The bond of monopoly is now broken and commercial freedom having been realised, there is nothing left to oppose the advent of political freedom.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 3, pages 508 to 517 (in French)
April 15th, 1850

This is the last text of the third volume of the Complete Works of Frédéric Bastiat. He informs us about a speech by the Premier John Russell in Westminster on February 8th, 1850 in which he details the strategy to move towards the political independence of British colonies.

Today’s quote does not say anything less than that commercial freedom is in fact a preliminary milestone towards political freedom and peace. I find it particularly interesting because this approach will be conducted at least twice in the 20th century with more or less success, during the European construction and during the economic development of China.

Considering the first event, it is undeniably a success in favour of peace. We have started by eliminating trade barriers between France and Germany with the European Coal and Steel Community, which progressively evolved into the European Union. Despite all the quirks we may still find and if we consider that Franco-German peace was the objective, the period 1951-2024 has been clearly more peaceful than the period 1870-1945 which bore witness to three wars tearing apart Europe and the world.

Considering the second event, it is unfortunate to see what has been happening since 2012 and the steps backwards in China, economically as well as politically. However, the idea according to which economic freedom must lead to political freedom is not disproven. We could argue that it is likely the reason for these steps backwards we can observe today, the dictocrats in power refusing the idea that economic freedom could morph into a political freedom they fret above all.