on Harmony and Disharmony” which is available online. It is actually more like a “short book” than a paper at 114K words, 316 pp.! See

  1. HTML version: <davidmhart.com/liberty/Papers/Bastiat/HarmonyDisharmony/index.html>
  2. PDF version: <davidmhart.com/liberty/Papers/Bastiat/HarmonyDisharmony/DMH-BastiatHarmonyDisharmony.pdf> [5.9MB]

I have also drawn up some “concept maps” to show the very original and specific vocabulary Bastiat developed to discuss his thoughts on these topics. This vocabulary was sometimes hidden or glossed over in the two previous translations of Economic Harmonies which we have (the Stirling translation of the 1860s and the FEE translation of the 1960s). These concept maps can be found in an Appendix to the above paper. I include the one on “Harmony and Disharmony” here.

A Reconstruction of what might have been

I have tried to reorganize Bastiat’s chapters and other writings into something more coherent which follows his plan for a three volume work which dealt with “Social Harmonies,” “Economic Harmonies,” and “The Disharmonies” or “A History of Plunder.”

EH1 = 1st edition of Economic Harmonies (1850)
EH2 = 2nd edition of 1851
WSWNS = What is Seen and What is Not Seen (1850)
ES1 = Economic Sophisms (1st series) (1846)
ES2 = Economic Sophisms (2nd series) (1848)

Volume 1: Social Harmonies:

  1. The two mottoes/sayings [EH2 XII] – one for all (the principle of fellow feeling) and everyone for themselves (the principle of individualism)
  2. Responsibility – solidarity [EH2 XX and XXI]
  3. Personal/Self interest or the social drive [EH2 XXII]
  4. Perfectibility [sketch EH2 XXIV]
  5. Public opinion (in chap. XXI “Solidarity”)
  6. liberty and equality [draft chap.]
  7. The relationship between political economy and morality [sketch EH2 XXV]
  8. The relationship between political economy and politics
  9. The relationship between political economy and legislation
  10. The relationship between political economy and religion. [sketch EH2 XXIII Evil]

Volume 2: Economic Harmonies:

  1. theoretical matters
    1. organisation [EH2 I]
    2. needs efforts, satisfactions [EH2 II and III]
    3. exchange [EH2 IV]
    4. value [EH2 V]
    5. wealth [EH2 VI]
    6. capital [EH2 VII]
    7. private property [EH2 VIII]
    8. communal property (the Commons) [EH2 VIII]
    9. property in land [EH2 IX]
    10. competition [EH2 X]
    11. Producer – Consumer [EH2 XI]
    12. The theory of Rent [EH2 XIII]
  1. policy/applied matters
    1. On money [Damned Money pamphlet]
    2. On credit [Free Credit debate with P]
    3. On wages [EH2 XIV]
    4. On savings [EH2 XV]
    5. On population [EH2 XVI]
    6. Private services, public services [EH2 XVII]
    7. On taxes [WSWNS 3 Taxes]
    8. On machines [WSWNS 8 Machines]
    9. Freedom of exchange – (lecture given at Taranne Hall to students in 1847??)
    10. On intermediaries [WSWNS 6 The Middlemen]
    11. Raw materials – finished products [ ES1 21 “Raw Materials” (c. 1845)]
    12. On luxury [WSWNS 11 Thrift and Luxury]

Volume 3: Disharmonies, or The History of Plunder:

  1. Plunder [sketch in EH2 XVIII] (conclusion ES1, ES2 1 and 2)
  2. War [sketch in EH2 XIX]
  3. Slavery [ES2 1]
  4. Theocracy [ES2 1]
  5. Monopoly [ES2 1]
  6. Governmental exploitation [“functionaryism”]
  7. False fraternity or Communism [his anti-socialist pamphlets]

40th Anniversary of the 1978 Cato Summer Seminar in Political Economy

Posted on by

I was going through some old papers and came across the program and my lecture notes for the second ever Cato Summer Seminar in Political Economy which took place at Stanford University in 5-12 August 1978 (the first one took place a month earlier at Wake Forrest). Among the alumni are Ross Levatter, David Lips, Milton Mueller, Tom Palmer, Laurie Rantala, Paul Silverman, and Chris Weber.

The lectures were as follows:

Roy Childs

  1. The Prospects for Liberty
  2. The Ethics of Liberty
  3. People and Land Control
  4. History of the Modern Libertarian Movement 4.

Bill Evers

  1. The Ethics of Liberty
  2. Comparative Political Movements: Conservatism and Libertarianism

Walter Grinder

  1. The Austrian School of Economics
  2. The History of American Foreign Policy
  3. Libertarian Class Analysis
  4. American Power Elites

Murray Rothbard

  1. The History of American Domestic Policy
  2. Theory of Social Change
  3. Domestic Policy Issues
  4. The Future of Liberty

Ronald Hamowy

  1. Topics in American History

Alvin Rabushka

  1. Third World Development

Leonard Liggio

  1. Constituencies for Liberty
  2. American Political Parties and Voting Behavior
  3. Third World Development

Ralph Raico

  1. Comparative Political Movements: Marxism
  2. History of Libertarian Thought

William Marina

  1. Foreign Policy Issues

Ed Crane

  1. What is to be done?

Is it a coincidence that 40 years later I co-edited a book on libertarian class analysis (thanks Walter Grinder), hosted an online discussion on the failings of Marxism (thanks Bill Evers), spent much of the year fretting about strategies for radical social change (thanks Murray Rothbard), and finished putting online a 7 volume collection of Leveller writings from the 17th century (thanks Murray Rothbard and Ralph Raico)? I think perhaps not. From little seeds grow …