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Legal Plunder is rampant in America today and will only be curbed by educating "We the People" about the cost of following these intolerable practices. I would also recommend his other works as well. They also are concise and to the point.I bought three copies of this book as I had lent my first copy out 10 years ago and it was never returned, which even though the original I had was sentimental to me, is OK since this book should be forwarded to as many people as possible. I was introduced to this book by a friend of mine 15 or 20 years ago. Enjoy and then pass it on. I thought some things the government endeavored to spend money at were good and others downright silly.After reading "The Law" my understanding of government in general crystallized to a large extent and has not changed much since. At the time I was young and middle of the road politically. The author uses some examples from his time, but its not hard to follow his intent.This work stands the test of time and is still as relevant today as it was in the mid 1800's.
Bastiat asks repeatedly this rhetorical question (for we already know the answer): if I may not steal from you to give to my friend without legal consequence, why can the government do this. Bastiat lays a fantastic theoretical framework for the liberal (small "l") state that we have been moving further and further away from. Thus, the government's legitimate role is to prevent theft and incursion onto individuals' liberties. This is the very defnition of legal plunder, as government is doing exactly as Bastiat says: taking from one group and giving to another (in this case, tex dollars are being funneled to a for-profit business). What is the law.
Legal plunder is as alive today as it was in Revolutionary France. Governments do not generally seem to limit themselves to protecting individual liberty, but go well beyond this, mistakenly supposing that they can legislate their way to justice. This is most certainly a book that everyone concerned with liberty should read (and at less than 100 pages, we SHOULD all be reading it). I would also suggest that one read, as a companion to this, Bastiat's "Essays on Political Economy," for as this book discusses liberty from a legal point of view, the other discusses it from an economic point of view (and is very much a precursor to the Austrian school of rconomics).So, read it and get angry. If it is not fair when I take your property without your consent, why is government exempt from moral outrage when it follows suit. As I write this, the United States Congress (the real robber barons).
Politial economist Frederic Bastiat suggests that the law is a negative, rather than a positive, concept: law is not justice, but a safeguard against injustice. Whether it is social justice, a particular moral code, "fair trade," etc, governments often feel that the people cannot be trusted to recognize their own interests; government must enforce people's adherence to the government's interest. are set to give General Motors ANOTHER four billion of our tax dollars. As humans, Bastiat says, have a natural right to person, liberty, and property, one of the key criteria of justice is that it safeguards people's persons, liberty, and property. Bastiat wrote "The Law" shortly after the French revolution, but it is not exaggeration to say that this terse and clearly argued book is every bit as necessary today as it was then. He suggests that while every government everywhere recognizes that it is wrong to steal someone's property (no matter how noble one's intent), government gives itself a free pass to take property, often taking from one class to give to another.
Needless to say, this was not then, and is not now, happening. Bastiat's greatest insight in this book is the concept of legal plunder.
He also talks about the types of plunder and also makes the distinction that law is supposed to enhance freedom, not restrict it, although in our world, it is definitely the other way around. A must read for all people. Bastiat, a classical liberal shows just how evil a big government is, and how once you give government the power to get their hands on the economy, they quickly get involved in legal plunder, and it is not to the aid of the poor. There is also a bit of history to be found in the book as well, and it goes back as far as ancient Greece. Bastiat, the great economist, is also a great political philosopher. He then talks about the absurdity of socialism, and how unnatural and ineffective it is. He talks about the absurdity of government violating property instead of protecting it, because after all, the only reason government comes into existence in the first place, is to only protect property.
He states "A science of economics must be developed before a science of politics can be logically formulated. Human nature and interests are not inherently nor completely harmonious of course, necessitating the need for law in the first place. The vices he clearly identifies in human nature which must be guarded against are based in man's tendency to "live and prosper at the expense of others," or plunder. Positive rights, which can only be produced by someone else's labor, come only with the destruction of naturally endowed negative rights as the law -force- cannot produce goods, cannot enlighten, cannot heal and cannot clothe by its mere existence. Bastiat describes in concise detail the pitfalls, traps, and false assumptions behind socialism, even in its most well intentioned and noble forms.
This must be known before a science of politics can be formulated to determine the proper functions of government." Implicit in his reasoning is that once the organized monopoly on force inherent in government is wielded only to protect each individuals naturally endowed rights, human interests are harmonious and no further extension of the law is necessary. This legal plunder sets up war of class against class, union against employer, trade against trade, as each races to beat the other in using the unchecked power of government to favor them. The simple central concept that shines throughout, familiar to Americans and certainly inspired by 1776, is that individuals have natural rights to life, liberty, and to property, which is the fruit of their efforts and faculties. An amazing work which should be read by anyone interested in liberty, natural rights, philosophy, and the state of government.
Socialism is at the heart of trying to provide positive rights and thus perverting the law towards instituting legal plunder. (The Law is his seminal work, his previous works were on economics). The Law by Frederic Bastiat is perhaps the clearest and most logically founded explanation of the proper role of the law (government) in society I have yet read, and it is clearly in the same constellation of thought in which you will find the luminary ideas of our nation's own brilliant founding. This vice ranges from the hard vice of illegal plunder, represented by anything from a petty theft conducted by an individual to the expansionist conquest undertaken by a whole people, to the softer sounding vice of "legal" plunder in which the law has been perverted to take from one class and give to another a positive right (i.e. It was also at the heart of the 1848 revolutions, and it is not surprising then that his arguments against it receive the lion's share of this work.
As nature gave us the ability to defend these rights for ourselves, law is only their organized defense in the society.At the core of the logic of his thought is a practical model of human behavior, one clearly developed by his background as an exporter. As simple proof of this he points out how no mob or lobbyist has ever rioted a police station in demand for a benefit, instead they storm the legislature where legal plunder can be drafted into law. Men are neither lifeless beings waiting for instruction from the law, man existed and developed before the law was created, nor are they so vile as to need the law to guide them in their lives and build their society for them, otherwise the cruel trick of man's cold nature would leave the development of good civil societies impossible. Writing on his deathbed and freshly after the events of the 1848 revolutions, although the logic and consequences of his ideas are timeless, appears to have sharpened his mind and imparts this book with a profoundness and sagacity beyond its 106 short pages.
For if the natural tendencies of men are so poor, Bastiat asks us, how is it that the organizers of the law, the legislators, can be relied upon to be of a higher and better nature, pointing out the ironic self contradiction behind socialist and utopian engineering. That law is needed to create society, to socially engineer a mass of beings that can be formed by force and whom left to their own devices would slide into greed, destitution, and misery. is consistent with religious faith in how God made man's nature, and draws an interesting comparison between how modern secular societies are seeming to ineluctably move away from classical liberty and towards socialism. There are many parallels in his arguments against socialism applicable today, due to the unwavering nature of man over time. This is at the heart of the Utopian fantasy which is so infectious to men's souls yet so ultimately poisonous.
In another interesting flourish Bastiat also predicted how slavery would threaten to destroy the American republic before the Civil War, perhaps not an earth shattering prediction of the time but one he explains with an elegant degree of logic. He also shows how faith in a free society, one in which government does not extend into providing education, health care, etc. Each page rings with insight and reason for which you will be the better for having read. He shows how contradictions are not only inherent but central to socialism, and how socialism inevitably leads to tryanny and often to dictatorship.
Injustice is any violation of these rights, and the only just purpose of the law is their protection. Besides the inability of the law to create positive rights by fiat the largest false assumption is the inertness and malleability of men. For the law to create these things it is only by use of force to coerce others to do them or take from their labor. Essentially, economics is the science of determining whether the interests of human beings are harmonious or antagonistic.
to education, or health care, or housing) in the name of false philanthropy.
When I first read it at age 16, I purchased multiple copies to give away. This is a must read. LONG LIVE FREEDOM. As soon as I get back on my feet in this economy, I plan to do so again. I would like to see a copy of this book in the hands of every law maker in the country. So simple and so true.
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