Natural Order Reason and Catallactic: The Approach of F. Bastiat

Abstract

Lobjet de cet article est declairer les rapports quentretiennent le droit naturel et leconomie dans la pensee de F. Bastiat. On montre que le statut de la raison humaine occupe une place centrale dans cette articulation. On met egalement en evidence les tensions entre le mecanisme de repartition des droits de propriete soumis a une procedure de concurrence et le respect de la loi naturelle. A cet egard, F. Bastiat definit la liberte comme la capacite a utiliser la raison.The aim of this paper is to throw a new light on the close relations between natural rights and economics in F. Bastiats thought. We show that the human reason status holds a central place in this articulation. We also underscore the problematic compatibility between the natural rights allocation mechanism based on a competition process and the natural law. We explain how F. Bastiat comes to grips with this tension. He proposes to define the notion of liberty as the faculty of using human reason.