Project Gutenberg 2005-05-31 Public domain in the USA. 142 Bastiat, Frédéric 1801 1850 Bastiat, Frederic Bastiat, Claude Frédéric Essays on Political Economy Produced by Distributed Proofreaders "Essays on Political Economy" by Frédéric Bastiat is a collection of economic essays written in the mid-19th century. The work critically examines the principles surrounding capital, interest, and the impact of governmental policies on society and economics. Bastiat argues against the prevalent ideology that views the charging of interest as unjust, and emphasizes the natural, lawful role of interest in economic transactions and society. At the start of the text, Bastiat introduces the concept of interest, addressing concerns held by socialists and reformers who consider it a form of exploitation. He engages with challenging questions regarding whether capital should yield interest, and if such interest should be perpetual. Through examples, such as the economic implications of lending a sack of corn or a plane, he illustrates the reciprocal nature of lending and borrowing. Bastiat articulates that denying interest undermines the incentives for saving and capital production, ultimately harming the very laborers that socialists aim to protect. He sets the stage for a broader discussion on economic interactions and advocates for a free market approach that favors individuals' rights to their gains. (This is an automatically generated summary.) en Economics HB Text Browsing: Culture/Civilization/Society Browsing: Economics 386275 386284 2024-09-07T07:31:50.529872 2023-09-07T09:12:27.483296 text/html text/html 383956 2020-12-14T13:50:24 text/html; charset=utf-8 136887 2020-12-14T13:50:24 text/html; charset=utf-8 application/zip 193981 2024-09-07T07:31:56.285848 application/epub+zip 192800 2024-09-07T07:31:51.893876 application/epub+zip 192799 2024-09-07T07:31:51.060853 application/epub+zip 359724 2024-09-07T07:31:59.737820 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 335460 2024-09-07T07:31:55.724829 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 335747 2022-09-08T00:37:12.453208 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 372434 2024-09-07T07:31:49.922856 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 372232 2020-12-14T13:50:24 text/plain; charset=utf-8 134133 2020-12-14T13:50:24 text/plain; charset=utf-8 application/zip 372214 2020-12-14T13:50:24 text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 134096 2020-12-14T13:50:24 text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 372209 2020-12-14T13:50:24 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 134054 2020-12-14T13:50:24 text/plain; charset=us-ascii application/zip 21472 2024-09-07T07:31:59.868802 application/rdf+xml 13546 2024-09-07T07:31:51.414857 image/jpeg 3563 2024-09-07T07:31:51.238853 image/jpeg 186560 2024-09-07T07:31:50.564846 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia fr.wikipedia