Talk:Frédéric Bastiat

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[edit] Article rewrite

Okay, I've started reworking this article from the top down adding sources, expanding commentary, etc. Anyone else who can find sourcing for any claims that already exist here would be doing a great service. I'm loathe to wipe the entire unsourced portion, but it is substantial, and must be rewritten and sourced so as to really meet the standards of this project. I would also note that I have not examined sections below those I've edited to determine how sensical they are—that is, whether they can or ought to be salvaged at all. I know that in my initial scan of the text there appeared to be some formatting shenanigans in play, with ALL CAPS, etc. being utilized for effect. Bastiat is important enough to merit a more professional-looking article on Wikipedia. Dick Clark 03:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Liberal?

This seems to me like something of a revisionist attempt to claim Bastiat for classical liberalism, probably as part of the revisionist attempt to claim classical liberalism as proto-libertarianism. I would be very interested to know whether anyone before Hayek and the like ever called him a liberal. - Jmabel | Talk 23:48, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not really understand, are you claiming that Bastiat was not a liberal? Intangible 22:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm saying I'm not at all sure he was viewed as one in his own time. Do we have any citations for that? - Jmabel | Talk 05:36, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Jmabel, you seem to be taking issue with the fact that that the article seems to be attempting to "claim" Bastait "for" classical liberalism. However, I think you would be hard pressed to find a source that would not classify Bastiat as either a classical liberal or a proto-Austrian libertarian. Indeed, Bastiat's views were perhaps even more radically libertarian than some "traditional" classical liberals such as Thomas Jefferson. Whether or not the term "classical liberal" or "liberal" was used to describe Bastiat in his own time is outside the scope of this article, as we are no longer living in Bastiat's time and the article does not contemplate contemporary references to Bastiat himself. In our time, Bastiat is considered a classical liberal. Refer to texts in both English and French and you will find that he is referred to by the term "liberal" without exception. RiseAbove 08:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I quite disagree. I believe that libertarians, having found Bastiat to their liking, have retroactively decided that he is part of their history, and therefore part of the history of "classical liberalism". But insofar as "classical liberalism" refers to liberalism as it existing in his (the pre-Mill) period, it is highly relevant whether he was considered part of that movement at the time. Otherwise, we are writing history backwards. - Jmabel | Talk 06:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Liberalism was renamed "classical liberalism" after left-wingers' claim to be liberals. In French we just say liberalism (without "classical"). So Bastiat was no considered classical liberal by his peers. Ancient Greek in Ancient Greece was not called "Ancient Greek". Golden Age of Hollywood was not called "Golden Age" in the 1950's, etc. Arronax50 17:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. What we now call "Classical Liberalism" was just called liberalism prior early 20th century. --Jayson Virissimo 06:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

One of the most famous liberals Britain has ever produced, Richard Cobden, admired Bastiat's works and they were both adherents of political economy (Bastiat even wrote a sympathetic book about Cobden's campaign for free trade: Cobden et la Ligue).[1] And when the Free Trade vs. Tariff Reform debate was raging in Britain the Cobden Club reprinted Bastiat's Sophismes Economiques with an introduction by the Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, who compared it to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations.--Johnbull 23:29, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Highly POV

"In short, Bastiat proves two major points": even the 1911 EB would have blanched at this, and they weren't trying to be neutral. - Jmabel | Talk 05:51, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

You're right. I slightly reworked the language to hopefully be less POV and matter-of-fact. RiseAbove 07:38, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

Can someone please add a pronunciation guide for his name? If you use that inscrutable form that Wikipedia endorses, it would be nice if you also included one for us ignorami. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.157.147 (talk) 00:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pure Speculation

I am sorry but that is pure speculation/own opinion/original research:

"he seems to have considered the State as something inevitable as far as an immediate practical matter – something that ought to be taken into account as long as it existed^{[citation needed]}"

I have taken it out of the article. Should anyone have a source for that please feel free to use ist.

88.117.79.145 (talk) 05:45, 24 September 2008 (UTC)