They nevertheless had to accept the evidence and finally recorded, to their great regret, that communism, an attractive illusion, is an appalling reality.

Frédéric Bastiat
Part 5 of 8
Pamphlets

Frédéric Bastiat keeps on comparing some politically affluent authors and Ancient History, Plato in particular. According to him, the latter’s philosophy is sheer communism and his influence could explain a lot of mistakes observed during the French Revolution that continue to be a hot topic in 1850, notably on the issue of property rights.

What I find particularly interesting in today’s quote is that Bastiat had identified some missionary ventures (the one mentioned here was in Paraguay) as real world experiments of communism. He establishes that these ended up a failure. As much as the endless communist experiments that ended up being very large failures in the 20th century (to my knowledge, the kibbutzim are the only ones that did not end up as a drama but they can hardly be called a success – the voluntary part in there is key). Sometimes I dream of humanity being able to learn from its mistakes and avoided to fall for it again in the 21st century!

Other quotes from Baccalaureate and Socialism:
Part 1 of 8 – Part 2 of 8 – Part 3 of 8 – Part 4 of 8 – Part 6 of 8 – Part 7 of 8 – Part 8 of 8