This volume, the third in our Collected Works of Frederic Bastiat, includes two of Bastiats best-known works, Economic Sophisms and the pamphlet What is Seen & What is Not Seen. Both Economic Sophisms and What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen share similar stylistic features and were written with much the same purpose in mind, namely, to disabuse people of misperceptions they might have had about the benefits of free trade and free markets. Economic Sophisms and the other writings in this volume show Bastiat at his creative journalistic best: his skill at mixing serious and amusing ways of making his arguments is unsurpassed; the quality of his insights into profound economic issues is often exceptional and sometimes well ahead of his time; his ability to combine his political lobbying for the Free Trade Movement, his journalism, his political activities during the 1848 Revolution, and his scholarly activities is most unusual; and the humour, wit and literary knowledge that he scatters throughout his writings demonstrate that he deserves his reputation as a most gifted writer on economic matters, one who still deserves our attention today.
