We should moan about a country that discourages honesty.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 427 to 432 (in French)
March 11th, 1849

This series of eleven letters to the Schwabe ends with four letters to Mrs. Schwabe from which I extract today’s quote only. In this letter, Frédéric Bastiat moans about the fact that he will not be elected to parliament in 1849 further to the dissolution of the constitutive assembly elected in 1848. We now know that he was wrong and that death only will make him lose his seat.

What he wrongly anticipated was that his way of doing politics with honesty and according to his conscience rather than partisan politicking following the main objective of being reelected would not allow him to run for office again and even less to be elected in opposition to a candidate who would be supported by a large party. We have to admit that, if he was wrong on the particular case, he was right on a standard case up to this day and most politicians care first about getting elected while following one’s party instructions is key for success. Frédéric Bastiat as a free spirit ended up being reelected and some others will after him but they all represent an exception to the rule. Indeed, honesty is not what helps a politician to be successful (nowhere on earth).