We would like that each citizen, in order to improve his own destiny, would count a bit more on himself and a bit less on the public coffers.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 167 to 169 (in French)
Libre-échange, May 30th, 1847

Frédéric Bastiat responds here to an article published in the L’Impartial de Rouen, which accuses a public figure who would be Louis-Philippe to be a free-trader. After assessing that this is supposed to be an insult while he finds himself this to be rather flattering, he tries to understand what could lead the newspaper to such a conclusion. It seems that the reason was that the king’s father, Philippe Egalité, would have written once: “I believe that absolute freedom is advantageous to both nations but I do not believe that either is sufficiently enlightened to adopt these great principles”. Of course, this is a bit short and the policies implemented by the king are what should allow to assess his free-trade inclinations rather than what his father might have thought one day.

In developing his thoughts, Frédéric Bastiat imagines himself sitting as a king who would be a free-trader and his discourse produces today’s quote. I note it down because it implies that being in favour of free trade, implies to be individualist. However and contrary to what some people think, individualism is not a synonym for selfishness but understanding that the individual is at the heart of what politics should be because what counts is not the happiness of society (a chimera applied to an artificial entity) but the happiness of the individuals composing it, who cannot be ignored. Today’s quote shows that in return for that, the individual has the duty to not delegate his responsibilities to the State beyond what is necessary.