Harmonies Économiques

An inspiring exposition of the natural harmony that results when people are

free to pursue their individual interests.

EVER since the publication, in 1850, some months before Bastiat's death, of

the first ten chapters of this work—all that he lived to put into finished

form—it has been recognized as a classic in its field; and subsequent editions

of it which have included the extensive notes he sketched, during his last

illness, for the remaining chapters have only served to enhance its

reputation.

The essential doctrine of the book is the great truth that lies at the

foundation of all human society, namely, that the interests of all men are

fundamentally compatible, that there is and can be no antagonism between the

welfare of one and the welfare of all, that all mankind can live in peace and

prosperity, provided that violence or the threat of violence is reserved

exclusively for the maintenance, by the state, of a free market in which goods

and services are voluntarily exchanged without coercion from any quarter. The

author at the same time refutes the contrary doctrine, which is the basis of

every variety of collectivism, namely, that there is an irreconcilable

antagonism between the interests of different social classes, races, nations,

industries, etc., which requires that some men be empowered to allocate, by

force, all human and material resources to collective ends that transcend

those of individual persons.

Economic science—ordinarily regarded as a dry collection of abstract formulas

having only a remote relation to the realities of human existence—is here

presented so that its pertinence to the most important issues confronting

mankind becomes immediately clear and vivid. A master of the art of lively and

lucid exposition, Bastiat writes in a style that combines sharp wit, striking

imagery, apt examples, imaginary dialogues between partisans of opposing

points of view, and pages of impassioned eloquence, as he demonstrates the

connection between all the major problems of economics—the formation of

prices, wages, value, competition, monopoly, profit, rent, war, population,

wealth, etc.—and the teachings of ethics, political science, and religion.

The present edition forms a fitting supplement to Bastiat's more polemical

Selected Essays on Political Economy and Economic Sophisms, also newly

translated for this series. It comprises an Introduction by Dean Russell, the

full text of Bastiat's work, including his notes and materials for the

incomplete chapters, all the notes of his French editor, and a set of

explanatory comments by the translator designed to elucidate points that the

modern reader might otherwise have found obscure.