Hommage du Mises Institute à Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) :
The nub of his argument is a very simple one. He asserts that there is nothing in the nature of the free market that would make its well-ordered operation impossible from the outset. In other words, the free market does not inherently operate against the interests of any strata of the population. The only group whose interests it cannot possibly reconcile with the interests of all other groups are the impostors or thieves who live off the invasion of other people's property. (...)
The interests of all members of society are harmonious as long as they respect each other's property, deriving from self-ownership, because cooperative production is more physically productive than individual production. (...)
Because government intervention creates winners and losers, the disadvantaged groups have an incentive to defend themselves by gaining control of the government and using it to their benefit, thus further perverting the law. Once protectionism is accepted as a principle, it sets in motion a process that entirely destroys the providential private property order, ending up in full-blown socialism.
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