He, who dares to embark on instituting a people needs to feel capable of twisting, so to speak, human nature, and change each individual.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 343 to 351 (in French)
Undated

The editor Guillaumin informs us in a footnote that Frédéric Bastiat had evoked the project of describing the creation of a liberal state in the form of an exchange of letters between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. In this exchange, Don Quixote would be the inveterate constructivist who, as do our contemporary clowns, is convinced that he can model the world according to his own vision and Sancho Panza would be the governor of this country in which “the principle of government is to let the governed juge and decide for themselves in all matters, and to demand from them nothing else but the respect of justice”.

Todays’ quote extracted from The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau appears in the first letter written by Don Quixote. The criticism of the former was clear in the pamphlet Property and Law – Frédéric Bastiat insists here by showing how Rousseau felt superior to others and  despised the individual. The response letter by Sancho Panza reminds us that the state cannot offer to the people anything more than what was taken from them in the first place and must refrain its attributions as much as possible. Its “duty is to guarantee to each and everyone two things – freedom to act and freedom to dispose of the fruits of one’s labour”.