Frédéric Bastiat died in 1850, i.e. 150 years ago. On that same year 1850, a few months before he was carried off by tuberculosis, he had published three of his masterpieces : "Economic Harmonies", "The Law", and "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen". Perhaps, then, can we consider 1850 as the true birth of Libertarianism, and celebrate its 150th anniversary.
In a paper presented this summer in Canada for the Annual World Conference of the International Society for Individual Liberty, (available on the website www.Bastiat.net) I have shown that a number of breakthroughs attributed to 20th century Libertarians were already contained in Bastiat's works. I have compared, for example, some paragraphs from Bastiat with texts on the same subjects written by Ayn Rand, Hayek, Buchanan, Laffer, and even Margaret Thatcher. There is some justification, then, to consider Bastiat as the father of Libertarianism. When I say that, I am well aware that classical liberalism is much older than 1850, perhaps dating back to the time of Aristotle. But if we consider Libertarianism as the modern, coherent, all encompassing, radical form of liberalism, then Bastiat is probably the first authentic Libertarian.
But while Bastiat died in 1850, he was born in 1801. So next year, year 2001, will then be the 200th anniversary of his birth. It is therefore to be expected that every significant Libertarian meeting, next year as well as this year, will want to pay some tribute to Bastiat. In particular, ISIL, together with Libertarian International, and the Cercle Frédéric Bastiat, which I represent here, have decided to celebrate this anniversary through a conference in Dax, between Bayonne, where he was born, and Mugron, where he spent most of his life. We shall visit both places. The congress will be followed by a spectacular tour of Aquitaine, the land of Bastiat, my land.
Concerning today's meeting, devoted to immigration, I was asked if Bastiat had said anything of interest about the subject. Strictly speaking, he has not written a lot about it. What he wrote and in what circumstances, I shall cover in a moment. Yet, it is quite relevant to quote Bastiat when speaking of immigration, because he fought tirelessly in favor of the conditions that would have made immigration a non issue : freedom of exchange, freedom from the State.
Let us examine what are the main causes of immigration, at least on a scale large enough to create social issues :
- Flight from political persecution
- Flight from administrative harassment
- Flight from poverty
There was only one instance in Bastiat's life when he was confronted with the first cause. By 1830, a revolution took place in Poland against a government largely submitted to Russia. (Russia, then, exerted on Poland a de facto protectorate). An extremely savage repression ensued, and some 10 000 people, mainly from the upper class, flew from Poland towards occidental countries. About 7 000 emigrated to France.
The French parliament, afraid by such an influx, issued a law in April 1832 to control the refugees. The law authorized the government to gather the refugees into some towns of their designation. If the refugees did not comply, the government could kick them out of the country.
The law was promulgated for a year only, but it was renewed in 1833 for another year. In 1834, the government wanted to renew it for two more years, but there was an outcry from the liberals in several parts of France. In Bayonne, a petition against the law was largely circulated. Bastiat took a strong position in the press in favor of the petition.
Bastiat wrote :
"The most ardent wish of a refugee, after the one of ending his exile, is to practice some trade in order to create some resources for his survival. But for that, he must choose the location of his residence; those who can be useful in commercial enterprises should be able to go to towns where there are such enterprises, those who want to do some industrial activity should be able to go to industrial regions, those who have some talents should go to cities encouraging those talents. Furthermore, they should not be expelled at any moment, nor live with the sword of arbitrary measures hanging above their heads.
"The law of April 21 is calculated so that the Poles who cannot receive from home neither help nor news, whose families are oppressed, dragged into Siberia, whose compatriots are errands and dispersed throughout the globe, cannot do anything to soothe their fate. They are no longer refugees, they are true prisoners of war, packed by the hundreds in places that do not provide them any resources, prevented by uncertainty to adopt measures that could decrease their cost. We have seen them ordered at 9 to leave a town at noon!
"This system is supposedly based on the necessity to maintain order and tranquillity in France. But all those who have run into Poles know that they are not troublemakers."
He concludes in writing : "It is therefore obvious that the petition which circulates now cannot be and must not be the work of a political party; but that it must be signed by all inhabitants of Bayonne, without any political distinction, providing they have in their souls, some spark of humanity and justice."
While the second cause of emigration is relevant today, with so many enterprising young Frenchmen leaving France to avoid administrative harassment, it was not an issue in Bastiat's time.
The third cause is the most interesting, because it is one of the arguments used for dismantling excise taxes on corn by the famous "Corn League" of Richard Cobden and John Bright. Bastiat followed the corn league movement in England, and upon his return, he wrote a book called "Cobden et la Ligue", which unfortunately, has not been translated into English. It is true, though, that a large part of the book is itself the translation of the most significant speeches pronounced at meetings of the league.
A most remarkable speech, pronounced by Cobden himself, is entirely devoted to the subject of emigration. At the time, thousands of English people were leaving the country because they were literally starving. Here are some extracts of this speech (retranslated from Bastiat's translation[1]) :
"Each time imports controls have thrown the country into misery, some quarters never failed to say "let us transport people away". That was the case in 1819, 1829, and 1839. This is still the case in 1843.
London bankers and merchants have a plan to relieve the country misery.
They propose a systematic emigration organized by the government.
A petition is circulating among them.
I asked a gentleman who signed the petition
whether some merchants were planning to emigrate.
- Oh no, none of us, was the reply.
- Whom do you want to expel, then? I asked him.
- The poor. Those who do not find employment here.
- But don't you think the poor should have at least a voice in the debate?
Have they ever petitioned the parliament to help them get transportation?
To my knowledge, for 5 years, 5 million workers have presented petitions
for letting food come to them, but I don't believe they have asked once
to be sent to where the food was.
Is it not better that England keeps her children to enrich and defend her, rather than expatriate them? Some say "Poor textile workers. They should go abroad!" But what do the textile workers say? Mr Symons has been asked to make an inquiry on workers condition. He reports having frequently asked them if they were favorable to emigration. The workers consistently answered : "it would be far simpler to bring the food to us than to carry us to the food. Why expatriate people? Why these measures? Literally to feed people; there is no other reason for throwing them away onto foreign beaches"
"Give back to the people of this country the right to exchange the products of their labor against foreign corn, and there will not be in England a man, a woman, or a child which could not provide for their subsistence and enjoy as much happiness as they could find anywhere else on earth."
The key idea developed by Bastiat and Cobden, an idea too often left aside when treating immigration issues is very simple : these issues would simply not exist in a system of freedom of exchange. Let us now look at these issues as they are formulated today.
- Racialism, xenophobia.
- Immigrants of low qualification increase unemployment and the burden on the State welfare.
- Immigrants have not contributed to the existing public facilities
- Immigrants compete with nationals, decreasing their standards of living.
In Bastiat times, i.e. the first part of the 19th century, there was no large scale immigration in France as there is today. Even the Poles immigration, which represented 7000 people, would have been hardly noticed if the Poles had not been forcefully concentrated in a few places. Therefore the first three issues, which are issues today in France, were no issues at all at the time, and it is therefore not surprising that Bastiat did not write about them.
But he did write on the third. It came about in the course of his tireless fight against the industrialists who promoted trade restrictions to protect their industry against foreign competition. "In the absence of protection, they said to their workers, foreign products would replace our products, and you would be out of work". This is an argument easily believed by the working class, so Bastiat endeavored to refute it in an address "To Artisans and Laborers" (reproduced in "Economic Sophisms"). After having shown that workers would be much better off in a system of free exchange, even at the price of changing jobs, he went on :
"What is being protected in France? Things made by big business - iron, coal, cloth and textiles - and you are told that this is done, not in the interest of the entrepreneurs, but in yours, in order to guarantee your employment. Yet every time foreign labor appears on our market in such a form that it could be harmful to you, but useful to the big businessmen, do they not let it enter? Are there not twenty thousand Germans in Paris making clothes and shoes? Why are they permitted to establish themselves alongside of you, when cloth from abroad is barred from France? Because Cloth is made in large mills belonging to manufacturers who are also legislators, whereas clothing is made by workers in their own homes. In the processing of wool into cloth, these gentlemen want no competition, because this is what they do for a living; but in the processing of cloth into clothing, they readily allow it, for what it is what you do for a living. When they built railroads, they prohibited the importation of English rails, but they brought over English workmen. Why? Well, it's quite simple : because English rails compete with those produced by our own big mills, whereas English labor competes only with your labor. We ourselves do not ask that German tailors and English navies be kept out of France. What we ask is that cloth and rails be free to enter. We demand justice for all, equality before the law for everyone."
For Bastiat, emigration was a symptom of inequality between classes and between nations caused by artificial restrictions to freedom. Paper after paper, book after book, speech after speech, he fought for the cause of freedom : freedom to undertake actions, freedom of trade, freedom from the State. I have selected these two quotations to illustrate his thinking on the subject :
"Exchange is a natural right, like Property. Every citizen who has created or acquired a product, must have the option either to apply it immediately to his own usage, or to yield it to anyone, on the surface of the globe, who agrees to give him in exchange the object of his desire" (Inaugural Declaration to the Association for the Freedom of Exchanges. 1846)
"Let men labor, exchange, learn, band together, act, and react upon one another, since in this way, according to the laws of Providence, there can result from their free and intelligent activity only order, harmony, progress, and all things that are good, and increasingly good, and still better, and better yet, to infinite degree". (Economic Harmonies. Introduction : "To the youth of France". 1850)
In other Words, under Liberty, in the long run, standards of living are bound to rise to a point where no one would be forced to leave the place he would like to live in because of persecution or poverty.
Notes:
[1]
Cobden's talk at the weekly meeting of the league on March 30, 1843.
If some brit, or anyone for that purpose,
could lay his/her hands on the original talk by Cobden,
I would be most grateful if he/she could mail it to me
(Jacques de Guenin, 40320 Saint-Loubouer, France.
E.mail : J.de.Guenin@wanadoo.fr).
[<-]
Cercle Frédéric Bastiat