But the grand work of Bastiat in 1848 and 1849—a work to which he devoted the best energies of his mind and genius—was the open and incessant war which he waged with the Socialist and Communist writers and agitators whom the Revolution had let loose on French society, and who were then shaking the social and political fabric to its centre. Bastiat, like the porcupine, had a quill pointed against every assailant. To each error he opposed a pamphlet. With Louis Blanc and the national workshops, he did battle in the brochure entitled ‹Propriété et Loi›, in which he exposes the illusions with which the public mind had been stuffed by the Socialists. The doctrine of Concidérant he attacked in another little volume, bearing the title, ‹Propriété et Spoliation›. In another, ‹Justice et Fraternité›, he demolished the absurdities of Pierre Leroux’s democratic and social constitution. Proudhon’s doctrine he disposed of in ‹Capital et Rente›, where he refutes the foolish notions in vogue in 1848 on the subject of gratuitous loans—a subject which he again discussed in 1850, in the larger volume entitled ‹Gratuité du Credit›. In ‹Protectionisme et Communisme›, Bastiat demonstrated that what is called ‹protection› is nothing else than practical communism or spoliation. ‹Paix et Liberté, ou le Budget Républicain›, another brochure from his prolific pen, is a brilliant and vigorous onslaught on the excessive taxation of that day, and the overgrown military and naval armaments which gave [p023] rise to it. Many passages of this admirable production, full of force and practical good sense, might be read with benefit at the present day, as applicable not only to France as it was, but to France as it is, and not to France alone, but to the other nations of Europe. In the tract entitled ‹L’État›, Bastiat maintains his favourite doctrine that all which a Government owes to its subjects is security; that, as it acts necessarily through the intervention of force, it can equitably enforce nothing save Justice; and that its duty consists in holding the balance equal among various interests, by guarding the liberty of all, by protecting person and property, by enforcing covenants, and thereby upholding credit, but leaving Demand and Supply in all cases to perform their appropriate functions without restraint and without encouragement. He exposes the absurdity of men expecting everything from Government, and trusting to public employments rather than to individual exertion. He shows that, since the State is only an aggregate of individuals, it can give nothing to the people but what it has previously taken from them. ‹Tout le monde›, as he says elsewhere, ‹veut vivre aux dépens de l’état, et on oublie que l’état vit aux dépens de tout le monde›.