Page:The Production of Security.pdf/11

10 Frédéric Bastiat, not the most profound of the group. The entire illustrious group remains unstudied and unsung.

The most "extreme" and consistent, as well as the longest-lived and most prolific of the French laissez-faire economists was the Belgian-born Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912), who edited the Journal des Economistes for several decades. The initial article of the young Molinari, here translated for the first time as "The Production of Security," was the first presentation anywhere in human history of what is now called "anarcho-capitalism" or "free market anarchism." Molinari did not use the terminology, and probably would have balked at the name. In contrast to all previous individualistic and near-anarchistic thinkers, such as La Boétie, Hodgskin or the young Fichte, Molinari did not base the brunt of his argument on a moral opposition to the State. While an ardent individualist, Molinari grounded his argument on free-market, laissez-faire