One of the great works written about liberty, what liberty is, and how liberty is preserved was penned by Bastiat, whose "broken window" lesson we read about in the post on economics. The "broken window" scenario is what is also referred to in economics as "opportunity cost". Bastiat here in his book The Law educates us on liberty.
Walter Williams, famed economist at George Mason University, wrote in his foreward to The Law:
Many philosophers have made important contributions to the discourse on liberty, Bastiat among them. But Bastiat’s greatest contribution is that he took the discourse out of the ivory tower and made ideas on liberty so clear that even the unlettered can understand them and statists cannot obfuscate them. Clarity is crucial to persuading our fellowman of the moral superiority of personal liberty.
The Law , by Frederic Bastiat
Alexis D'Tocqueville
Observer of America
No comments:
Post a Comment