Gustave de Molinari (3 March 1819 28 January 1912) was a political economist and classical liberal theorist born in Lige, in the Walloon region of Belgium, and was associated with French laissez-faire economists such as Frdric Bastiat and Hippolyte Castille. Living in Paris during the 1840s, he participated with the Ligue pour la Libert des changes (Free Trade League), based on the theories of Frdric Bastiat. On his death bed in 1850, Bastiat described Molinari as the continuator of his works. In 1849, soon after The Revolutions of 1848 in France, Molinari published two works: an essay, "The Production of Security", and a book, Les Soires de la Rue Saint-Lazare, describing how a market in justice and protection could advantageously replace the state.
