On History... For Honesty

Thanks to my donors, I now have the means to acquire rare, out-of-print books essential for the growth of my knowledge. And so it was that the mailman delivered Frederic Bastiat: A Man Alone, a splendid biography of the great man by George Charles Roche III. Published in 1971 in the US, it has never been reprinted. And Roche, I found out, has been dead six years. A little bird who knew him well told me that he would have been overjoyed to hear that his book had been republished in India, where interest in Bastiat is growing rapidly. If any publisher wants to take on the task, I would be honoured to contribute a foreword. My collection, The Essential Frederic Bastiat, is available from Liberty Institute and the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung Für Die Freiheit. Roche’s biography would make for a fabulous companion volume.

Frederic Bastiat illumined French public life for a brief five years, from 1845 till his untimely death in 1850. Prior to that, he spent a good twenty years as a country gentleman engaged in quiet, private study. It is these deep studies that enabled him to fly the Flag of Liberty so capably during his short public life.

However, what seemed most appropriate for me to narrate in view of our current predicaments in India is the “bourgeois revolution” of 1830, which brought in the reign of Louis Philippe, the “king of the shopkeepers.” Bastiat had welcomed this revolution in 1830, even taking part in a civil militia that took over a local citadel housing the king’s troops – just as most of us welcomed “liberalisation” in the early 1990s.

However, by 1845, when Bastiat stepped into public life, it was obvious to all that this bourgeois revolution had failed. The French had transferred power from the aristocracy and nobility to the middle class – and it is their abject failure that prompted the French to turn towards socialism, which meant transferring power to the workers.

Why did the bourgeois revolution fail? This becomes relevant as “Maoists” and assorted “Naxalites” – all armed – are taking over vast swathes of the country, and have even entered government in Nepal. It seems that this too will soon be India’s fate, for our little bourgeois revolution is also marked by cronyism, corruption, tariffs and all the other methods of clientelism, favouritism and plunder. This was precisely the story in France.

Just as the French bourgeoisie had messed up badly, so have ours. Just as Louis Philippe’s chief minister Guizot was a helpless and quiet soul, unable to comprehend what genuine capitalism meant, so too is Chacha Manmohan – a man who has played no small role in our brief flirtation with market forces.

And so the French had another horrible revolution in 1848. And from then on socialism has been on the ascendant. Frederic Bastiat combated its errors then. As did Mises a century later, and after that Hayek. And still the ugly beast remains with us, increasing its support among the unlettered masses. In the meantime, no one seems to be concerned about what genuine Capitalism means. There is no honesty in public life because there is no honesty in intellectual life.

It is therefore a matter of grave importance that those who want to bring about Capitalism in India do so with Honesty as their bulwark. Bastiat wrote in favour of the Consumer, never the producer. He told the workers that they benefited by working with other people’s Capital – they did not lose. He also, most importantly, stood for Free Competition. It is only with these basic values that we can establish genuine Capitalism in India. If we succeed in doing so, we may be able to convert the masses to the side of Liberty. If not, I am afraid that the country will be taken over by nuts – just as happened in France in 1848, when Louis Philippe fell. There is an important lesson for us in this. Once again, I thank my donors for making it possible for me to purchase this valuable book.

Recommended reading: My speech at the launch of The Essential Frederic Bastiat, New Delhi, December 2007, available here.