The State
Translation: Bogdan C. Enache
The French Liberal School, founded by Jean-Baptiste Say, had in Frédéric Bastiat, at the beginning of the 19th century, probably the most brilliant exposer of economic science and the principles of a free society of all times. Written in the revolutionary year of 1848 in the form of a pamphlet, the author’s preferred literary genre, as a reply to the first modern socialist political program, L‘État can be considered an introduction to Bastiat’s later works, La loi, his treaty of political philosophy, and Harmonies économiques, his treaty of political economy. It’s also the place where Bastiat gives his famous definition of the State :
“The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else”.