La teodicea sociale di Frédéric Bastiat

In this paper, I suggest that we apply the category of “social Theodicy” to Bastiat’s political and economic thought. By this category, it is possible to see how Bastiat’s reflection is aimed to justify the presence of “social pathologies” in society against socialist theorists’ intention to completely eliminate it by politics. Bastiat’s defense of free market and human rights is based upon the refusal of the anthropological presuppositions of socialist theories according to which the presence of evil in human history does not come from human being but from the structure of society. In Bastiat’s view, by refusing God and original sin, socialist programs subordinate individuals to society and so they eliminate moral freedom and responsibility.