Place yourself in the seat of those who are hungry and cold, who are destitute and ignorant, and you will soon rally under the banner of abundance, wherever it comes from.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 53 to 58 (in French)
Mémorial bordelais, March 8th, 1846

Here, Frédéric Bastiat is responding to an article that must have been published in L’Epoque newspaper. We can read between the lines that the author must have recognised that freedom of trade was a valid principle but has also developed a thesis according to which it was not adapted to the French situation, where the path to wealth should be protection. Once again, Frédéric Bastiat laughs at these attacks that recognise the validity of the principle but keep trying to show it is not applicable when he writes: “There are some who profess that two and two is sometimes three and sometimes five, who thereupon brag about not having absolute principles; they see themselves as serious, moderate, prudent, practical men; they accuse us of being intolerant”.

Frédéric Bastiat shows how absurd it is to ignore a principle one recognises, and illustrates his thoughts with some practical cases. Then, he asks the sceptics to change their point of view (from that of the producers to that of the consumers), which is the point of today’s quote. By insisting on the word “abundance” that liberals are promoting, he is heralding the first pamphlet of the coming series of Economic Sophisms, Abundance and Scarcity, which insists on the fact that the choice of an economic system can only favour one or the other. Of course, a political action that tends towards scarcity is not desirable and the principles that tend towards abundance should be understood and supported.