Property does not exist if I cannot trade it as well as consume it.

Frédéric Bastiat
Part 4 of 7
Pamphlets

After exposing communism, Frédéric Bastiat shows by using various random examples in the book of Adolphe Thiers “Of Private Property” to which extent both men agree on this issue. This is  the reason why he believes that the latter is leading himself astray and why he tries to open his eyes to it.

He also takes this opportunity to clarify his own position on free trade, even by asserting that “freedom and property merge”. Moreover, he touches upon what he will later write in his famous pamphlet The Law, namely that the rights that need to be guaranteed by the state are preexisting within the individual. 

Other quotes from Baccalaureate and Socialism:
Part 1 of 7 – Part 2 of 7 – Part 3 of 7 – Part 4 of 7 – Part 5 of 7 – Part 6 of 7 – Part 7 of 7