reveal either a weak contribution to economic theory or an outdated doctrinal reference or
both.
The theoretical contributions of Bastiat are certainly negligible but his doctrinal
approach and more importantly his own history and success in the 1840s and 1850s are worth
the attention of scholars interested in the diffusion of the economic thought and the use and
misuse of economic theories and doctrines in newspapers and parliamentary debates. This is
what my present contribution is about. In this respect, the study of Bastiat is much more
interesting when using tools from the rhetoric in addition to those from economic theory.
Moreover, the importance of the political debates calls for a somewhat more sociological
approach to the case of Bastiat’s ideas and the issues of the Douro wine and brandy in the
second half of the 19th century.
My motivation behind the study of Bastiat is to understand the process of diffusion of
economic ideas and their embodiment in economic policy culture and social change. It is
essentially an interest in the ability of argumentation and conviction in debates that use
theoretical and empirical statements. With regard to this last aspect, I consider the
contributions of rhetoric and logic converging.
1. Journalism and popularization of economic ideas
I define an economic journalist as a writer whose activity is basically that of writing
on economic matters in (usually daily) newspapers. This is the fundamental criterion. The
case of the economic journalist is composed of non-academic economists either because they
had no formal academic education in the field or tenure or because they were educated in
universities or similar institutions but were not able or willing to enter in these restrictive
circles. Cournot, though not very well accepted by academic economists and academicians
(including both the Académie Française and the university), was not writing in newspapers.
So he cannot be included in the population of economic journalists. Bastiat, to the contrary, is
a typical economic journalist.
The membership of the set “economic journalists” is characterized by a fuzzy scale.
Many bordering cases might be either excluded or included by classical set typologies.
Besides that at any time sets might be blurred, through time the boundaries may often change
certainly been amply demonstrated by economists from Bastiat to Friedman” (Kirzner 1985: 121)