I resign as an economist and let posterity get over it, if it can…..

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 432 to 436 (in French)
April 11th, 1850

I cannot find this letter dated 11 April 1850 on bastiat.org where more than five letters to the Cheuvreux can be found as they are extracted from the Letters of a Landes Inhabitant instead of the 7th volume of the Complete Works, in its 1864 edition.

The five letters I am referring to and published in pages 432 to 436 in 1864 show Frédéric Bastiat weakened by his health condition and sharing thoughts about religion or science. Today’s quote shows the despair of the author who feels that he will not finish writing the Economic Harmonies (which will indeed remain unfinished). Posterity is ambiguous towards Frédéric Bastiat. He remains virtually unknown in France, Joseph Schumpeter considered that he did not bring anything to economics while being a good journalist but he is recognised among the American liberals (Milton Friedman had read and quoted him with respect). The flaws that he has exposed in his works are still here at various degrees and two world wars (as well as a purely French-German one in 1870) have hit us since. Despite all this, economic progress has been tremendous – I cannot imagine how the world would look like if he had been heard better!