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2784 lines
143 KiB
Plaintext
2784 lines
143 KiB
Plaintext
The Law
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by Frederic Bastiat
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Translated from the French by Dean Russell
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Foreword by Walter E. Williams
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Introduction by Richard Ebeling
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Afterword by Sheldon Richman
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Foundation for Economic Education
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Irvington-on-Hudson, New York
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The Law
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Copyright © 1998 by the Foundation for Economic Education
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
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any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
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recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission
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in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief
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passages in a review.
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Foundation for Economic Education
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30 South Broadway
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Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533
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(914) 591-7230
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Publisher’s Cataloging in Publication
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(Prepared by Quality Books, Inc.)
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Bastiat, Frederic, 1801-1850
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[Loi. English]
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The law / Frederic Bastiat. — 2nd ed.
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p. cm.
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Includes index
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Preassigned LCCN: 98-73568
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ISBN 1-57246-073-3
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1. Law and socialism. 2. Law—Philosophy. 3.
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Socialism and liberty. I. Title.
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K357.B37 1998 340.115
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QBI98-1118
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Second edition, August 1998
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second printing, September 2000; third printing, October 2001
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fourth printing, June 2004
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Cover design by Doug Hesseltine
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Manufactured in the United States of America
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iii
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Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics
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at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.
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Foreword
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Walter E. Williams
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I must have been forty years old before reading Frederic
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Bastiat’s classic The Law. An anonymous person, to whom I shall
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eternally be in debt, mailed me an unsolicited copy. After reading
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the book I was convinced that a liberal-arts education without
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an encounter with Bastiat is incomplete. Reading Bastiat
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made me keenly aware of all the time wasted, along with the
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frustrations of going down one blind alley after another, organizing
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my philosophy of life. The Law did not produce a philosophical
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conversion for me as much as it created order in my thinking
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about liberty and just human conduct.
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Many philosophers have made important contributions to
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the discourse on liberty, Bastiat among them. But Bastiat’s greatest
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contribution is that he took the discourse out of the ivory
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tower and made ideas on liberty so clear that even the unlettered
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can understand them and statists cannot obfuscate them.
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Clarity is crucial to persuading our fellowman of the moral superiority
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of personal liberty.
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Like others, Bastiat recognized that the greatest single
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threat to liberty is government. Notice the clarity he employs to
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help us identify and understand evil government acts such as
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legalized plunder. Bastiat says, “See if the law takes from some
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persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to
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whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at
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the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot
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do without committing a crime.” With such an accurate description
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of legalized plunder, we cannot deny the conclusion that
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most government activities, including ours, are legalized plunder,
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or for the sake of modernity, legalized theft.
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Frederic Bastiat could have easily been a fellow traveler of
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the signers of our Declaration of Independence. The signers’
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vision of liberty and the proper role of government was captured
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in the immortal words “We hold these truths to be self-evident,
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that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
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Creator with certain Unalienable Rights, that among these are
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Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these
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rights, governments are instituted among Men. . . .” Bastiat
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echoes the identical vision, saying, “Life, faculties, production—
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in other words individuality, liberty, property— that is man. And
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in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts
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from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.”
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Bastiat gave the same rationale for government as did our
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Founders, saying, “Life, liberty and property do not exist
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because men have made laws. On the contrary, it is the fact that
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life, liberty and property existed beforehand that caused men to
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make laws in the first place.” No finer statements of natural or
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iv
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God-given rights have been made than those found in our Declaration
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of Independence and The Law.
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Bastiat pinned his hopes for liberty on the United States
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saying, “ . . . look at the United States. There is no country in the
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world where the law is kept more within its proper domain: the
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protection of every person’s liberty and property. As a consequence
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of this, there appears to be no country in the world
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where the social order rests on a firmer foundation.” Writing in
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1850, Bastiat noted two areas where the United States fell short:
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“Slavery is a violation, by law, of liberty. The protective tariff is a
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violation, by law, of property.”
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If Bastiat were alive today, he would be disappointed with
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our failure to keep the law within its proper domain. Over the
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course of a century and a half, we have created more than 50,000
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laws. Most of them permit the state to initiate violence against
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those who have not initiated violence against others. These laws
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range from anti-smoking laws for private establishments and
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Social Security “contributions” to licensure laws and minimum
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wage laws. In each case, the person who resolutely demands and
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defends his God-given right to be left alone can ultimately suffer
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death at the hands of our government.*
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Bastiat explains the call for laws that restrict peaceable, voluntary
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exchange and punish the desire to be left alone by saying
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that socialists want to play God. Socialists look upon people as
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raw material to be formed into social combinations. To them—
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v
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*Death is not the stated penalty for disobedience; however, death can
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occur if the person refuses to submit to government sanctions for his disobedience.
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the elite—“the relationship between persons and the legislator
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appears to be the same as the relationship between the clay and
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the potter.” And for people who have this vision, Bastiat displays
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the only anger I find in The Law when he lashes out at do-gooders
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and would-be rulers of mankind, “Ah, you miserable creatures!
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You who think that you are so great! You who judge
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humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything!
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Why don’t you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient
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enough.”
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Bastiat was an optimist who thought that eloquent arguments
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in defense of liberty might save the day; but history is not
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on his side. Mankind’s history is one of systematic, arbitrary
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abuse and control by the elite acting privately, through the
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church, but mostly through government. It is a tragic history
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where hundreds of millions of unfortunate souls have been
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slaughtered, mostly by their own government. A historian writing
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200 or 300 years from now might view the liberties that
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existed for a tiny portion of mankind’s population, mostly in the
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Western world, for only a tiny portion of its history, the last century
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or two, as a historical curiosity that defies explanation. That
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historian might also observe that the curiosity was only a temporary
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phenomenon and mankind reverted back to the traditional
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state of affairs—arbitrary control and abuse.
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Hopefully, history will prove that pessimistic assessment
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false. The worldwide collapse of the respectability of the ideas of
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socialism and communism suggests that there is a glimmer of
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hope. Another hopeful sign is the technological innovations that
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make it more difficult for government to gain information on its
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vi
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citizens and control them. Innovations such as information
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access, communication, and electronic monetary transactions
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will make government attempts at control more costly and less
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probable. These technological innovations will increasingly
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make it possible for world citizens to communicate and
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exchange with one another without government knowledge,
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sanction, or permission.
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Collapse of communism and technological innovations,
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accompanied by robust free-market organizations promoting
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Bastiat’s ideas, are the most optimistic things I can say about the
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future of liberty in the United States. Americans share an awesome
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burden and moral responsibility. If liberty dies in the
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United States, it is destined to die everywhere. A greater familiarity
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with Bastiat’s clear ideas about liberty would be an important
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step in rekindling respect and love, and allowing the resuscitation
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of the spirit of liberty among our fellow Americans.
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vii
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ix
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Introduction
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Richard Ebeling
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The defense of economic liberty has never been an easy
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task. Adam Smith expressed his own despair at this problem in
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The Wealth of Nations. After presenting his powerful criticisms
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of mercantilism—the eighteenth-century system of government
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regulation and planning—he despondently suggested that free
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trade in Great Britain was as unlikely as the establishment of a
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utopia.
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He said that two factors made the success of economic liberty
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unpromising. “Not only the prejudices of the public,” Smith
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said, “but what is much more unconquerable, the private interests
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of many individuals, irresistibly oppose it.”1 By the prejudices
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of the public, Smith meant the apparent difficulty of many
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ordinary people to follow the often abstract and complex arguments
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of the economic theorist that demonstrate the superior
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workings of the free market over various forms of government
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intervention and control. And by the private interests of many
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individuals, Smith had in mind the wide variety of specialinterest
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groups that gain from, and would therefore always
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lobby hard to maintain, government regulations that limit or
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prevent open competition. In combination, Smith feared, these
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Richard Ebeling is president of the Foundation for Economic Education.
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two factors would permanently prevent the logic of economic
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freedom from ever winning in the arenas of ideas and politics.
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In the nineteenth century, however, there was one champion
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of freedom who mastered the art of making the complexities
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of economic reasoning understandable to the layman: the
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French classical-liberal economist Frederic Bastiat
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(1801–1850). More than one historian of economic thought has
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emphasized Bastiat’s special abilities in undermining the rationales
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for protectionism, socialism, and interventionism.
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Sir Alexander Gray, for example, said that, “No one has
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ever been quite so skillful in making the case of his antagonist
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look extremely foolish. Even now his most ephemeral work
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remains a joy to read, by reason of its wit, its merciless satire and
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the neatness wherewith he pinks his opponents.” 2 Lewis Haney
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referred to Bastiat’s “pleasing and luminous style” and how,
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“brilliantly, with fable and irony, the masses are appealed to.”3
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Eduard Heimann, a critic of the market economy,
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described him as, “A brilliant writer, [who] achieved world fame
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with his parable of the candle-makers, who petition for protection
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against the unfair competition of the sun in order that the
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community may become richer by the enrichment of their
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industry.”4 Charles Gide and Charles Rist pointed out that “If
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modern Protectionists no longer speak of the ‘inundation of a
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country’ or of an ‘invasion of foreign goods’ . . . we too often forget
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that all this is due to the small but admirable pamphlets written
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by Bastiat . . . . No one could more scornfully show the
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laughable inconsistency of tunneling the mountains which
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divide countries, with a view to facilitating exchange, while at
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x
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the same time setting up a customs barrier at each end.”5 And
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even though Bastiat’s pen was sharp against the protectionist
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and collectivist ideas of his time, William Scott emphasized that
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the French liberal’s “attitude was calm and dignified and in spite
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of the incisiveness of his criticism he showed appreciation of the
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motives of his adversaries. He gave them full credit for a desire
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to promote the well-being of society, but wished simply to show
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that they were on the wrong path and, if possible, to set them
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right.”6
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Those qualities led Joseph A. Schumpeter to call Bastiat
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“the most brilliant economic journalist who ever lived.”7 And
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Ludwig von Mises praised him as a “brilliant stylist, so that the
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reading of his writings affords a quite genuine pleasure. . . .
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[H]is critique of all protectionist and related tendencies is even
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today unsurpassed. The protectionists and interventionists have
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not been able to advance a single word in pertinent and objective
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rejoinder.”8
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Other authors have modeled some of their own works after
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him. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the French freemarket
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economist Yves Guyot said that his own little book,
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Economic Prejudices, was offered in the footsteps of Frederic
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Bastiat, with the purpose of “[setting] forth truths in a handy,
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convenient form that is easy to remember, to criticize errors by
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means of proof that any one can apply,” as Bastiat had done half
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a century earlier.9 And surely the most famous and influential
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adaptation of Bastiat’s method and approach in the twentieth
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century was Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson, in which
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the author said, “The present work may, in fact, be regarded as
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xi
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a modernization, extension and generalization of the approach
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found in Bastiat’s pamphlet,” known by the title “What Is Seen
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and What Is Not Seen.”10
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* * *
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Claude Frederic Bastiat was born on June 30, 1801, in
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Bayonne, France, the son of a prominent merchant.11 His mother
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died when he was seven years old, and his father passed away
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two years later, when Frederic was only nine. He was brought
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up by an aunt, who also saw to it that he went to the College of
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Sorèze beginning when he was 14. But at 17 he left without finishing
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the requirements for his degree and entered his uncle’s
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commercial firm in Bayonne. Shortly afterward he came across
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the writings of the French classical-liberal economist Jean-
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Baptiste Say, and they transformed his life and thinking.12 He
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began a serious study of political economy and soon discovered
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the works of many of the other classical-liberal writers in France
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and Great Britain.
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In 1825 he inherited a modest estate in Mugron from his
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grandfather and remained there until 1846, when he moved to
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Paris. During these 20 years Bastiat devoted almost all his time
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to absorbing a vast amount of literature on a wide variety of subjects,
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sharing books and ideas with his friend Félix Coudroy. It
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seems that Coudroy had socialist leanings, and Bastiat began to
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refine his skills in clear thinking and writing by formulating the
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arguments that finally won over his friend to a philosophy of
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freedom.
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xii
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In the late 1820s and 1830s he began writing monographs
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and essays on a variety of economic topics. But his real reputation
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as a writer began in 1844, when he published a lengthy article in
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defense of free trade and then a monograph on Cobden and the
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League: The English Movement for Free Trade. While writing
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these works Bastiat began a correspondence with Richard
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Cobden, one of the primary leaders of the British Anti-Corn Law
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League, the association working for the repeal of all barriers to
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free trade. The two proponents of economic freedom became fast
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friends, supporting each other in the cause of liberty.
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The success of these writings, and the inspiration from the
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success of Cobden’s free-trade activities in bringing about the
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end of agricultural protectionism in Great Britain in 1846, resulted
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in Bastiat’s moving to Paris to establish a French free-trade
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association and to start Le Libre Échange, a newspaper devoted
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to this cause.13 For two years Bastiat labored to organize and propagandize
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for free trade. At first he was able to attract a variety of
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people in commerce and industry to support his activities, including
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delivering speeches, designing legislation for the repeal of
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French protectionism, and preparing writings to change public
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opinion. But it was to no avail. There were too many special interests
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benefiting from privileges and favors given by the government,
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and he was unable to arouse a sustained interest in his
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cause among the general public. It appeared that Adam Smith
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had been right in lamenting the prejudices of the public and the
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power of the interests, at least in France.
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Following the revolution of February 1848, Bastiat began a
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career in politics, serving first in the French Constituent
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xiii
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Assembly and then in the Legislative Assembly. Having devoted
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most of his previous writings to demonstrating the fallacies in
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the arguments for protectionism, Bastiat turned his attention to
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a new enemy of economic liberty: socialism. In the Legislative
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Assembly he delivered powerful speeches against public-works
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programs, guaranteed national-employment schemes, wealthredistribution
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proposals, nationalization of industry, and rationales
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for the expansion of bureaucratic controls over social and
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economic life. But because of a worsening tuberculosis that
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weakened his voice, he turned to the written word, producing a
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large number of essays detailing the absurdities in the arguments
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of the socialists.
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Bastiat made his last appearance in the Assembly in
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February 1850. By spring of that year his health had declined so
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dramatically that he was forced to step down from his legislative
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responsibilities and spend the summer in the Pyrénées mountains
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in the south of France. He returned to Paris in September
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and visited his friends in the cause for free trade, before setting
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out for Italy in search of a cure for his tuberculosis. He died in
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Rome on December 24, 1850, at the age of 49.
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Frederic Bastiat’s intellectual legacy in the fight for economic
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freedom is contained in three volumes. Two of them are
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collections of some of his most biting, witty, and insightful essays
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and articles, and are available in English under the titles
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Economic Sophisms14 and Selected Essays on Political
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Economy.15 In his last years, Bastiat devoted part of his time to
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a general work of social philosophy and economic principles,
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published under the name Economic Harmonies.16
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xiv
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As Henry Hazlitt rightly emphasized, the central idea in
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much of Bastiat’s writings is captured in his essay “What Is Seen
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and What Is Not Seen,” which was the last piece he wrote
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before his death in 1850.17 He points out that the short-run
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effects of any action or policy can often be quite different from
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its longer-run consequences, and that these more remote consequences
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in fact may be the opposite from what one had hoped
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for or originally planned.
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Bastiat was able to apply the principle of the seen and the
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unseen to taxes and government jobs. When government taxes,
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what is seen are the workers employed and the results of their
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labor: a road, a bridge, or a canal. What is unseen are all the
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other things that would have been produced if the tax money
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had not been taken from individuals in the private sector and if
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the resources and labor employed by the government had been
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free to serve the desires of those private citizens. Government,
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Bastiat explained, produces nothing independent from the
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resources and labor it diverts from private uses.
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This simple but profoundly important insight is the theoretical
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weapon through which Bastiat is able to demonstrate the
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errors and contradictions in the ideas of both protectionists and
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socialists. Thus in such essays as “Abundance and Scarcity,”
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“Obstacle and Cause,” and “Effort and Result,” he shows that barriers
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and prohibitions to freedom of trade only lead to poverty.18
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He points out that each of us is both a consumer and a producer.
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To consume a good we must either make it ourselves or
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make some other good that we think someone else will take in
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exchange for the good we want. As consumers we desire as
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xv
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many goods as possible at the lowest possible prices. In other
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words, we want abundance. But as producers we want a scarcity
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of the goods we bring to market. In open competition, in
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which all exchanges are voluntary, the only way to “capture” customers
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and earn the income that enables each of us, in turn, to
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be a consumer is to offer better, cheaper, and more goods than
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our competitors. The alternative to this method, Bastiat warns,
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is for each of us as a producer to turn to the government to gain
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from our neighbors what we are unable to obtain through
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peaceful, nonviolent trade on the market.
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Herein lies Bastiat’s famous distinction between illegal and
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legal plunder, which is at the center of his analysis in The Law.19
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The purpose of government, he says, is precisely to secure individuals
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in their rights to life, liberty, and property. Without such
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security men are reduced to a primitive life of fear and selfdefense,
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with every neighbor a potential enemy ready to plunder
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what another has produced. If a government is strictly limited
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to protecting men’s rights, then peace prevails, and men can
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go about working to improve their lives, associating with their
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neighbors in a division of labor and exchange.
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But government can also be turned against those whom it
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is meant to protect in their property. There can arise legal plunder,
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in which the powers of government are used by various
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individuals and groups to prevent rivals from competing, to
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restrict the domestic and foreign trading opportunities of other
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consumers in the society, and therefore to steal the wealth of
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one’s neighbors. This, Bastiat argues, is the origin and basis of
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protectionism, regulation, and redistributive taxation.
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xvi
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But the consequences of legal plunder are not only the
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political legitimizing of theft and the breakdown of morality
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through the blurring of the distinction between right and
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wrong—however crucially important and dangerous these may
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be for the long-term stability and well-being of society. Such
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policies also, by necessity, reduce the prosperity of the society.
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Every trade protection, every domestic regulatory restriction,
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every redistributive act of taxation above that minimal
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amount necessary to secure the equal protection of each individual’s
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rights, Bastiat insisted, reduces production and competition
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in society. Scarcity replaces abundance. Limiting competition
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reduces the supply of goods available to all members of
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the society. Imposing protectionist barriers on foreign trade or
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domestic regulations on production decreases the general availability
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of goods and makes them more expensive. Everyone is,
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in the end, made worse off. And thus Bastiat reached his famous
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conclusion that the state is the great fiction through which
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everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.
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Why does legal plunder come about? Bastiat saw its origin
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in two sources. First, as we have just seen, some people see it as
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an easier means of acquiring wealth than through work and production.
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They use political power to redistribute from others
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what they are unwilling or unable to obtain from their neighbors
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through the voluntary exchanges of the marketplace. One basis
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for legal plunder, in other words, is the misguided spirit of theft.
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The second, and far more dangerous, source of legal plunder
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is the arrogant mentality of the social engineer. Through the
|
||
ages, Bastiat showed, social and political philosophers have
|
||
xvii
|
||
viewed the multitude of humanity as passive matter, similar to
|
||
clay, waiting to be molded and shaped, arranged and moved
|
||
about according to the design of an intellectually superior elite.
|
||
With a timeless relevance, Bastiat points out that the political
|
||
elite praises the ideal of democracy, under which “the people”
|
||
select those who will hold political office. But once the
|
||
electoral process is finished, those elected to high political office
|
||
arrogate to themselves the planning, directing, and controlling
|
||
of every aspect of social and economic life. The task of modern
|
||
democracy, apparently, is to periodically appoint those who shall
|
||
be our societal dictators.
|
||
Is this the way men have to live? Was illegal and legal plunder
|
||
the only form of social existence? Bastiat answered no. In
|
||
Economic Harmonies he tried to explain the nature and logic of
|
||
a system of peaceful human association through production and
|
||
trade. Historians of economic thought and other critics of
|
||
Bastiat have said this work demonstrates that, despite his brilliant
|
||
journalistic talents, he failed as a serious economic theorist.
|
||
They point to his use of a form of a labor theory of value or his
|
||
faulty theory of savings, capital, and interest.20
|
||
But beyond these errors and limitations is an aspect of
|
||
Economic Harmonies that still makes it insightful. Harmonies
|
||
attempts to offer a grand vision of the causal relationships
|
||
among work, the division of labor, voluntary exchange, and
|
||
mutual improvement of men’s condition, as well as the importance
|
||
of private property, individual freedom, and domestic and
|
||
foreign free trade. In freedom there is social harmony, since
|
||
each man sees his neighbor not as an enemy but as a partner in
|
||
xviii
|
||
xix
|
||
the ongoing processes of human improvement. Where relationships
|
||
are based on consent and mutual agreement there can be
|
||
no plunder, only reinforcing prosperity, as each works to trade
|
||
with his neighbors and acquire all the things that make life better
|
||
for each and all.
|
||
If one looks at the period during which Bastiat devoted his
|
||
efforts to fight for freedom and free trade, the conclusion would
|
||
appear to be that his life ended in failure. Both during his lifetime
|
||
and following his death France remained in the grip of the
|
||
protectionist and interventionist spirit, never achieving the
|
||
degree of economic liberty enjoyed in Great Britain through the
|
||
second half of the nineteenth century.
|
||
And yet Bastiat’s life should be seen as a glorious success.
|
||
For the 150 years since his passing, each new generation of
|
||
advocates of economic liberty has been inspired by his writings.
|
||
His fables and essays read as fresh as if they were written yesterday,
|
||
because they address the underlying nature of human
|
||
association and the dangers from political encroachment on the
|
||
social and market orders.
|
||
1. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of
|
||
Nations, Book Four, chapter two (New York: Modern Library, 1937 [1776]),
|
||
pp. 437–38.
|
||
2. Sir Alexander Gray, The Development of Economic Doctrine: An
|
||
Introductory Survey (London: Longmans, Green, 1931), pp. 244–45.
|
||
3. Lewis H. Haney, History of Economic Thought (New York:
|
||
Macmillan, 1936), pp. 331–32.
|
||
4. Eduard Heimann, History of Economic Doctrines: An Introduction to
|
||
Economic Theory (London: Oxford University Press, 1945), p. 124.
|
||
xx
|
||
5. Charles Gide and Charles Rist, A History of Economic Doctrines,
|
||
From the Time of the Physiocrats to the Present Day (Boston: D.C. Heath,
|
||
1915), pp. 329–30.
|
||
6. William A. Scott, The Development of Economics (New York: The
|
||
Century Co., 1933), p. 244.
|
||
7. Joseph A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (New York:
|
||
Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 500.
|
||
8. Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism: The Classical Tradition (Irvington-on-
|
||
Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996 [1927]), p. 197.
|
||
9. Yves Guyot, Economic Prejudices (London: Swan Sonnenschein,
|
||
1910), p. v.
|
||
10. Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson (New York: Harper &
|
||
Brothers, 1946).
|
||
11. The following brief summary of Bastiat’s life and professional activities
|
||
is drawn primarily from Dean Russell, Frédéric Bastiat: Ideas and
|
||
Influence (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education,
|
||
1965); also Dean Russell, Frédéric Bastiat and the Free Trade Movement in
|
||
France and England, 1840–1850 (Geneva: Imprimarie Albert Kundig, 1959);
|
||
and George C. Roche, Frederic Bastiat: A Man Alone (Hillsdale, Mich.:
|
||
Hillsdale College Press, 1977).
|
||
12. Jean-Baptiste Say, A Treatise on Political Economy, or the
|
||
Production, Distribution and Consumption of Wealth [1921] (N.Y.: Augustus
|
||
M. Kelley, 1971); Say, Letters to Mr. Malthus on Several Subjects of Political
|
||
Economy [1821] (N.Y.: Augustus M. Kelley, 1967); and R. R. Palmer, ed., J.-B.
|
||
Say: An Economist in Troubled Times (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
|
||
Press, 1997).
|
||
13. For a brief account of the free-trade movement in Great Britain and
|
||
its triumph in the middle of the nineteenth century, see Richard M. Ebeling,
|
||
Austrian Economics and the Political Economy of Freedom (Northampton,
|
||
Mass.: Edward Elgar, 2005), ch. 10: “The Global Economy and Classical
|
||
Liberalism: Past, Present and Future,” pp. 247–281, and especially pp.
|
||
248–252.
|
||
14. Economic Sophisms, trans. and ed. Arthur Goddard, with introduction
|
||
by Henry Hazlitt (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic
|
||
Education, 1996 [1845]).
|
||
15. Selected Essays on Political Economy, trans. Seymour Cain, ed.
|
||
George B. de Huszar, with introduction by F. A. Hayek (Irvington-on-Hudson,
|
||
N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1995 [1964]).
|
||
16. Economic Harmonies, trans. W. Hayden Boyers, ed. George B. de
|
||
Huszar, with introduction by Dean Russell (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.:
|
||
Foundation for Economic Education, 1996 [1850]).
|
||
176. In Selected Essays, pp. 1–50.
|
||
18. Economic Sophisms, pp. 7–27.
|
||
19. “The Law,” in Selected Essays, pp. 51–96; and, “The Physiology of
|
||
Plunder,” in Economic Sophisms, pp. 129–46.
|
||
20. See, for example, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest,
|
||
vol. 1: History and Critique of Interest Theories (South Holland, Ill.:
|
||
Libertarian Press, 1959), pp. 191–94.
|
||
xxi
|
||
|
||
The Law
|
||
The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted
|
||
along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its
|
||
proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose!
|
||
The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of
|
||
checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to
|
||
punish!
|
||
If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me
|
||
to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.
|
||
Life Is a Gift from God
|
||
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This
|
||
gift is life—physical, intellectual, and moral life.
|
||
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has
|
||
entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing,
|
||
and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has
|
||
provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has
|
||
put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application
|
||
of our faculties to these natural resources we convert
|
||
them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in
|
||
order that life may run its appointed course.
|
||
Life, faculties, production—in other words, individuality,
|
||
liberty, property—this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful
|
||
political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all
|
||
human legislation, and are superior to it.
|
||
1
|
||
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have
|
||
made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and
|
||
property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in
|
||
the first place.
|
||
What Is Law?
|
||
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the
|
||
individual right to lawful defense.
|
||
Each of us has a natural right—from God—to defend his
|
||
person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic
|
||
requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is
|
||
completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two.
|
||
For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality?
|
||
And what is property but an extension of our faculties?
|
||
If every person has the right to defend—even by force—his
|
||
person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group
|
||
of men have the right to organize and support a common force
|
||
to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective
|
||
right—its reason for existing, its lawfulness—is based on
|
||
individual right. And the common force that protects this collective
|
||
right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other
|
||
mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an
|
||
individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty,
|
||
or property of another individual, then the common force—for
|
||
the same reason—cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person,
|
||
liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
|
||
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary
|
||
2
|
||
to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own
|
||
individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given
|
||
to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual
|
||
acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the
|
||
rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle
|
||
also applies to the common force that is nothing more than
|
||
the organized combination of the individual forces?
|
||
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this:
|
||
The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense.
|
||
It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces.
|
||
And this common force is to do only what the individual forces
|
||
have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties,
|
||
and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause
|
||
justice to reign over us all.
|
||
A Just and Enduring Government
|
||
If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that
|
||
order would prevail among the people, in thought as well as in
|
||
deed. It seems to me that such a nation would have the most
|
||
simple, easy to accept, economical, limited, non-oppressive, just,
|
||
and enduring government imaginable—whatever its political
|
||
form might be.
|
||
Under such an administration, everyone would understand
|
||
that he possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities
|
||
of his existence. No one would have any argument with government,
|
||
provided that his person was respected, his labor was
|
||
free, and the fruits of his labor were protected against all unjust
|
||
3
|
||
attack. When successful, we would not have to thank the state
|
||
for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would
|
||
no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than
|
||
would the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The
|
||
state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided
|
||
by this concept of government.
|
||
It can be further stated that, thanks to the non-intervention
|
||
of the state in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions
|
||
would develop themselves in a logical manner. We would not see
|
||
poor families seeking literary instruction before they have bread.
|
||
We would not see cities populated at the expense of rural districts,
|
||
nor rural districts at the expense of cities. We would not
|
||
see the great displacements of capital, labor, and population that
|
||
are caused by legislative decisions.
|
||
The sources of our existence are made uncertain and precarious
|
||
by these state-created displacements. And, furthermore,
|
||
these acts burden the government with increased responsibilities.
|
||
The Complete Perversion of the Law
|
||
But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its
|
||
proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions,
|
||
it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and
|
||
debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has
|
||
acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been
|
||
used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihi-
|
||
4
|
||
lating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting
|
||
and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The
|
||
law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the
|
||
unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty,
|
||
and property of others. It has converted plunder into a
|
||
right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful
|
||
defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.
|
||
How has this perversion of the law been accomplished?
|
||
And what have been the results?
|
||
The law has been perverted by the influence of two entirely
|
||
different causes: stupid greed and false philanthropy. Let us
|
||
speak of the first.
|
||
A Fatal Tendency of Mankind
|
||
Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations
|
||
among all people. And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted
|
||
use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits
|
||
of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted,
|
||
and unfailing.
|
||
But there is also another tendency that is common among
|
||
people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the
|
||
expense of others. This is no rash accusation. Nor does it come
|
||
from a gloomy and uncharitable spirit. The annals of history bear
|
||
witness to the truth of it: the incessant wars, mass migrations,
|
||
religious persecutions, universal slavery, dishonesty in commerce,
|
||
and monopolies. This fatal desire has its origin in the
|
||
5
|
||
very nature of man—in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible
|
||
instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the
|
||
least possible pain.
|
||
Property and Plunder
|
||
Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor;
|
||
by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources.
|
||
This process is the origin of property.
|
||
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants
|
||
by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others.
|
||
This process is the origin of plunder.
|
||
Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain—and
|
||
since labor is pain in itself—it follows that men will resort to
|
||
plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows
|
||
this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion
|
||
nor morality can stop it.
|
||
When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes
|
||
more painful and more dangerous than labor. It is evident, then,
|
||
that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective
|
||
force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to
|
||
work. All the measures of the law should protect property and
|
||
punish plunder.
|
||
But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of
|
||
men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and
|
||
support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to
|
||
those who make the laws.
|
||
This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in
|
||
6
|
||
the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible
|
||
effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus
|
||
it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice,
|
||
becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand
|
||
why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying
|
||
degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence
|
||
by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property
|
||
by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes
|
||
the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.
|
||
Victims of Lawful Plunder
|
||
Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are
|
||
victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of
|
||
those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow
|
||
to enter—by peaceful or revolutionary means—into the making
|
||
of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered
|
||
classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes
|
||
when they attempt to attain political power: Either they
|
||
may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
|
||
Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among
|
||
the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the
|
||
power to make laws!
|
||
Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon
|
||
the many, a common practice where the right to participate in
|
||
the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation
|
||
in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men
|
||
seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder.
|
||
7
|
||
Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make
|
||
these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain
|
||
political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other
|
||
classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would
|
||
demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they
|
||
emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal
|
||
plunder, even though it is against their own interests.
|
||
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears,
|
||
for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution—some for their evilness,
|
||
and some for their lack of understanding.
|
||
The Results of Legal Plunder
|
||
It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change
|
||
and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an
|
||
instrument of plunder.
|
||
What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would
|
||
require volumes to describe them all. Thus we must content
|
||
ourselves with pointing out the most striking.
|
||
In the first place, it erases from everyone’s conscience the
|
||
distinction between justice and injustice.
|
||
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain
|
||
degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make
|
||
them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other,
|
||
the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral
|
||
sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of
|
||
8
|
||
equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to
|
||
choose between them.
|
||
The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the
|
||
case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and
|
||
the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to
|
||
believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so
|
||
widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things
|
||
are “just” because law makes them so. Thus, in order to make
|
||
plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only
|
||
necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions,
|
||
and monopoly find defenders not only among those who
|
||
profit from them but also among those who suffer from them.
|
||
The Fate of Non-Conformists
|
||
If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these institutions,
|
||
it is boldly said that “You are a dangerous innovator, a
|
||
utopian, a theorist, a subversive; you would shatter the foundation
|
||
upon which society rests.”
|
||
If you lecture upon morality or upon political science, there
|
||
will be found official organizations petitioning the government
|
||
in this vein of thought: “That science no longer be taught exclusively
|
||
from the point of view of free trade (of liberty, of property,
|
||
and of justice) as has been the case until now, but also, in the
|
||
future, science is to be especially taught from the viewpoint of
|
||
the facts and laws that regulate French industry (facts and laws
|
||
9
|
||
which are contrary to liberty, to property, and to justice). That, in
|
||
government-endowed teaching positions, the professor rigorously
|
||
refrain from endangering in the slightest degree the
|
||
respect due to the laws now in force.”*
|
||
Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or
|
||
monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must
|
||
not ever be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without
|
||
damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality
|
||
and political economy must be taught from the point of view of
|
||
this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely
|
||
because it is a law.
|
||
Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it
|
||
gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts,
|
||
and to politics in general.
|
||
I could prove this assertion in a thousand ways. But, by way
|
||
of illustration, I shall limit myself to a subject that has lately
|
||
occupied the minds of everyone: universal suffrage.
|
||
Who Shall Judge?
|
||
The followers of Rousseau’s school of thought—who consider
|
||
themselves far advanced, but whom I consider twenty centuries
|
||
behind the times—will not agree with me on this. But universal
|
||
suffrage—using the word in its strictest sense—is not one
|
||
10
|
||
*General Council of Manufacturers, Agriculture, and Commerce, May
|
||
6, 1850.
|
||
of those sacred dogmas which it is a crime to examine or doubt.
|
||
In fact, serious objections may be made to universal suffrage.
|
||
In the first place, the word universal conceals a gross fallacy.
|
||
For example, there are 36 million people in France. Thus,
|
||
to make the right of suffrage universal, there should be 36 million
|
||
voters. But the most extended system permits only 9 million
|
||
people to vote. Three persons out of four are excluded. And
|
||
more than this, they are excluded by the fourth. This fourth person
|
||
advances the principle of incapacity as his reason for excluding
|
||
the others. Universal suffrage means, then, universal suffrage
|
||
for those who are capable. But there remains this question
|
||
of fact: Who is capable? Are minors, females, insane persons,
|
||
and persons who have committed certain major crimes the only
|
||
ones to be determined incapable?
|
||
The Reason Why Voting Is Restricted
|
||
A closer examination of the subject shows us the motive
|
||
which causes the right of suffrage to be based upon the supposition
|
||
of incapacity. The motive is that the elector or voter does
|
||
not exercise this right for himself alone, but for everybody.
|
||
The most extended elective system and the most restricted
|
||
elective system are alike in this respect. They differ only in
|
||
respect to what constitutes incapacity. It is not a difference of
|
||
principle, but merely a difference of degree.
|
||
If, as the republicans of our present-day Greek and Roman
|
||
schools of thought pretend, the right of suffrage arrives with
|
||
11
|
||
one’s birth, it would be an injustice for adults to prevent women
|
||
and children from voting. Why are they prevented? Because
|
||
they are presumed to be incapable. And why is incapacity a
|
||
motive for exclusion? Because it is not the voter alone who suffers
|
||
the consequences of his vote; because each vote touches
|
||
and affects everyone in the entire community; because the people
|
||
in the community have a right to demand some safeguards
|
||
concerning the acts upon which their welfare and existence
|
||
depend.
|
||
The Answer Is to Restrict the Law
|
||
I know what might be said in answer to this; what the objections
|
||
might be. But this is not the place to exhaust a controversy
|
||
of this nature. I wish merely to observe here that this controversy
|
||
over universal suffrage (as well as most other political
|
||
questions) which agitates, excites, and overthrows nations,
|
||
would lose nearly all of its importance if the law had always been
|
||
what it ought to be.
|
||
In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all
|
||
liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the
|
||
organized combination of the individual’s right to self defense; if
|
||
law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression
|
||
and plunder—is it likely that we citizens would then argue much
|
||
about the extent of the franchise?
|
||
Under these circumstances, is it likely that the extent of the
|
||
right to vote would endanger that supreme good, the public
|
||
peace? Is it likely that the excluded classes would refuse to
|
||
12
|
||
peaceably await the coming of their right to vote? Is it likely that
|
||
those who had the right to vote would jealously defend their
|
||
privilege?
|
||
If the law were confined to its proper functions, everyone’s
|
||
interest in the law would be the same. Is it not clear that, under
|
||
these circumstances, those who voted could not inconvenience
|
||
those who did not vote?
|
||
The Fatal Idea of Legal Plunder
|
||
But on the other hand, imagine that this fatal principle has
|
||
been introduced: Under the pretense of organization, regulation,
|
||
protection, or encouragement, the law takes property from
|
||
one person and gives it to another; the law takes the wealth of all
|
||
and gives it to a few—whether farmers, manufacturers,
|
||
shipowners, artists, or comedians. Under these circumstances,
|
||
then certainly every class will aspire to grasp the law, and logically
|
||
so.
|
||
The excluded classes will furiously demand their right to
|
||
vote—and will overthrow society rather than not to obtain it.
|
||
Even beggars and vagabonds will then prove to you that they
|
||
also have an incontestable title to vote. They will say to you:
|
||
“We cannot buy wine, tobacco, or salt without paying the
|
||
tax. And a part of the tax that we pay is given by law—in privileges
|
||
and subsidies—to men who are richer than we are. Others
|
||
use the law to raise the prices of bread, meat, iron, or cloth.
|
||
Thus, since everyone else uses the law for his own profit, we also
|
||
would like to use the law for our own profit. We demand from
|
||
13
|
||
the law the right to relief, which is the poor man’s plunder. To
|
||
obtain this right, we also should be voters and legislators in order
|
||
that we may organize Beggary on a grand scale for our own class,
|
||
as you have organized Protection on a grand scale for your class.
|
||
Now don’t tell us beggars that you will act for us, and then toss
|
||
us, as Mr. Mimerel proposes, 600,000 francs to keep us quiet,
|
||
like throwing us a bone to gnaw. We have other claims. And anyway,
|
||
we wish to bargain for ourselves as other classes have bargained
|
||
for themselves!”
|
||
And what can you say to answer that argument!
|
||
Perverted Law Causes Conflict
|
||
As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from
|
||
its true purpose—that it may violate property instead of protecting
|
||
it—then everyone will want to participate in making the law,
|
||
either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder.
|
||
Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and allabsorbing.
|
||
There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative
|
||
Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious. To know
|
||
this, it is hardly necessary to examine what transpires in the
|
||
French and English legislatures; merely to understand the issue
|
||
is to know the answer.
|
||
Is there any need to offer proof that this odious perversion
|
||
of the law is a perpetual source of hatred and discord; that it
|
||
tends to destroy society itself? If such proof is needed, look at
|
||
the United States [in 1850]. There is no country in the world
|
||
where the law is kept more within its proper domain: the pro-
|
||
14
|
||
tection of every person’s liberty and property. As a consequence
|
||
of this, there appears to be no country in the world where the
|
||
social order rests on a firmer foundation. But even in the United
|
||
States, there are two issues—-and only two—that have always
|
||
endangered the public peace.
|
||
Slavery and Tariffs Are Plunder
|
||
What are these two issues? They are slavery and tariffs.
|
||
These are the only two issues where, contrary to the general
|
||
spirit of the republic of the United States, law has assumed the
|
||
character of a plunderer.
|
||
Slavery is a violation, by law, of liberty. The protective tariff
|
||
is a violation, by law, of property.
|
||
It is a most remarkable fact that this double legal crime—a
|
||
sorrowful inheritance from the Old World—should be the only
|
||
issue which can, and perhaps will, lead to the ruin of the Union.
|
||
It is indeed impossible to imagine, at the very heart of a society,
|
||
a more astounding fact than this: The law has come to be an
|
||
instrument of injustice. And if this fact brings terrible consequences
|
||
to the United States—where the proper purpose of the
|
||
law has been perverted only in the instances of slavery and tariffs—
|
||
what must be the consequences in Europe, where the perversion
|
||
of the law is a principle; a system?
|
||
Two Kinds of Plunder
|
||
Mr. de Montalembert [politician and writer] adopting the
|
||
thought contained in a famous proclamation by Mr. Carlier, has
|
||
15
|
||
said: “We must make war against socialism.” According to the
|
||
definition of socialism advanced by Mr. Charles Dupin, he
|
||
meant: “We must make war against plunder.”
|
||
But of what plunder was he speaking? For there are two
|
||
kinds of plunder: legal and illegal.
|
||
I do not think that illegal plunder, such as theft or swindling—
|
||
which the penal code defines, anticipates, and punishes—
|
||
can be called socialism. It is not this kind of plunder that
|
||
systematically threatens the foundations of society. Anyway, the
|
||
war against this kind of plunder has not waited for the command
|
||
of these gentlemen. The war against illegal plunder has been
|
||
fought since the beginning of the world. Long before the Revolution
|
||
of February 1848—long before the appearance even of
|
||
socialism itself—France had provided police, judges, gendarmes,
|
||
prisons, dungeons, and scaffolds for the purpose of
|
||
fighting illegal plunder. The law itself conducts this war, and it is
|
||
my wish and opinion that the law should always maintain this
|
||
attitude toward plunder.
|
||
The Law Defends Plunder
|
||
But it does not always do this. Sometimes the law defends
|
||
plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared
|
||
the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise
|
||
involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of
|
||
judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers,
|
||
and treats the victim—when he defends himself—as a
|
||
16
|
||
criminal. In short, there is a legal plunder, and it is of this, no
|
||
doubt, that Mr. de Montalembert speaks.
|
||
This legal plunder may be only an isolated stain among the
|
||
legislative measures of the people. If so, it is best to wipe it out
|
||
with a minimum of speeches and denunciations—and in spite of
|
||
the uproar of the vested interests.
|
||
How to Identify Legal Plunder
|
||
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply.
|
||
See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them,
|
||
and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if
|
||
the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing
|
||
what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
|
||
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil
|
||
itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it
|
||
invites reprisals. If such a law—which may be an isolated case—
|
||
is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and
|
||
develop into a system.
|
||
The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly,
|
||
defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is
|
||
obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that
|
||
this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry
|
||
is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor
|
||
workingmen.
|
||
Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The
|
||
acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a
|
||
17
|
||
whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The presentday
|
||
delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of
|
||
everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of
|
||
organizing it.
|
||
Legal Plunder Has Many Names
|
||
Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number
|
||
of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing
|
||
it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive
|
||
taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed
|
||
profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of
|
||
labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a
|
||
whole—with their common aim of legal plunder—constitute
|
||
socialism.
|
||
Now, since under this definition socialism is a body of doctrine,
|
||
what attack can be made against it other than a war of doctrine?
|
||
If you find this socialistic doctrine to be false, absurd, and
|
||
evil, then refute it. And the more false, the more absurd, and the
|
||
more evil it is, the easier it will be to refute. Above all, if you wish
|
||
to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that
|
||
may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task.
|
||
Socialism Is Legal Plunder
|
||
Mr. de Montalembert has been accused of desiring to fight
|
||
socialism by the use of brute force. He ought to be exonerated
|
||
from this accusation, for he has plainly said: “The war that we
|
||
18
|
||
must fight against socialism must be in harmony with law, honor,
|
||
and justice.”
|
||
But why does not Mr. de Montalembert see that he has
|
||
placed himself in a vicious circle? You would use the law to
|
||
oppose socialism? But it is upon the law that socialism itself
|
||
relies. Socialists desire to practice legal plunder, not illegal plunder.
|
||
Socialists, like all other monopolists, desire to make the law
|
||
their own weapon. And when once the law is on the side of
|
||
socialism, how can it be used against socialism? For when plunder
|
||
is abetted by the law, it does not fear your courts, your gendarmes,
|
||
and your prisons. Rather, it may call upon them for
|
||
help.
|
||
To prevent this, you would exclude socialism from entering
|
||
into the making of laws? You would prevent socialists from
|
||
entering the Legislative Palace? You shall not succeed, I predict,
|
||
so long as legal plunder continues to be the main business of the
|
||
legislature. It is illogical—in fact, absurd—to assume otherwise.
|
||
The Choice Before Us
|
||
This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for
|
||
all, and there are only three ways to settle it:
|
||
1. The few plunder the many.
|
||
2. Everybody plunders everybody.
|
||
3. Nobody plunders anybody.
|
||
We must make our choice among limited plunder, universal
|
||
plunder, and no plunder. The law can follow only one of these
|
||
three.
|
||
19
|
||
Limited legal plunder: This system prevailed when the right
|
||
to vote was restricted. One would turn back to this system to
|
||
prevent the invasion of socialism.
|
||
Universal legal plunder:We have been threatened with this
|
||
system since the franchise was made universal. The newly
|
||
enfranchised majority has decided to formulate law on the same
|
||
principle of legal plunder that was used by their predecessors
|
||
when the vote was limited.
|
||
No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace,
|
||
order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I
|
||
shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which
|
||
alas! is all too inadequate).*
|
||
The Proper Function of the Law
|
||
And, in all sincerity, can anything more than the absence of
|
||
plunder be required of the law? Can the law—which necessarily
|
||
requires the use of force—rationally be used for anything except
|
||
protecting the rights of everyone? I defy anyone to extend it
|
||
beyond this purpose without perverting it and, consequently,
|
||
turning might against right. This is the most fatal and most illogical
|
||
social perversion that can possibly be imagined. It must be
|
||
admitted that the true solution—so long searched for in the area
|
||
of social relationships—is contained in these simple words: Law
|
||
is organized justice.
|
||
20
|
||
*Translator’s note: At the time this was written, Mr. Bastiat knew that he
|
||
was dying of tuberculosis. Within a year, he was dead.
|
||
Now this must be said: When justice is organized by law—
|
||
that is, by force—this excludes the idea of using law (force) to
|
||
organize any human activity whatever, whether it be labor, charity,
|
||
agriculture, commerce, industry, education, art, or religion.
|
||
The organizing by law of any one of these would inevitably
|
||
destroy the essential organization—justice. For truly, how can
|
||
we imagine force being used against the liberty of citizens without
|
||
it also being used against justice, and thus acting against its
|
||
proper purpose?
|
||
The Seductive Lure of Socialism
|
||
Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It
|
||
is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be
|
||
philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee
|
||
to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for
|
||
physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is
|
||
demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education,
|
||
and morality throughout the nation.
|
||
This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again:
|
||
These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each
|
||
other. We must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the
|
||
same time be free and not free.
|
||
Enforced Fraternity Destroys Liberty
|
||
Mr. de Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: “Your doctrine
|
||
is only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I go
|
||
21
|
||
on to fraternity.” I answered him: “The second half of your program
|
||
will destroy the first.”
|
||
In fact, it is impossible for me to separate the word fraternity
|
||
from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly understand how
|
||
fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally
|
||
destroyed, and thus justice being legally trampled underfoot.
|
||
Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said
|
||
before, is in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy.
|
||
At this point, I think that I should explain exactly what I
|
||
mean by the word plunder.*
|
||
Plunder Violates Ownership
|
||
I do not, as is often done, use the word in any vague, uncertain,
|
||
approximate, or metaphorical sense. I use it in its scientific
|
||
acceptance—as expressing the idea opposite to that of property
|
||
[wages, land, money, or whatever]. When a portion of wealth is
|
||
transferred from the person who owns it—without his consent
|
||
and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud—
|
||
to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated;
|
||
that an act of plunder is committed.
|
||
I say that this act is exactly what the law is supposed to suppress,
|
||
always and everywhere. When the law itself commits this
|
||
act that it is supposed to suppress, I say that plunder is still com-
|
||
22
|
||
*Translator’s note: The French word used by Mr. Bastiat is spoliation.
|
||
mitted, and I add that from the point of view of society and welfare,
|
||
this aggression against rights is even worse. In this case of
|
||
legal plunder, however, the person who receives the benefits is
|
||
not responsible for the act of plundering. The responsibility for
|
||
this legal plunder rests with the law, the legislator, and society
|
||
itself. Therein lies the political danger.
|
||
It is to be regretted that the word plunder is offensive. I
|
||
have tried in vain to find an inoffensive word, for I would not at
|
||
any time—especially now—wish to add an irritating word to our
|
||
dissentions. Thus, whether I am believed or not, I declare that I
|
||
do not mean to attack the intentions or the morality of anyone.
|
||
Rather, I am attacking an idea which I believe to be false; a system
|
||
which appears to me to be unjust; an injustice so independent
|
||
of personal intentions that each of us profits from it without
|
||
wishing to do so, and suffers from it without knowing the cause
|
||
of the suffering.
|
||
Three Systems of Plunder
|
||
The sincerity of those who advocate protectionism, socialism,
|
||
and communism is not here questioned. Any writer who
|
||
would do that must be influenced by a political spirit or a political
|
||
fear. It is to be pointed out, however, that protectionism,
|
||
socialism, and communism are basically the same plant in three
|
||
different stages of its growth. All that can be said is that legal
|
||
plunder is more visible in communism because it is complete
|
||
23
|
||
plunder; and in protectionism because the plunder is limited to
|
||
specific groups and industries.* Thus it follows that, of the three
|
||
systems, socialism is the vaguest, the most indecisive, and, consequently,
|
||
the most sincere stage of development.
|
||
But sincere or insincere, the intentions of persons are not
|
||
here under question. In fact, I have already said that legal plunder
|
||
is based partially on philanthropy, even though it is a false
|
||
philanthropy.
|
||
With this explanation, let us examine the value—the origin
|
||
and the tendency—of this popular aspiration which claims to
|
||
accomplish the general welfare by general plunder.
|
||
Law Is Force
|
||
Since the law organizes justice, the socialists ask why the
|
||
law should not also organize labor, education, and religion.
|
||
Why should not law be used for these purposes? Because it
|
||
could not organize labor, education, and religion without
|
||
destroying justice. We must remember that law is force, and
|
||
that, consequently, the proper functions of the law cannot lawfully
|
||
extend beyond the proper functions of force.
|
||
24
|
||
* If the special privilege of government protection against competition—
|
||
a monopoly—were granted only to one group in France, the iron workers, for
|
||
instance, this act would so obviously be legal plunder that it could not last for
|
||
long. It is for this reason that we see all the protected trades combined into a
|
||
common cause. They even organize themselves in such a manner as to appear
|
||
to represent all persons who labor. Instinctively, they feel that legal plunder is
|
||
concealed by generalizing it.
|
||
When law and force keep a person within the bounds of
|
||
justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige
|
||
him only to abstain from harming others. They violate neither
|
||
his personality, his liberty, nor his property. They safeguard all of
|
||
these. They are defensive; they defend equally the rights of all.
|
||
Law Is a Negative Concept
|
||
The harmlessness of the mission performed by law and lawful
|
||
defense is self-evident; the usefulness is obvious; and the
|
||
legitimacy cannot be disputed.
|
||
As a friend of mine once remarked, this negative concept of
|
||
law is so true that the statement, the purpose of the law is to
|
||
cause justice to reign, is not a rigorously accurate statement. It
|
||
ought to be stated that the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice
|
||
from reigning. In fact, it is injustice, instead of justice, that
|
||
has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice
|
||
is absent.
|
||
But when the law, by means of its necessary agent, force,
|
||
imposes upon men a regulation of labor, a method or a subject of
|
||
education, a religious faith or creed—then the law is no longer
|
||
negative; it acts positively upon people. It substitutes the will of
|
||
the legislator for their own wills; the initiative of the legislator
|
||
for their own initiatives. When this happens, the people no
|
||
longer need to discuss, to compare, to plan ahead; the law does
|
||
all this for them. Intelligence becomes a useless prop for the
|
||
people; they cease to be men; they lose their personality, their
|
||
liberty, their property.
|
||
25
|
||
Try to imagine a regulation of labor imposed by force that is
|
||
not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed by force
|
||
that is not a violation of property. If you cannot reconcile these
|
||
contradictions, then you must conclude that the law cannot
|
||
organize labor and industry without organizing injustice.
|
||
The Political Approach
|
||
When a politician views society from the seclusion of his
|
||
office, he is struck by the spectacle of the inequality that he sees.
|
||
He deplores the deprivations which are the lot of so many of our
|
||
brothers, deprivations which appear to be even sadder when
|
||
contrasted with luxury and wealth.
|
||
Perhaps the politician should ask himself whether this state
|
||
of affairs has not been caused by old conquests and lootings, and
|
||
by more recent legal plunder. Perhaps he should consider this
|
||
proposition: Since all persons seek well-being and perfection,
|
||
would not a condition of justice be sufficient to cause the greatest
|
||
efforts toward progress, and the greatest possible equality
|
||
that is compatible with individual responsibility? Would not this
|
||
be in accord with the concept of individual responsibility which
|
||
God has willed in order that mankind may have the choice
|
||
between vice and virtue, and the resulting punishment and
|
||
reward?
|
||
But the politician never gives this a thought. His mind turns
|
||
to organizations, combinations, and arrangements—legal or
|
||
26
|
||
apparently legal. He attempts to remedy the evil by increasing
|
||
and perpetuating the very thing that caused the evil in the first
|
||
place: legal plunder. We have seen that justice is a negative concept.
|
||
Is there even one of these positive legal actions that does
|
||
not contain the principle of plunder?
|
||
The Law and Charity
|
||
You say: “There are persons who have no money,” and you
|
||
turn to the law. But the law is not a breast that fills itself with
|
||
milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the law supplied with milk from
|
||
a source outside the society. Nothing can enter the public treasury
|
||
for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens
|
||
and other classes have been forced to send it in. If every
|
||
person draws from the treasury the amount that he has put in it,
|
||
it is true that the law then plunders nobody. But this procedure
|
||
does nothing for the persons who have no money. It does not
|
||
promote equality of income. The law can be an instrument of
|
||
equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to
|
||
other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of
|
||
plunder.
|
||
With this in mind, examine the protective tariffs, subsidies,
|
||
guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes,
|
||
public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public
|
||
works. You will find that they are always based on legal plunder,
|
||
organized injustice.
|
||
27
|
||
The Law and Education
|
||
You say: “There are persons who lack education” and you
|
||
turn to the law. But the law is not, in itself, a torch of learning
|
||
which shines its light abroad. The law extends over a society
|
||
where some persons have knowledge and others do not; where
|
||
some citizens need to learn, and others can teach. In this matter
|
||
of education, the law has only two alternatives: It can permit this
|
||
transaction of teaching-and-learning to operate freely and without
|
||
the use of force, or it can force human wills in this matter by
|
||
taking from some of them enough to pay the teachers who are
|
||
appointed by government to instruct others, without charge. But
|
||
in this second case, the law commits legal plunder by violating
|
||
liberty and property.
|
||
The Law and Morals
|
||
You say: “Here are persons who are lacking in morality or
|
||
religion,” and you turn to the law. But law is force. And need I
|
||
point out what a violent and futile effort it is to use force in the
|
||
matters of morality and religion?
|
||
It would seem that socialists, however self-complacent,
|
||
could not avoid seeing this monstrous legal plunder that results
|
||
from such systems and such efforts. But what do the socialists
|
||
do? They cleverly disguise this legal plunder from others—and
|
||
even from themselves—under the seductive names of fraternity,
|
||
28
|
||
unity, organization, and association. Because we ask so little
|
||
from the law—only justice—the socialists thereby assume that
|
||
we reject fraternity, unity, organization, and association. The
|
||
socialists brand us with the name individualist.
|
||
But we assure the socialists that we repudiate only forced
|
||
organization, not natural organization. We repudiate the forms
|
||
of association that are forced upon us, not free association. We
|
||
repudiate forced fraternity, not true fraternity. We repudiate the
|
||
artificial unity that does nothing more than deprive persons of
|
||
individual responsibility. We do not repudiate the natural unity
|
||
of mankind under Providence.
|
||
A Confusion of Terms
|
||
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses
|
||
the distinction between government and society. As a
|
||
result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government,
|
||
the socialists conclude that we object to its being done
|
||
at all.
|
||
We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say
|
||
that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion.
|
||
Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We
|
||
object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are
|
||
against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists
|
||
were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do
|
||
not want the state to raise grain.
|
||
29
|
||
The Influence of Socialist Writers
|
||
How did politicians ever come to believe this weird idea
|
||
that the law could be made to produce what it does not contain—
|
||
the wealth, science, and religion that, in a positive sense,
|
||
constitute prosperity? Is it due to the influence of our modern
|
||
writers on public affairs?
|
||
Present-day writers—especially those of the socialist school
|
||
of thought—base their various theories upon one common
|
||
hypothesis: They divide mankind into two parts. People in general—
|
||
with the exception of the writer himself—form the first
|
||
group. The writer, all alone, forms the second and most important
|
||
group. Surely this is the weirdest and most conceited notion
|
||
that ever entered a human brain!
|
||
In fact, these writers on public affairs begin by supposing
|
||
that people have within themselves no means of discernment;
|
||
no motivation to action. The writers assume that people are inert
|
||
matter, passive particles, motionless atoms, at best a kind of vegetation
|
||
indifferent to its own manner of existence. They assume
|
||
that people are susceptible to being shaped—by the will and
|
||
hand of another person—into an infinite variety of forms, more
|
||
or less symmetrical, artistic, and perfected.
|
||
Moreover, not one of these writers on governmental affairs
|
||
hesitates to imagine that he himself—under the title of organizer,
|
||
discoverer, legislator, or founder—is this will and hand,
|
||
this universal motivating force, this creative power whose sublime
|
||
mission is to mold these scattered materials—persons—
|
||
into a society.
|
||
30
|
||
These socialist writers look upon people in the same manner
|
||
that the gardener views his trees. Just as the gardener capriciously
|
||
shapes the trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, vases,
|
||
fans, and other forms, just so does the socialist writer whimsically
|
||
shape human beings into groups, series, centers, sub-centers,
|
||
honeycombs, labor-corps, and other variations. And just as
|
||
the gardener needs axes, pruning hooks, saws, and shears to
|
||
shape his trees, just so does the socialist writer need the force
|
||
that he can find only in law to shape human beings. For this purpose,
|
||
he devises tariff laws, tax laws, relief laws, and school laws.
|
||
The Socialists Want to Play God
|
||
Socialists look upon people as raw material to be formed
|
||
into social combinations. This is so true that, if by chance, the
|
||
socialists have any doubts about the success of these combinations,
|
||
they will demand that a small portion of mankind be set
|
||
aside to experiment upon. The popular idea of trying all systems
|
||
is well known. And one socialist leader has been known seriously
|
||
to demand that the Constituent Assembly give him a small district
|
||
with all its inhabitants, to try his experiments upon.
|
||
In the same manner, an inventor makes a model before he
|
||
constructs the full-sized machine; the chemist wastes some
|
||
chemicals—the farmer wastes some seeds and land—to try out
|
||
an idea.
|
||
But what a difference there is between the gardener and
|
||
his trees, between the inventor and his machine, between the
|
||
chemist and his elements, between the farmer and his seeds!
|
||
31
|
||
And in all sincerity, the socialist thinks that there is the same difference
|
||
between him and mankind!
|
||
It is no wonder that the writers of the nineteenth century
|
||
look upon society as an artificial creation of the legislator’s
|
||
genius. This idea—the fruit of classical education—has taken
|
||
possession of all the intellectuals and famous writers of our
|
||
country. To these intellectuals and writers, the relationship
|
||
between persons and the legislator appears to be the same as the
|
||
relationship between the clay and the potter.
|
||
Moreover, even where they have consented to recognize a
|
||
principle of action in the heart of man—and a principle of discernment
|
||
in man’s intellect—they have considered these gifts
|
||
from God to be fatal gifts. They have thought that persons,
|
||
under the impulse of these two gifts, would fatally tend to ruin
|
||
themselves. They assume that if the legislators left persons free
|
||
to follow their own inclinations, they would arrive at atheism
|
||
instead of religion, ignorance instead of knowledge, poverty
|
||
instead of production and exchange.
|
||
The Socialists Despise Mankind
|
||
According to these writers, it is indeed fortunate that
|
||
Heaven has bestowed upon certain men—governors and legislators—
|
||
the exact opposite inclinations, not only for their own
|
||
sake but also for the sake of the rest of the world! While
|
||
mankind tends toward evil, the legislators yearn for good;
|
||
while mankind advances toward darkness, the legislators aspire
|
||
32
|
||
for enlightenment; while mankind is drawn toward vice, the
|
||
legislators are attracted toward virtue. Since they have decided
|
||
that this is the true state of affairs, they then demand the use of
|
||
force in order to substitute their own inclinations for those of
|
||
the human race.
|
||
Open at random any book on philosophy, politics, or history,
|
||
and you will probably see how deeply rooted in our country
|
||
is this idea—the child of classical studies, the mother of socialism.
|
||
In all of them, you will probably find this idea that mankind
|
||
is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization, morality, and
|
||
prosperity from the power of the state. And even worse, it will be
|
||
stated that mankind tends toward degeneration, and is stopped
|
||
from this downward course only by the mysterious hand of the
|
||
legislator. Conventional classical thought everywhere says that
|
||
behind passive society there is a concealed power called law or
|
||
legislator (or called by some other terminology that designates
|
||
some unnamed person or persons of undisputed influence and
|
||
authority) which moves, controls, benefits, and improves
|
||
mankind.
|
||
A Defense of Compulsory Labor
|
||
Let us first consider a quotation from Bossuet [tutor to the
|
||
Dauphin in the Court of Louis XIV]:
|
||
One of the things most strongly impressed (by
|
||
whom?) upon the minds of the Egyptians was patrio-
|
||
33
|
||
tism. . . . No one was permitted to be useless to the
|
||
state. The law assigned to each one his work, which was
|
||
handed down from father to son. No one was permitted
|
||
to have two professions. Nor could a person change
|
||
from one job to another. . . . But there was one task to
|
||
which all were forced to conform: the study of the laws
|
||
and of wisdom. Ignorance of religion and of the political
|
||
regulations of the country was not excused under
|
||
any circumstances. Moreover each occupation was
|
||
assigned (by whom?) to a certain district. . . . Among
|
||
the good laws, one of the best was that everyone was
|
||
trained (by whom?) to obey them. As a result of this,
|
||
Egypt was filled with wonderful inventions, and nothing
|
||
was neglected that could make life easy and quiet.
|
||
Thus, according to Bossuet, persons derive nothing from
|
||
themselves. Patriotism, prosperity, inventions, husbandry, science—
|
||
all of these are given to the people by the operation of the
|
||
laws, the rulers. All that the people have to do is to bow to leadership.
|
||
A Defense of Paternal Government
|
||
Bossuet carries this idea of the state as the source of all
|
||
progress even so far as to defend the Egyptians against the
|
||
charge that they rejected wrestling and music. He said:
|
||
34
|
||
How is that possible? These arts were invented by
|
||
Trismegistus [who was alleged to have been Chancellor
|
||
to the Egyptian god Osiris].
|
||
And again among the Persians, Bossuet claims that all
|
||
comes from above:
|
||
One of the first responsibilities of the prince was
|
||
to encourage agriculture. . . . Just as there were offices
|
||
established for the regulation of armies, just so were
|
||
there offices for the direction of farm work. . . . The
|
||
Persian people were inspired with an overwhelming
|
||
respect for royal authority.
|
||
And according to Bossuet, the Greek people, although
|
||
exceedingly intelligent, had no sense of personal responsibility;
|
||
like dogs and horses, they themselves could not have invented
|
||
the most simple games:
|
||
The Greeks, naturally intelligent and courageous,
|
||
had been early cultivated by the kings and settlers who
|
||
had come from Egypt. From these Egyptian rulers,
|
||
the Greek people had learned bodily exercises, foot
|
||
races, and horse and chariot races. . . . But the best
|
||
thing that the Egyptians had taught the Greeks was to
|
||
become docile, and to permit themselves to be formed
|
||
by the law for the public good.
|
||
35
|
||
The Idea of Passive Mankind
|
||
It cannot be disputed that these classical theories
|
||
[advanced by these latter-day teachers, writers, legislators, economists,
|
||
and philosophers] held that everything came to the people
|
||
from a source outside themselves. As another example, take
|
||
Fenelon [archbishop, author, and instructor to the Duke of Burgundy].
|
||
He was a witness to the power of Louis XIV. This, plus the
|
||
fact that he was nurtured in the classical studies and the admiration
|
||
of antiquity, naturally caused Fenelon to accept the idea
|
||
that mankind should be passive; that the misfortunes and the
|
||
prosperity—vices and virtues—of people are caused by the
|
||
external influence exercised upon them by the law and the legislators.
|
||
Thus, in his Utopia of Salentum, he puts men—with all
|
||
their interests, faculties, desires, and possessions—under the
|
||
absolute discretion of the legislator. Whatever the issue may be,
|
||
persons do not decide it for themselves; the prince decides for
|
||
them. The prince is depicted as the soul of this shapeless mass of
|
||
people who form the nation. In the prince resides the thought,
|
||
the foresight, all progress, and the principle of all organization.
|
||
Thus all responsibility rests with him.
|
||
The whole of the tenth book of Fenelon’s Telemachus
|
||
proves this. I refer the reader to it, and content myself with
|
||
quoting at random from this celebrated work to which, in every
|
||
other respect, I am the first to pay homage.
|
||
36
|
||
Socialists Ignore Reason and Facts
|
||
With the amazing credulity which is typical of the classicists,
|
||
Fenelon ignores the authority of reason and facts when he
|
||
attributes the general happiness of the Egyptians, not to their
|
||
own wisdom but to the wisdom of their kings:
|
||
We could not turn our eyes to either shore without
|
||
seeing rich towns and country estates most agreeably
|
||
located; fields, never fallowed, covered with
|
||
golden crops every year; meadows full of flocks; workers
|
||
bending under the weight of the fruit which the
|
||
earth lavished upon its cultivators; shepherds who
|
||
made the echoes resound with the soft notes from
|
||
their pipes and flutes. “Happy,” said Mentor, “is the
|
||
people governed by a wise king. . . .”
|
||
Later, Mentor desired that I observe the contentment
|
||
and abundance which covered all Egypt, where
|
||
twenty-two thousand cities could be counted. He
|
||
admired the good police regulations in the cities; the
|
||
justice rendered in favor of the poor against the rich;
|
||
the sound education of the children in obedience,
|
||
labor, sobriety, and the love of the arts and letters; the
|
||
exactness with which all religious ceremonies were
|
||
performed; the unselfishness, the high regard for
|
||
honor, the faithfulness to men, and the fear of the gods
|
||
37
|
||
which every father taught his children. He never
|
||
stopped admiring the prosperity of the country.
|
||
“Happy,” said he, “is the people ruled by a wise king in
|
||
such a manner.”
|
||
Socialists Want to Regiment People
|
||
Fenelon’s idyl on Crete is even more alluring. Mentor is
|
||
made to say:
|
||
All that you see in this wonderful island results
|
||
from the laws of Minos. The education which he
|
||
ordained for the children makes their bodies strong
|
||
and robust. From the very beginning, one accustoms
|
||
the children to a life of frugality and labor, because
|
||
one assumes that all pleasures of the senses weaken
|
||
both body and mind. Thus one allows them no pleasure
|
||
except that of becoming invincible by virtue, and
|
||
of acquiring glory. . . . Here one punishes three vices
|
||
that go unpunished among other people: ingratitude,
|
||
hypocrisy, and greed. There is no need to punish persons
|
||
for pomp and dissipation, for they are unknown
|
||
in Crete. . . . No costly furniture, no magnificent
|
||
clothing, no delicious feasts, no gilded palaces are
|
||
permitted.
|
||
Thus does Mentor prepare his student to mold and to
|
||
manipulate—doubtless with the best of intentions—the people
|
||
38
|
||
of Ithaca. And to convince the student of the wisdom of these
|
||
ideas, Mentor recites to him the example of Salentum.
|
||
It is from this sort of philosophy that we receive our first
|
||
political ideas! We are taught to treat persons much as an
|
||
instructor in agriculture teaches farmers to prepare and tend the
|
||
soil.
|
||
A Famous Name and an Evil Idea
|
||
Now listen to the great Montesquieu on this same subject:
|
||
To maintain the spirit of commerce, it is necessary
|
||
that all the laws must favor it. These laws, by proportionately
|
||
dividing up the fortunes as they are made
|
||
in commerce, should provide every poor citizen with
|
||
sufficiently easy circumstances to enable him to work
|
||
like the others. These same laws should put every rich
|
||
citizen in such lowered circumstances as to force him
|
||
to work in order to keep or to gain.
|
||
Thus the laws are to dispose of all fortunes!
|
||
Although real equality is the soul of the state in a
|
||
democracy, yet this is so difficult to establish that an
|
||
extreme precision in this matter would not always be
|
||
desirable. It is sufficient that here be established a
|
||
census to reduce or fix these differences in wealth
|
||
within a certain limit. After this is done, it remains for
|
||
39
|
||
specific laws to equalize inequality by imposing burdens
|
||
upon the rich and granting relief to the poor.
|
||
Here again we find the idea of equalizing fortunes by law,
|
||
by force.
|
||
In Greece, there were two kinds of republics,
|
||
One, Sparta, was military; the other, Athens, was commercial.
|
||
In the former, it was desired that the citizens
|
||
be idle; in the latter, love of labor was encouraged.
|
||
Note the marvelous genius of these legislators: By
|
||
debasing all established customs—by mixing the usual
|
||
concepts of all virtues—they knew in advance that the
|
||
world would admire their wisdom.
|
||
Lycurgus gave stability to his city of Sparta by
|
||
combining petty thievery with the soul of justice; by
|
||
combining the most complete bondage with the most
|
||
extreme liberty; by combining the most atrocious
|
||
beliefs with the greatest moderation. He appeared to
|
||
deprive his city of all its resources, arts, commerce,
|
||
money, and defenses. In Sparta, ambition went without
|
||
the hope of material reward. Natural affection
|
||
found no outlet because a man was neither son, husband,
|
||
nor father. Even chastity was no longer considered
|
||
becoming. By this road, Lycurgus led Sparta on
|
||
to greatness and glory.
|
||
This boldness which was to be found in the institutions
|
||
of Greece has been repeated in the midst of
|
||
40
|
||
the degeneracy and corruption of our modern times.
|
||
An occasional honest legislator has molded a people in
|
||
whom integrity appears as natural as courage in the
|
||
Spartans.
|
||
Mr. William Penn, for example, is a true Lycurgus.
|
||
Even though Mr. Penn had peace as his objective—
|
||
while Lycurgus had war as his objective—they
|
||
resemble each other in that their moral prestige over
|
||
free men allowed them to overcome prejudices, to
|
||
subdue passions, and to lead their respective peoples
|
||
into new paths.
|
||
The country of Paraguay furnishes us with
|
||
another example [of a people who, for their own good,
|
||
are molded by their legislators].*
|
||
Now it is true that if one considers the sheer pleasure
|
||
of commanding to be the greatest joy in life, he
|
||
contemplates a crime against society; it will, however,
|
||
always be a noble ideal to govern men in a manner that
|
||
will make them happier.
|
||
Those who desire to establish similar institutions
|
||
must do as follows: Establish common ownership of
|
||
property as in the republic of Plato; revere the gods as
|
||
Plato commanded; prevent foreigners from mingling
|
||
with the people, in order to preserve the customs; let
|
||
41
|
||
*Translator’s note: What was then known as Paraguay was a much larger
|
||
area than it is today. It was colonized by the Jesuits who settled the Indians into
|
||
villages, and generally saved them from further brutalities by the avid conquerors.
|
||
the state, instead of the citizens, establish commerce.
|
||
The legislators should supply arts instead of luxuries;
|
||
they should satisfy needs instead of desires.
|
||
A Frightful Idea
|
||
Those who are subject to vulgar infatuation may exclaim:
|
||
“Montesquieu has said this! So it’s magnificent! It’s sublime!” As
|
||
for me, I have the courage of my own opinion. I say: What! You
|
||
have the nerve to call that fine? It is frightful! It is abominable!
|
||
These random selections from the writings of Montesquieu
|
||
show that he considers persons, liberties, property—mankind
|
||
itself—to be nothing but materials for legislators to exercise
|
||
their wisdom upon.
|
||
The Leader of the Democrats
|
||
Now let us examine Rousseau on this subject. This writer
|
||
on public affairs is the supreme authority of the democrats. And
|
||
although he bases the social structure upon the will of the people,
|
||
he has, to a greater extent than anyone else, completely
|
||
accepted the theory of the total inertness of mankind in the
|
||
presence of the legislators:
|
||
If it is true that a great prince is rare, then is it not
|
||
true that a great legislator is even more rare? The
|
||
prince has only to follow the pattern that the legislator
|
||
creates. The legislator is the mechanic who invents the
|
||
42
|
||
machine; the prince is merely the workman who sets it
|
||
in motion.
|
||
And what part do persons play in all this? They are merely
|
||
the machine that is set in motion. In fact, are they not merely
|
||
considered to be the raw material of which the machine is
|
||
made?
|
||
Thus the same relationship exists between the legislator
|
||
and the prince as exists between the agricultural expert and the
|
||
farmer; and the relationship between the prince and his subjects
|
||
is the same as that between the farmer and his land. How high
|
||
above mankind, then, has this writer on public affairs been
|
||
placed? Rousseau rules over legislators themselves, and teaches
|
||
them their trade in these imperious terms:
|
||
Would you give stability to the state? Then bring
|
||
the extremes as closely together as possible. Tolerate
|
||
neither wealthy persons nor beggars.
|
||
If the soil is poor or barren, or the country too
|
||
small for its inhabitants, then turn to industry and arts,
|
||
and trade these products for the foods that you need.
|
||
. . . On a fertile soil—if you are short of inhabitants—
|
||
devote all your attention to agriculture, because this
|
||
multiplies people; banish the arts, because they only
|
||
serve to depopulate the nation. . . .
|
||
If you have extensive and accessible coast lines,
|
||
then cover the sea with merchant ships; you will have a
|
||
brilliant but short existence. If your seas wash only
|
||
43
|
||
inaccessible cliffs, let the people be barbarous and eat
|
||
fish; they will live more quietly—perhaps better—and,
|
||
most certainly, they will live more happily.
|
||
In short, and in addition to the maxims that are
|
||
common to all, every people has its own particular circumstances.
|
||
And this fact in itself will cause legislation
|
||
appropriate to the circumstances.
|
||
This is the reason why the Hebrews formerly—
|
||
and, more recently, the Arabs—had religion as their
|
||
principle objective. The objective of the Athenians
|
||
was literature; of Carthage and Tyre, commerce; of
|
||
Rhodes, naval affairs; of Sparta, war; and of Rome,
|
||
virtue. The author of The Spirit of Laws has shown by
|
||
what art the legislator should direct his institutions
|
||
toward each of these objectives. . . . But suppose that
|
||
the legislator mistakes his proper objective, and acts
|
||
on a principle different from that indicated by the
|
||
nature of things? Suppose that the selected principle
|
||
sometimes creates slavery, and sometimes liberty;
|
||
sometimes wealth, and sometimes population; sometimes
|
||
peace, and sometimes conquest? This confusion
|
||
of objective will slowly enfeeble the law and impair the
|
||
constitution. The state will be subjected to ceaseless
|
||
agitations until it is destroyed or changed, and invincible
|
||
nature regains her empire.
|
||
But if nature is sufficiently invincible to regain its empire,
|
||
why does not Rousseau admit that it did not need the legislator
|
||
44
|
||
to gain it in the first place? Why does he not see that men, by
|
||
obeying their own instincts, would turn to farming on fertile soil,
|
||
and to commerce on an extensive and easily accessible coast,
|
||
without the interference of a Lycurgus or a Solon or a Rousseau
|
||
who might easily be mistaken.
|
||
Socialists Want Forced Conformity
|
||
Be that as it may, Rousseau invests the creators, organizers,
|
||
directors, legislators, and controllers of society with a terrible
|
||
responsibility. He is, therefore, most exacting with them:
|
||
He who would dare to undertake the political
|
||
creation of a people ought to believe that he can, in a
|
||
manner of speaking, transform human nature; transform
|
||
each individual—who, by himself, is a solitary
|
||
and perfect whole—into a mere part of a greater
|
||
whole from which the individual will henceforth
|
||
receive his life and being. Thus the person who would
|
||
undertake the political creation of a people should
|
||
believe in his ability to alter man’s constitution; to
|
||
strengthen it; to substitute for the physical and independent
|
||
existence received from nature, an existence
|
||
which is partial and moral.* In short, the would-be
|
||
45
|
||
*Translator’s note: According to Rousseau, the existence of social man is
|
||
partial in the sense that he is henceforth merely a part of society. Knowing himself
|
||
as such—-and thinking and feeling from the point of view of the whole—
|
||
he thereby becomes moral.
|
||
creator of political man must remove man’s own forces
|
||
and endow him with others that are naturally alien to
|
||
him.
|
||
Poor human nature! What would become of a person’s dignity
|
||
if it were entrusted to the followers of Rousseau?
|
||
Legislators Desire to Mold Mankind
|
||
Now let us examine Raynal on this subject of mankind
|
||
being molded by the legislator:
|
||
The legislator must first consider the climate, the
|
||
air, and the soil. The resources at his disposal determine
|
||
his duties. He must first consider his locality. A
|
||
population living on maritime shores must have laws
|
||
designed for navigation. . . . If it is an inland settlement,
|
||
the legislator must make his plans according to
|
||
the nature and fertility of the soil. . . .
|
||
It is especially in the distribution of property that
|
||
the genius of the legislator will be found. As a general
|
||
rule, when a new colony is established in any country,
|
||
sufficient land should be given to each man to support
|
||
his family. . . .
|
||
On an uncultivated island that you are populating
|
||
with children, you need do nothing but let the seeds of
|
||
truth germinate along with the development of reason.
|
||
. . . But when you resettle a nation with a past into a
|
||
46
|
||
new country, the skill of the legislator rests in the policy
|
||
of permitting the people to retain no injurious opinions
|
||
and customs which can possibly be cured and corrected.
|
||
If you desire to prevent these opinions and
|
||
customs from becoming permanent, you will secure
|
||
the second generation by a general system of public
|
||
education for the children. A prince or a legislator
|
||
should never establish a colony without first arranging
|
||
to send wise men along to instruct the youth. . . .
|
||
In a new colony, ample opportunity is open to the
|
||
careful legislator who desires to purify the customs
|
||
and manners of the people. If he has virtue and genius,
|
||
the land and the people at his disposal will inspire his
|
||
soul with a plan for society. A writer can only vaguely
|
||
trace the plan in advance because it is necessarily subject
|
||
to the instability of all hypotheses; the problem
|
||
has many forms, complications, and circumstances
|
||
that are difficult to foresee and settle in detail.
|
||
Legislators Told How to Manage Men
|
||
Raynal’s instructions to the legislators on how to manage
|
||
people may be compared to a professor of agriculture lecturing
|
||
his students: “The climate is the first rule for the farmer. His
|
||
resources determine his procedure. He must first consider his
|
||
locality. If his soil is clay, he must do so and so. If his soil is sand,
|
||
he must act in another manner. Every facility is open to the
|
||
farmer who wishes to clear and improve his soil. If he is skillful
|
||
47
|
||
enough, the manure at his disposal will suggest to him a plan of
|
||
operation. A professor can only vaguely trace this plan in
|
||
advance because it is necessarily subject to the instability of all
|
||
hypotheses; the problem has many forms, complications, and
|
||
circumstances that are difficult to foresee and settle in detail.”
|
||
Oh, sublime writers! Please remember sometimes that this
|
||
clay, this sand, and this manure which you so arbitrarily dispose
|
||
of, are men! They are your equals! They are intelligent and free
|
||
human beings like yourselves! As you have, they too have
|
||
received from God the faculty to observe, to plan ahead, to
|
||
think, and to judge for themselves!
|
||
A Temporary Dictatorship
|
||
Here is Mably on this subject of the law and the legislator.
|
||
In the passages preceding the one here quoted, Mably has supposed
|
||
the laws, due to a neglect of security, to be worn out. He
|
||
continues to address the reader thusly:
|
||
Under these circumstances, it is obvious that the
|
||
springs of government are slack. Give them a new tension,
|
||
and the evil will be cured. . . . Think less of punishing
|
||
faults, and more of rewarding that which you
|
||
need. In this manner you will restore to your republic
|
||
the vigor of youth. Because free people have been
|
||
ignorant of this procedure, they have lost their liberty!
|
||
But if the evil has made such headway that ordinary
|
||
48
|
||
governmental procedures are unable to cure it, then
|
||
resort to an extraordinary tribunal with considerable
|
||
powers for a short time. The imagination of the citizens
|
||
needs to be struck a hard blow.
|
||
In this manner, Mably continues through twenty volumes.
|
||
Under the influence of teaching like this—which stems
|
||
from classical education—there came a time when everyone
|
||
wished to place himself above mankind in order to arrange,
|
||
organize, and regulate it in his own way.
|
||
Socialists Want Equality of Wealth
|
||
Next let us examine Condillac on this subject of the legislators
|
||
and mankind:
|
||
My Lord, assume the character of Lycurgus or of
|
||
Solon. And before you finish reading this essay, amuse
|
||
yourself by giving laws to some savages in America or
|
||
Africa. Confine these nomads to fixed dwellings; teach
|
||
them to tend flocks. . . . Attempt to develop the social
|
||
consciousness that nature has planted in them. . . .
|
||
Force them to begin to practice the duties of humanity.
|
||
. . . Use punishment to cause sensual pleasures to
|
||
become distasteful to them. Then you will see that
|
||
every point of your legislation will cause these savages
|
||
to lose a vice and gain a virtue.
|
||
49
|
||
All people have had laws. But few people have
|
||
been happy. Why is this so? Because the legislators
|
||
themselves have almost always been ignorant of the
|
||
purpose of society, which is the uniting of families by a
|
||
common interest.
|
||
Impartiality in law consists of two things: the
|
||
establishing of equality in wealth and equality in dignity
|
||
among the citizens. . . . As the laws establish
|
||
greater equality, they become proportionately more
|
||
precarious to every citizen. . . . When all men are equal
|
||
in wealth and dignity—and when the laws leave no
|
||
hope of disturbing this equality—how can men then
|
||
be agitated by greed, ambition, dissipation, idleness,
|
||
sloth, envy, hatred, or jealously?
|
||
What you have learned about the republic of
|
||
Sparta should enlighten you on this question. No other
|
||
state has ever had laws more in accord with the order
|
||
of nature; of equality.
|
||
The Error of the Socialist Writers
|
||
Actually, it is not strange that during the seventeenth and
|
||
eighteenth centuries the human race was regarded as inert matter,
|
||
ready to receive everything—form, face, energy, movement,
|
||
life—from a great prince or great legislator or a great genius.
|
||
These centuries were nourished on the study of antiquity. And
|
||
antiquity presents everywhere—in Egypt, Persia, Greece,
|
||
50
|
||
Rome—the spectacle of a few men molding mankind according
|
||
to their whims, thanks to the prestige of force and fraud. But this
|
||
does not prove that this situation is desirable. It proves only that
|
||
since men and society are capable of improvement, it is naturally
|
||
to be expected that error, ignorance, despotism, slavery, and
|
||
superstition should be greatest towards the origins of history.
|
||
The writers quoted above were not in error when they found
|
||
ancient institutions to be such, but they were in error when they
|
||
offered them for the admiration and imitation of future generations.
|
||
Uncritical and childish conformists, they took for granted
|
||
the grandeur, dignity, morality, and happiness of the artificial
|
||
societies of the ancient world. They did not understand that
|
||
knowledge appears and grows with the passage of time; and that
|
||
in proportion to this growth of knowledge, might takes the side
|
||
of right, and society regains possession of itself
|
||
What Is Liberty?
|
||
Actually, what is the political struggle that we witness? It is
|
||
the instinctive struggle of all people toward liberty. And what is
|
||
this liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and
|
||
shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties—liberty of
|
||
conscience, of education, of association, of the press, of travel, of
|
||
labor, of trade? In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person
|
||
to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm
|
||
other persons while doing so? Is not liberty the destruction of all
|
||
despotism—including, of course, legal despotism? Finally, is not
|
||
51
|
||
liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of
|
||
organizing the right of the individual to lawful self-defense; of
|
||
punishing injustice?
|
||
It must be admitted that the tendency of the human race
|
||
toward liberty is largely thwarted, especially in France. This is
|
||
greatly due to a fatal desire—learned from the teachings of
|
||
antiquity—that our writers on public affairs have in common:
|
||
They desire to set themselves above mankind in order to
|
||
arrange, organize, and regulate it according to their fancy.
|
||
Philanthropic Tyranny
|
||
While society is struggling toward liberty, these famous
|
||
men who put themselves at its head are filled with the spirit of
|
||
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They think only of
|
||
subjecting mankind to the philanthropic tyranny of their own
|
||
social inventions. Like Rousseau, they desire to force mankind
|
||
docilely to bear this yoke of the public welfare that they have
|
||
dreamed up in their own imaginations.
|
||
This was especially true in 1789. No sooner was the old
|
||
regime destroyed than society was subjected to still other artificial
|
||
arrangements, always starting from the same point: the
|
||
omnipotence of the law.
|
||
Listen to the ideas of a few of the writers and politicians
|
||
during that period:
|
||
SAINT-JUST: The legislator commands the future.
|
||
It is for him to will the good of mankind. It is for him
|
||
to make men what he wills them to be.
|
||
52
|
||
ROBESPIERRE: The function of government is to
|
||
direct the physical and moral powers of the nation
|
||
toward the end for which the commonwealth has
|
||
come into being.
|
||
BILLAUD-VARENNES: A people who are to be
|
||
returned to liberty must be formed anew. A strong
|
||
force and vigorous action are necessary to destroy old
|
||
prejudices, to change old customs, to correct depraved
|
||
affections, to restrict superfluous wants, and to destroy
|
||
ingrained vices. . . . Citizens, the inflexible austerity of
|
||
Lycurgus created the firm foundation of the Spartan
|
||
republic. The weak and trusting character of Solon
|
||
plunged Athens into slavery. This parallel embraces
|
||
the whole science of government.
|
||
LE PELLETIER: Considering the extent of human
|
||
degradation, I am convinced that it is necessary to
|
||
effect a total regeneration and, if I may so express
|
||
myself, of creating a new people.
|
||
The Socialists Want Dictatorship
|
||
Again, it is claimed that persons are nothing but raw material.
|
||
It is not for them to will their own improvement; they are
|
||
incapable of it. According to Saint-Just, only the legislator is
|
||
capable of doing this. Persons are merely to be what the legislator
|
||
wills them to be. According to Robespierre, who copies
|
||
53
|
||
Rousseau literally, the legislator begins by decreeing the end for
|
||
which the commonwealth has come into being. Once this is
|
||
determined, the government has only to direct the physical and
|
||
moral forces of the nation toward that end. Meanwhile, the
|
||
inhabitants of the nation are to remain completely passive. And
|
||
according to the teachings of Billaud-Varennes, the people
|
||
should have no prejudices, no affections, and no desires except
|
||
those authorized by the legislator. He even goes so far as to say
|
||
that the inflexible austerity of one man is the foundation of a
|
||
republic.
|
||
In cases where the alleged evil is so great that ordinary governmental
|
||
procedures cannot cure it, Mably recommends a dictatorship
|
||
to promote virtue: “Resort,” he says, “to an extraordinary
|
||
tribunal with considerable powers for a short time. The
|
||
imagination of the citizens needs to be struck a hard blow.” This
|
||
doctrine has not been forgotten. Listen to Robespierre:
|
||
The principle of the republican government is
|
||
virtue, and the means required to establish virtue is
|
||
terror. In our country we desire to substitute morality
|
||
for selfishness, honesty for honor, principles for customs,
|
||
duties for manners, the empire of reason for
|
||
the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for contempt
|
||
of poverty, pride for insolence, greatness of soul for
|
||
vanity, love of glory for love of money, good people
|
||
for good companions, merit for intrigue, genius for
|
||
wit, truth for glitter, the charm of happiness for the
|
||
54
|
||
boredom of pleasure, the greatness of man for the littleness
|
||
of the great, a generous, strong, happy people
|
||
for a good-natured, frivolous, degraded people; in
|
||
short, we desire to substitute all the virtues and miracles
|
||
of a republic for all the vices and absurdities of
|
||
a monarchy.
|
||
Dictatorial Arrogance
|
||
At what a tremendous height above the rest of mankind
|
||
does Robespierre here place himself! And note the arrogance
|
||
with which he speaks. He is not content to pray for a great
|
||
reawakening of the human spirit. Nor does he expect such a
|
||
result from a well-ordered government. No, he himself will
|
||
remake mankind, and by means of terror.
|
||
This mass of rotten and contradictory statements is
|
||
extracted from a discourse by Robespierre in which he aims to
|
||
explain the principles of morality which ought to guide a revolutionary
|
||
government. Note that Robespierre’s request for dictatorship
|
||
is not made merely for the purpose of repelling a foreign
|
||
invasion or putting down the opposing groups. Rather he wants
|
||
a dictatorship in order that he may use terror to force upon the
|
||
country his own principles of morality. He says that this act is
|
||
only to be a temporary measure preceding a new constitution.
|
||
But in reality, he desires nothing short of using terror to extinguish
|
||
from France selfishness, honor, customs, manners, fashion,
|
||
vanity, love of money, good companionship, intrigue, wit, sensu-
|
||
55
|
||
ousness, and poverty. Not until he, Robespierre, shall have
|
||
accomplished these miracles, as he so rightly calls them, will he
|
||
permit the law to reign again.*
|
||
The Indirect Approach to Despotism
|
||
Usually, however, these gentlemen—the reformers, the
|
||
legislators, and the writers on public affairs do not desire to
|
||
impose direct despotism upon mankind. Oh no, they are too
|
||
moderate and philanthropic for such direct action. Instead, they
|
||
turn to the law for this despotism, this absolutism, this omnipotence.
|
||
They desire only to make the laws.
|
||
To show the prevalence of this queer idea in France, I
|
||
would need to copy not only the entire works of Mably, Raynal,
|
||
Rousseau, and Fenelon—plus long extracts from Bossuet and
|
||
Montesquieu—but also the entire proceedings of the Convention.
|
||
I shall do no such thing; I merely refer the reader to them.
|
||
Napoleon Wanted Passive Mankind
|
||
It is, of course, not at all surprising that this same idea
|
||
should have greatly appealed to Napoleon. He embraced it
|
||
56
|
||
*At this point in the original French text, Mr. Bastiat pauses and speaks
|
||
thusly to all do- gooders and would-be rulers of mankind: “Ah, you miserable
|
||
creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be
|
||
so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don’t you reform yourselves?
|
||
That task would be sufficient enough.”
|
||
ardently and used it with vigor. Like a chemist, Napoleon considered
|
||
all Europe to be material for his experiments. But, in
|
||
due course, this material reacted against him.
|
||
At St. Helena, Napoleon—greatly disillusioned—seemed
|
||
to recognize some initiative in mankind. Recognizing this, he
|
||
became less hostile to liberty. Nevertheless, this did not prevent
|
||
him from leaving this lesson to his son in his will: “To govern is
|
||
to increase and spread morality, education, and happiness.”
|
||
After all this, it is hardly necessary to quote the same opinions
|
||
from Morelly, Babeuf, Owen, Saint-Simon, and Fourier.
|
||
Here are, however, a few extracts from Louis Blanc’s book on
|
||
the organization of labor: “In our plan, society receives its
|
||
momentum from power.”
|
||
Now consider this: The impulse behind this momentum is
|
||
to be supplied by the plan of Louis Blanc; his plan is to be forced
|
||
upon society; the Society referred to is the human race. Thus the
|
||
human race is to receive its momentum from Louis Blanc.
|
||
Now it will be said that the people are free to accept or to
|
||
reject this plan. Admittedly, people are free to accept or to reject
|
||
advice from whomever they wish. But this is not the way in
|
||
which Mr. Louis Blanc understands the matter. He expects that
|
||
his plan will be legalized, and thus forcibly imposed upon the
|
||
people by the power of the law:
|
||
In our plan, the state has only to pass labor laws
|
||
(nothing else?) by means of which industrial progress
|
||
can and must proceed in complete liberty. The state
|
||
merely places society on an incline (that is all?). Then
|
||
57
|
||
society will slide down this incline by the mere force of
|
||
things, and by the natural workings of the established
|
||
mechanism.
|
||
But what is this incline that is indicated by Mr. Louis
|
||
Blanc? Does it not lead to an abyss? (No, it leads to happiness.)
|
||
If this is true, then why does not society go there of its own
|
||
choice? (Because society does not know what it wants; it must be
|
||
propelled.) What is to propel it? (Power.) And who is to supply
|
||
the impulse for this power? (Why, the inventor of the machine—
|
||
in this instance, Mr. Louis Blanc.)
|
||
The Vicious Circle of Socialism
|
||
We shall never escape from this circle: the idea of passive
|
||
mankind, and the power of the law being used by a great man to
|
||
propel the people.
|
||
Once on this incline, will society enjoy some liberty? (Certainly.)
|
||
And what is liberty, Mr. Louis Blanc?
|
||
Once and for all, liberty is not only a mere
|
||
granted right; it is also the power granted to a person
|
||
to use and to develop his faculties under a reign of justice
|
||
and under the protection of the law.
|
||
And this is no pointless distinction; its meaning is
|
||
deep and its consequences are difficult to estimate.
|
||
For once it is agreed that a person, to be truly free,
|
||
must have the power to use and develop his faculties,
|
||
58
|
||
then it follows that every person has a claim on society
|
||
for such education as will permit him to develop himself.
|
||
It also follows that every person has a claim on
|
||
society for tools of production, without which human
|
||
activity cannot be fully effective. Now by what action
|
||
can society give to every person the necessary education
|
||
and the necessary tools of production, if not by
|
||
the action of the state?
|
||
Thus, again, liberty is power. Of what does this
|
||
power consist? (Of being educated and of being given
|
||
the tools of production.) Who is to give the education
|
||
and the tools of production? (Society, which owes
|
||
them to everyone.) By what action is society to give
|
||
tools of production to those who do not own them?
|
||
(Why, by the action of the state.) And from whom will
|
||
the state take them?
|
||
Let the reader answer that question. Let him also notice
|
||
the direction in which this is taking us.
|
||
The Doctrine of the Democrats
|
||
The strange phenomenon of our times—one which will
|
||
probably astound our descendants—is the doctrine based on
|
||
this triple hypothesis: the total inertness of mankind, the
|
||
omnipotence of the law, and the infallibility of the legislator.
|
||
These three ideas form the sacred symbol of those who proclaim
|
||
themselves totally democratic.
|
||
59
|
||
The advocates of this doctrine also profess to be social. So
|
||
far as they are democratic, they place unlimited faith in
|
||
mankind. But so far as they are social, they regard mankind as
|
||
little better than mud. Let us examine this contrast in greater
|
||
detail.
|
||
What is the attitude of the democrat when political rights
|
||
are under discussion? How does he regard the people when a
|
||
legislator is to be chosen? Ah, then it is claimed that the people
|
||
have an instinctive wisdom; they are gifted with the finest perception;
|
||
their will is always right; the general will cannot err;
|
||
voting cannot be too universal.
|
||
When it is time to vote, apparently the voter is not to be
|
||
asked for any guarantee of his wisdom. His will and capacity to
|
||
choose wisely are taken for granted. Can the people be mistaken?
|
||
Are we not living in an age of enlightenment? What! are
|
||
the people always to be kept on leashes? Have they not won
|
||
their rights by great effort and sacrifice? Have they not given
|
||
ample proof of their intelligence and wisdom? Are they not
|
||
adults? Are they not capable of judging for themselves? Do they
|
||
not know what is best for themselves? Is there a class or a man
|
||
who would be so bold as to set himself above the people, and
|
||
judge and act for them? No, no, the people are and should be
|
||
free. They desire to manage their own affairs, and they shall do
|
||
so.
|
||
But when the legislator is finally elected—ah! then indeed
|
||
does the tone of his speech undergo a radical change. The people
|
||
are returned to passiveness, inertness, and unconsciousness;
|
||
60
|
||
the legislator enters into omnipotence. Now it is for him to initiate,
|
||
to direct, to propel, and to organize. Mankind has only to
|
||
submit; the hour of despotism has struck. We now observe this
|
||
fatal idea: The people who, during the election, were so wise, so
|
||
moral, and so perfect, now have no tendencies whatever; or if
|
||
they have any, they are tendencies that lead downward into
|
||
degradation
|
||
The Socialist Concept of Liberty
|
||
But ought not the people be given a little liberty?
|
||
But Mr. Considerant has assured us that liberty leads
|
||
inevitably to monopoly!
|
||
We understand that liberty means competition. But according
|
||
to Mr. Louis Blanc, competition is a system that ruins the
|
||
businessmen and exterminates the people. It is for this reason
|
||
that free people are ruined and exterminated in proportion to
|
||
their degree of freedom. (Possibly Mr. Louis Blanc should
|
||
observe the results of competition in, for example, Switzerland,
|
||
Holland, England, and the United States.)
|
||
Mr. Louis Blanc also tells us that competition leads to
|
||
monopoly. And by the same reasoning, he thus informs us that
|
||
low prices lead to high prices; that competition drives production
|
||
to destructive activity; that competition drains away the
|
||
sources of purchasing power; that competition forces an increase
|
||
in production while, at the same time, it forces a decrease in consumption.
|
||
From this, it follows that free people produce for the
|
||
61
|
||
sake of not consuming; that liberty means oppression and madness
|
||
among the people; and that Mr. Louis Blanc absolutely
|
||
must attend to it.
|
||
Socialists Fear All Liberties
|
||
Well, what liberty should the legislators permit people to
|
||
have? Liberty of conscience? (But if this were permitted, we
|
||
would see the people taking this opportunity to become atheists.)
|
||
Then liberty of education? (But parents would pay professors
|
||
to teach their children immorality and falsehoods; besides,
|
||
according to Mr. Thiers, if education were left to national liberty,
|
||
it would cease to be national, and we would be teaching our children
|
||
the ideas of the Turks or Hindus; whereas, thanks to this
|
||
legal despotism over education, our children now have the good
|
||
fortune to be taught the noble ideas of the Romans.)
|
||
Then liberty of labor? (But that would mean competition
|
||
which, in turn, leaves production unconsumed, ruins businessmen,
|
||
and exterminates the people.)
|
||
Perhaps liberty of trade? (But everyone knows—and the
|
||
advocates of protective tariffs have proved over and over again—
|
||
that freedom of trade ruins every person who engages in it, and
|
||
that it is necessary to suppress freedom of trade in order to prosper.)
|
||
Possibly then, liberty of association? (But, according to
|
||
socialist doctrine, true liberty and voluntary association are in
|
||
62
|
||
contradiction to each other, and the purpose of the socialists is to
|
||
suppress liberty of association precisely in order to force people
|
||
to associate together in true liberty.)
|
||
Clearly then, the conscience of the social democrats cannot
|
||
permit persons to have any liberty because they believe that the
|
||
nature of mankind tends always toward every kind of degradation
|
||
and disaster. Thus, of course, the legislators must make
|
||
plans for the people in order to save them from themselves.
|
||
This line of reasoning brings us to a challenging question: If
|
||
people are as incapable, as immoral, and as ignorant as the
|
||
politicians indicate, then why is the right of these same people to
|
||
vote defended with such passionate insistence?
|
||
The Superman Idea
|
||
The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another
|
||
question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I
|
||
know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of
|
||
mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free,
|
||
how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good?
|
||
Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to
|
||
the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are
|
||
made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers
|
||
maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to
|
||
its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are
|
||
so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and
|
||
to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and
|
||
63
|
||
the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and
|
||
virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let
|
||
them show their titles to this superiority.
|
||
They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly
|
||
such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally
|
||
superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in
|
||
demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural
|
||
superiority.
|
||
The Socialists Reject Free Choice
|
||
Please understand that I do not dispute their right to invent
|
||
social combinations, to advertise them, to advocate them, and to
|
||
try them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk. But I
|
||
do dispute their right to impose these plans upon us by law—by
|
||
force—and to compel us to pay for them with our taxes.
|
||
I do not insist that the supporters of these various social
|
||
schools of thought—the Proudhonists, the Cabetists, the Fourierists,
|
||
the Universitarists, and the Protectionists—renounce
|
||
their various ideas. I insist only that they renounce this one idea
|
||
that they have in common: They need only to give up the idea of
|
||
forcing us to acquiesce to their groups and series, their socialized
|
||
projects, their free-credit banks, their Graeco-Roman concept
|
||
of morality, and their commercial regulations. I ask only
|
||
that we be permitted to decide upon these plans for ourselves;
|
||
that we not be forced to accept them, directly or indirectly, if we
|
||
find them to be contrary to our best interests or repugnant to
|
||
our consciences.
|
||
64
|
||
But these organizers desire access to the tax funds and to
|
||
the power of the law in order to carry out their plans. In addition
|
||
to being oppressive and unjust, this desire also implies the fatal
|
||
supposition that the organizer is infallible and mankind is
|
||
incompetent. But, again, if persons are incompetent to judge for
|
||
themselves, then why all this talk about universal suffrage?
|
||
The Cause of French Revolutions
|
||
This contradiction in ideas is, unfortunately but logically,
|
||
reflected in events in France. For example, Frenchmen have led
|
||
all other Europeans in obtaining their rights—or, more accurately,
|
||
their political demands. Yet this fact has in no respect prevented
|
||
us from becoming the most governed, the most regulated,
|
||
the most imposed upon, the most harnessed, and the most
|
||
exploited people in Europe. France also leads all other nations
|
||
as the one where revolutions are constantly to be anticipated.
|
||
And under the circumstances, it is quite natural that this should
|
||
be the case.
|
||
And this will remain the case so long as our politicians continue
|
||
to accept this idea that has been so well expressed by Mr.
|
||
Louis Blanc: “Society receives its momentum from power.” This
|
||
will remain the case so long as human beings with feelings continue
|
||
to remain passive; so long as they consider themselves incapable
|
||
of bettering their prosperity and happiness by their own
|
||
intelligence and heir own energy; so long as they expect everything
|
||
from the law; in short, so long as they imagine that their relationship
|
||
to the state is the same as that of the sheep to the shepherd.
|
||
65
|
||
The Enormous Power of Government
|
||
As long as these ideas prevail, it is clear that the responsibility
|
||
of government is enormous. Good fortune and bad fortune,
|
||
wealth and destitution, equality and inequality, virtue and
|
||
vice—all then depend upon political administration. It is burdened
|
||
with everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything;
|
||
therefore it is responsible for everything.
|
||
If we are fortunate, then government has a claim to our
|
||
gratitude; but if we are unfortunate, then government must bear
|
||
the blame. For are not our persons and property now at the disposal
|
||
of government? Is not the law omnipotent?
|
||
In creating a monopoly of education, the government must
|
||
answer to the hopes of the fathers of families who have thus
|
||
been deprived of their liberty; and if these hopes are shattered,
|
||
whose fault is it?
|
||
In regulating industry, the government has contracted to
|
||
make it prosper; otherwise it is absurd to deprive industry of its
|
||
liberty. And if industry now suffers, whose fault is it?
|
||
In meddling with the balance of trade by playing with tariffs,
|
||
the government thereby contracts to make trade prosper;
|
||
and if this results in destruction instead of prosperity, whose
|
||
fault is it?
|
||
In giving the maritime industries protection in exchange for
|
||
their liberty, the government undertakes to make them profitable;
|
||
and if they become a burden to the taxpayers, whose fault
|
||
is it?
|
||
Thus there is not a grievance in the nation for which the
|
||
66
|
||
government does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it
|
||
surprising, then, that every failure increases the threat of
|
||
another revolution in France?
|
||
And what remedy is proposed for this? To extend indefinitely
|
||
the domain of the law; that is, the responsibility of government.
|
||
But if the government undertakes to control and to raise
|
||
wages, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to care
|
||
for all who may be in want, and cannot do it; if the government
|
||
undertakes to support all unemployed workers, and cannot do it;
|
||
if the government undertakes to lend interest-free money to all
|
||
borrowers, and cannot do it; if, in these words that we regret to
|
||
say escaped from the pen of Mr. de Lamartine, “The state considers
|
||
that its purpose is to enlighten, to develop, to enlarge, to
|
||
strengthen, to spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the people”—
|
||
and if the government cannot do all of these things, what
|
||
then? Is it not certain that after every government failure—
|
||
which, alas! is more than probable—there will be an equally
|
||
inevitable revolution?
|
||
Politics and Economics
|
||
[Now let us return to a subject that was briefly discussed in
|
||
the opening pages of this thesis: the relationship of economics
|
||
and of politics—political economy.*]
|
||
67
|
||
*Translator’s note: Mr. Bastiat has devoted three other books and several
|
||
articles to the development of the ideas contained in the three sentences of the
|
||
following paragraph.
|
||
A science of economics must be developed before a science
|
||
of politics can be logically formulated. Essentially, economics is
|
||
the science of determining whether the interests of human
|
||
beings are harmonious or antagonistic. This must be known
|
||
before a science of politics can be formulated to determine the
|
||
proper functions of government.
|
||
Immediately following the development of a science of
|
||
economics, and at the very beginning of the formulation of a science
|
||
of politics, this all-important question must be answered:
|
||
What is law? What ought it to be? What is its scope; its limits?
|
||
Logically, at what point do the just powers of the legislator stop?
|
||
I do not hesitate to answer: Law is the common force organized
|
||
to act as an obstacle to injustice. In short, law is justice.
|
||
Proper Legislative Functions
|
||
It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our
|
||
persons and property. The existence of persons and property
|
||
preceded the existence of the legislator, and his function is only
|
||
to guarantee their safety.
|
||
It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our consciences,
|
||
our ideas, our wills, our education, our opinions, our
|
||
work, our trade, our talents, or our pleasures. The function of
|
||
law is to protect the free exercise of these rights, and to prevent
|
||
any person from interfering with the free exercise of these same
|
||
rights by any other person.
|
||
Since law necessarily requires the support of force, its law-
|
||
68
|
||
ful domain is only in the areas where the use of force is necessary.
|
||
This is justice.
|
||
Every individual has the right to use force for lawful selfdefense.
|
||
It is for this reason that the collective force—which is
|
||
only the organized combination of the individual forces—may
|
||
lawfully be used for the same purpose; and it cannot be used
|
||
legitimately for any other purpose.
|
||
Law is solely the organization of the individual right of selfdefense
|
||
which existed before law was formalized. Law is justice.
|
||
Law and Charity Are Not the Same
|
||
The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder
|
||
them of their property, even though the law may be acting in
|
||
a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect persons and property.
|
||
Furthermore, it must not be said that the law may be philanthropic
|
||
if, in the process, it refrains from oppressing persons
|
||
and plundering them of their property; this would be a contradiction.
|
||
The law cannot avoid having an effect upon persons and
|
||
property; and if the law acts in any manner except to protect
|
||
them, its actions then necessarily violate the liberty of persons
|
||
and their right to own property.
|
||
The law is justice—simple and clear, precise and bounded.
|
||
Every eye can see it, and every mind can grasp it; for justice is
|
||
measurable, immutable, and unchangeable. Justice is neither
|
||
more than this nor less than this.
|
||
69
|
||
If you exceed this proper limit—if you attempt to make the
|
||
law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, literary,
|
||
or artistic—you will then be lost in an uncharted territory,
|
||
in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse,
|
||
in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and
|
||
impose it upon you. This is true because fraternity and philanthropy,
|
||
unlike justice, do not have precise limits. Once started,
|
||
where will you stop? And where will the law stop itself?
|
||
The High Road to Communism
|
||
Mr. de Saint-Cricq would extend his philanthropy only to
|
||
some of the industrial groups; he would demand that the law
|
||
control the consumers to benefit the producers.
|
||
Mr. Considerant would sponsor the cause of the labor
|
||
groups; he would use the law to secure for them a guaranteed
|
||
minimum of clothing, housing, food, and all other necessities of
|
||
life.
|
||
Mr. Louis Blanc would say—and with reason—that these
|
||
minimum guarantees are merely the beginning of complete fraternity;
|
||
he would say that the law should give tools of production
|
||
and free education to all working people.
|
||
Another person would observe that this arrangement would
|
||
still leave room for inequality; he would claim that the law
|
||
should give to everyone—even in the most inaccessible hamlet—
|
||
luxury, literature, and art.
|
||
All of these proposals are the high road to communism; leg-
|
||
70
|
||
islation will then be—in fact, it already is—the battlefield for the
|
||
fantasies and greed of everyone.
|
||
The Basis for Stable Government
|
||
Law is justice. In this proposition a simple and enduring
|
||
government can be conceived. And I defy anyone to say how
|
||
even the thought of revolution, of insurrection, of the slightest
|
||
uprising could arise against a government whose organized force
|
||
was confined only to suppressing injustice.
|
||
Under such a regime, there would be the most prosperity—
|
||
and it would be the most equally distributed. As for the sufferings
|
||
that are inseparable from humanity, none would even
|
||
think of blaming the government for them. This is true because,
|
||
if the force of government were limited to suppressing injustice,
|
||
then government would be as innocent of these sufferings as it is
|
||
now innocent of changes in the temperature.
|
||
As proof of this statement, consider this question: Have the
|
||
people ever been known to rise against the Court of Appeals, or
|
||
mob a Justice of the Peace, in order to get higher wages, free
|
||
credit, tools of production, favorable tariffs, or government-created
|
||
jobs? Everyone knows perfectly well that such matters are
|
||
not within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals or a Justice of
|
||
the Peace. And if government were limited to its proper functions,
|
||
everyone would soon learn that these matters are not
|
||
within the jurisdiction of the law itself.
|
||
But make the laws upon the principle of fraternity—pro-
|
||
71
|
||
claim that all good, and all bad, stem from the law; that the law
|
||
is responsible for all individual misfortunes and all social
|
||
inequalities—then the door is open to an endless succession of
|
||
complaints, irritations, troubles, and revolutions.
|
||
Justice Means Equal Rights
|
||
Law is justice. And it would indeed be strange if law could
|
||
properly be anything else! Is not justice right? Are not rights
|
||
equal? By what right does the law force me to conform to the
|
||
social plans of Mr. Mimerel, Mr. de Melun, Mr. Thiers, or Mr.
|
||
Louis Blanc? If the law has a moral right to do this, why does it
|
||
not, then, force these gentlemen to submit to my plans? Is it logical
|
||
to suppose that nature has not given me sufficient imagination
|
||
to dream up a utopia also? Should the law choose one fantasy
|
||
among many, and put the organized force of government at
|
||
its service only?
|
||
Law is justice. And let it not be said—as it continually is
|
||
said—that under this concept, the law would be atheistic, individualistic,
|
||
and heartless; that it would make mankind in its own
|
||
image. This is an absurd conclusion, worthy only of those worshippers
|
||
of government who believe that the law is mankind.
|
||
Nonsense! Do those worshippers of government believe
|
||
that free persons will cease to act? Does it follow that if we
|
||
receive no energy from the law, we shall receive no energy at
|
||
all? Does it follow that if the law is restricted to the function of
|
||
protecting the free use of our faculties, we will be unable to use
|
||
our faculties? Suppose that the law does not force us to follow
|
||
72
|
||
certain forms of religion, or systems of association, or methods
|
||
of education, or regulations of labor, or regulations of trade, or
|
||
plans for charity; does it then follow that we shall eagerly
|
||
plunge into atheism, hermitary, ignorance, misery, and greed?
|
||
If we are free, does it follow that we shall no longer recognize
|
||
the power and goodness of God? Does it follow that we shall
|
||
then cease to associate with each other, to help each other, to
|
||
love and succor our unfortunate brothers, to study the secrets
|
||
of nature, and to strive to improve ourselves to the best of our
|
||
abilities?
|
||
The Path to Dignity and Progress
|
||
Law is Justice. And it is under the law of justice—under the
|
||
reign of right; under the influence of liberty, safety, stability, and
|
||
responsibility—that every person will attain his real worth and
|
||
the true dignity of his being. It is only under this law of justice
|
||
that mankind will achieve slowly, no doubt, but certainly—God’s
|
||
design for the orderly and peaceful progress of humanity.
|
||
It seems to me that this is theoretically right, for whatever
|
||
the question under discussion—whether religious, philosophical,
|
||
political, or economic; whether it concerns prosperity,
|
||
morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, cooperation,
|
||
property, labor, trade, capital, wages, taxes, population,
|
||
finance, or government—at whatever point on the scientific
|
||
horizon I begin my researches, I invariably reach this one conclusion:
|
||
The solution to the problems of human relationships is
|
||
to be found in liberty.
|
||
73
|
||
Proof of an Idea
|
||
And does not experience prove this? Look at the entire
|
||
world. Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most
|
||
moral, and the happiest people? Those people are found in the
|
||
countries where the law least interferes with private affairs;
|
||
where government is least felt; where the individual has the
|
||
greatest scope, and free opinion the greatest influence; where
|
||
administrative powers are fewest and simplest; where taxes are
|
||
lightest and most nearly equal, and popular discontent the least
|
||
excited and the least justifiable; where individuals and groups
|
||
most actively assume their responsibilities, and, consequently,
|
||
where the morals of admittedly imperfect human beings are constantly
|
||
improving; where trade, assemblies, and associations are
|
||
the least restricted; where labor, capital, and populations suffer
|
||
the fewest forced displacements; where mankind most nearly follows
|
||
its own natural inclinations; where the inventions of men are
|
||
most nearly in harmony with the laws of God; in short, the happiest,
|
||
most moral, and most peaceful people are those who most
|
||
nearly follow this principle: Although mankind is not perfect,
|
||
still, all hope rests upon the free and voluntary actions of persons
|
||
within the limits of right; law or force is to be used for nothing
|
||
except the administration of universal justice.
|
||
The Desire to Rule over Others
|
||
This must be said: There are too many “great” men in the
|
||
world—legislators, organizers, do-gooders, leaders of the peo-
|
||
74
|
||
ple, fathers of nations, and so on, and so on. Too many persons
|
||
place themselves above mankind; they make a career of organizing
|
||
it, patronizing it, and ruling it.
|
||
Now someone will say: “You yourself are doing this very
|
||
thing.”
|
||
True. But it must be admitted that I act in an entirely different
|
||
sense; if I have joined the ranks of the reformers, it is
|
||
solely for the purpose of persuading them to leave people alone.
|
||
I do not look upon people as Vancauson looked upon his
|
||
automaton. Rather, just as the physiologist accepts the human
|
||
body as it is, so do I accept people as they are. I desire only to
|
||
study and admire.
|
||
My attitude toward all other persons is well illustrated by
|
||
this story from a celebrated traveler: He arrived one day in the
|
||
midst of a tribe of savages, where a child had just been born. A
|
||
crowd of soothsayers, magicians, and quacks—armed with rings,
|
||
hooks, and cords—surrounded it. One said: “This child will
|
||
never smell the perfume of a peace-pipe unless I stretch his nostrils.”
|
||
Another said: “He will never be able to hear unless I draw
|
||
his ear-lobes down to his shoulders.” A third said: “He will never
|
||
see the sunshine unless I slant his eyes.” Another said: “He will
|
||
never stand upright unless I bend his legs.” A fifth said: “He will
|
||
never learn to think unless I flatten his skull.”
|
||
“Stop,” cried the traveler. “What God does is well done. Do
|
||
not claim to know more than He. God has given organs to this
|
||
frail creature; let them develop and grow strong by exercise, use,
|
||
experience, and liberty.”
|
||
75
|
||
Let Us Now Try Liberty
|
||
God has given to men all that is necessary for them to
|
||
accomplish their destinies. He has provided a social form as well
|
||
as a human form. And these social organs of persons are so constituted
|
||
that they will develop themselves harmoniously in the
|
||
clean air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organizers!
|
||
Away with their rings, chains, hooks, and pincers! Away with
|
||
their artificial systems! Away with the whims of governmental
|
||
administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization,
|
||
their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their
|
||
free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their
|
||
restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!
|
||
And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely
|
||
inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end
|
||
where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and
|
||
try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and
|
||
His works.
|
||
76
|
||
Afterword
|
||
Sheldon Richman
|
||
The state is that great fiction by which everyone
|
||
tries to live at the expense of everyone else.
|
||
—Frederic Bastiat
|
||
Frederic Bastiat holds a special place in the hearts and
|
||
minds of the friends of liberty. There is no mystery here to be
|
||
solved. The key to Bastiat’s appeal is the integrity and elegance of
|
||
his message. His writing exhibits a purity and a reasoned passion
|
||
that are rare in the modern world. He always wrote to be understood,
|
||
to persuade, not to impress or to obfuscate.
|
||
Through the device of the fable, Bastiat deftly shattered the
|
||
misconceptions about economics for his French contemporaries.
|
||
When today, in modern America, we continue to be told,
|
||
by intellectuals as well as by politicians, that the free entry of
|
||
foreign-made products impoverishes us or that destructive
|
||
earthquakes and hurricanes create prosperity by creating
|
||
demand for rebuilding, we are seeing the results of a culture
|
||
ignorant of Frederic Bastiat.
|
||
But to think of Bastiat as just an economist is to insufficiently
|
||
appreciate him. Bastiat was a legal philosopher of the
|
||
first rank. What made him so is The Law. Writing as France was
|
||
being seduced by the false promises of socialism, Bastiat was
|
||
77
|
||
Sheldon Richman is editor of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty.
|
||
concerned with law in the classical sense; he directs his reason to
|
||
the discovery of the principles of social organization best suited
|
||
to human beings.
|
||
He begins by recognizing that individuals must act to maintain
|
||
their lives. They do so by applying their faculties to the natural
|
||
world and transforming its components into useful products.
|
||
“Life, faculties, production—in other words, individuality,
|
||
liberty, property—this is man,” Bastiat writes. And since they are
|
||
at the very core of human nature, they “precede all human legislation,
|
||
and are superior to it.” Too few people understand that
|
||
point. Legal positivism, the notion that there is no right and
|
||
wrong prior to the enactment of legislation, sadly afflicts even
|
||
some advocates of individual liberty (the utilitarian descendants
|
||
of Bentham, for example). But, Bastiat reminds us, “Life, liberty,
|
||
and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the
|
||
contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed
|
||
beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”
|
||
For Bastiat, law is a negative. He agreed with a friend who
|
||
pointed out that it is imprecise to say that law should create justice.
|
||
In truth, the law should prevent injustice. “Justice is
|
||
achieved only when injustice is absent.” That may strike some
|
||
readers as dubious. But on reflection, one can see that a free and
|
||
just society is what results when forcible intervention against
|
||
individuals does not occur; when they are left alone.
|
||
The purpose of law is the defense of life, liberty, and property.
|
||
It is, says Bastiat, “the collective organization of the individual
|
||
right of lawful defense.” Each individual has the right to
|
||
defend his life, liberty, and property. A group of individuals,
|
||
78
|
||
therefore, may be said to have “collective right” to pool their
|
||
resources to defend themselves. “Thus the principle of collective
|
||
right—its reason for existing, its lawfulness—is based on individual
|
||
right. And this common force that protects this collective
|
||
right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission
|
||
than that for which it acts as a substitute.” If the very purpose
|
||
of law is the protection of individual rights, then law may not
|
||
be used—without contradiction—to accomplish what individuals
|
||
have no right to do. “Such a perversion of force would be . . . contrary
|
||
to our premise.” The result would be unlawful law.
|
||
A society based on a proper conception of law would be
|
||
orderly and prosperous. But unfortunately, some will choose
|
||
plunder over production if the former requires less effort than
|
||
the latter. A grave danger arises when the class of people who
|
||
make the law (legislation) turns to plunder. The result, Bastiat
|
||
writes, is “lawful plunder.” At first, only the small group of lawmakers
|
||
practices legal plunder. But that may set in motion a
|
||
process in which the plundered classes, rather than seeking to
|
||
abolish the perversion of law, instead strive to get in on it. “It is
|
||
as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for
|
||
everyone to suffer a cruel retribution—some for their evilness,
|
||
and some for their lack of understanding.”
|
||
The result of generalized legal plunder is moral chaos precisely
|
||
because law and morality have been set at odds. “When
|
||
law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel
|
||
alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect
|
||
for the law.” Bastiat points out that for many people, what is legal
|
||
is legitimate. So they are plunged into confusion. And conflict.
|
||
79
|
||
As long as it is admitted that the law may be
|
||
diverted from its true purpose—that it may violate
|
||
property instead of protecting it—then everyone will
|
||
want to participate in making the law, either to protect
|
||
himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political
|
||
questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and
|
||
all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the
|
||
Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no
|
||
less furious.
|
||
Sound familiar?
|
||
Bastiat finds another motive—besides the desire for booty—
|
||
behind legal plunder: “false philanthropy.” Again, he sees a contradiction.
|
||
If philanthropy is not voluntary, it destroys liberty and
|
||
justice. The law can give nothing that has not first been taken
|
||
from its owner. He applies that analysis to all forms of government
|
||
intervention, from tariffs to so-called public education.
|
||
Bastiat’s words are as fresh as if they were written today. He
|
||
explains that one can identify legal plunder by looking for laws
|
||
that authorize that one person’s property be given to someone
|
||
else. Such laws should be abolished “without delay.” But, he
|
||
warns, “the person who profits from such law will complain bitterly,
|
||
defending his acquired rights,” his entitlements. Bastiat’s
|
||
advice is direct: “Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests.
|
||
The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder
|
||
into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-
|
||
day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the
|
||
expense of everyone else.”
|
||
80
|
||
The world view that underlies the distortion of law, Bastiat
|
||
writes, holds man as a passive entity, lacking a motor of his own
|
||
and awaiting the hand and plan of the wise legislator. He quotes
|
||
Rousseau: “The legislator is the mechanic who invents the
|
||
machine.” Saint-Just: “The legislator commands the future. It is
|
||
for him to will the good of mankind. It is for him to make men
|
||
what he wills them to be.” And the razor-sharp Robespierre:
|
||
“The function of government is to direct the physical and moral
|
||
powers of the nation toward the end for which the commonwealth
|
||
has come into being.”
|
||
Bastiat echoes Adam Smith’s condemnation of the “man of
|
||
system,” who sees people as mere pieces to be moved about a
|
||
chessboard. To accomplish his objectives, the legislator must
|
||
stamp out human differences, for they impede the plan. Forced
|
||
conformity (is there any other kind?) is the order of the day. Bastiat
|
||
quotes several writers in this vein, then replies:
|
||
Oh, sublime writers! Please remember sometimes
|
||
that this clay, this sand, and this manure which
|
||
you so arbitrarily dispose of, are men! They are your
|
||
equals! They are intelligent and free human beings
|
||
like yourselves! As you have, they too have received
|
||
from God the faculty to observe, to plan ahead, to
|
||
think, and to judge for themselves!
|
||
After quoting several of those writers who are so willing to
|
||
devote themselves to reinventing people, Bastiat can no longer
|
||
control his outrage: “Ah, you miserable creatures! You think you
|
||
are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who
|
||
81
|
||
wish to reform everything! Why don’t you reform yourselves?
|
||
That would be sufficient enough.”
|
||
Nor does Bastiat allow unrestrained democracy to escape
|
||
his grasp. With his usual elegance, he goes right to the core of
|
||
the issue. The democrat hails the people’s wisdom. In what does
|
||
that wisdom consist? The ability to pick all-powerful legislators—
|
||
and that is all. “The people who, during the election, were
|
||
so wise, so moral, so perfect, now have no tendencies whatever;
|
||
or if they have any, they are tendencies that lead downward to
|
||
degradation. . . . If people are as incapable, as immoral, and as
|
||
ignorant as the politicians indicate, then why is the right of these
|
||
same people to vote defended with such passionate insistence?”
|
||
And “if the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is
|
||
not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies
|
||
of these organizers are always good?”
|
||
Bastiat closes his volume with a clarion call for freedom and
|
||
a rejection of all proposals to impose unnatural social arrangements
|
||
on people. He implores all “legislators and do-gooders
|
||
[to] reject all systems, and try liberty.”
|
||
In the years since The Law was first published, little has
|
||
been written in the classical liberal tradition that can approach
|
||
its purity, its power, its nearly poetic quality. Alas, the world is far
|
||
from having learned the lessons of The Law. Bastiat would be
|
||
saddened by what America has become. He warned us. He identified
|
||
the principles indispensable for proper human society and
|
||
made them accessible to all. In the struggle to end the legalized
|
||
plunder of statism and to defend individual liberty, how much
|
||
more could be asked of one man?
|
||
82
|
||
Athens, 40
|
||
Blanc, Louis, 57–58, 61, 65, 70, 72
|
||
Bossuet, Jacques-Benigne, 33–35, 38
|
||
Capital, 4
|
||
Charity, 27, 69
|
||
Choice, freedom of, 64
|
||
Communism, 23, 70
|
||
Competition, 61
|
||
Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de, 49, 50
|
||
Conformity, 45
|
||
Democracy and/or democrats, 42,
|
||
59–60, 63
|
||
Despotism, 51, 56, 61
|
||
Dictatorship, 49, 53, 54, 55
|
||
Dignity, 73
|
||
Economics, 51, 59, 61, 62, 66, 67–68
|
||
Education, 18, 24, 27, 28, 29, 32, 34,
|
||
62, 67
|
||
Egyptians, 33–38, 50
|
||
Equality, 48, 66, 72
|
||
Excluded classes, 13–14
|
||
Fenelon, Francois de Salignac,
|
||
36–38, 56
|
||
Fraternity, 21, 29, 71
|
||
Free choice, 64
|
||
French Revolution, 65
|
||
February Revolution of
|
||
1848, 16
|
||
Government
|
||
force, 33, 64
|
||
functions, 1, 2, 3
|
||
power, 66
|
||
stability, 71
|
||
Greed, 5, 22, 71
|
||
Greeks, 11, 35, 50
|
||
History, 5, 6, 33
|
||
Individualism, 29
|
||
Industry, 66
|
||
Inequality, 27
|
||
Injustice, 7, 8, 15, 23, 25, 26, 27
|
||
Justice, 8–9, 19, 20–21, 22, 24–25,
|
||
26, 29, 71, 72, 74
|
||
83
|
||
Index
|
||
Labor, 3, 6, 24, 33, 62
|
||
Law
|
||
consequences, 8
|
||
defined, 2, 3, 20
|
||
force, 24–25
|
||
functions, 20, 68
|
||
morality and, 8
|
||
negative concept, 25
|
||
perversion of, 4, 7, 8, 14, 20
|
||
proper legislative functions, 68–69
|
||
Legislation, 7
|
||
Legislators, 32–33, 43, 45, 46–47,
|
||
59–61, 62–64, 68, 74, 76
|
||
Liberty, 21, 25, 51, 58, 59, 61–63, 66,
|
||
73, 75, 76
|
||
Living at the expense of others, 5
|
||
Lycurgus, 40, 41, 45, 49
|
||
Mably, Gabriel Bonnot de, 48, 49,
|
||
54, 56
|
||
Mentor, 37–39
|
||
Minimum wages, 18
|
||
Monopoly, 9, 10, 61, 66, 76
|
||
Montalembert, Charles, Comte de,
|
||
15–19
|
||
Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat,
|
||
39, 42, 56
|
||
Morality, 6, 8, 9, 23, 28, 55
|
||
Napoleon I, 56–57
|
||
Non-conformists, 9
|
||
Paraguay, 41
|
||
Paternalism, 34, 50
|
||
Philanthropy, 5, 21, 24, 52, 69, 70
|
||
Plato, 41
|
||
Plunder
|
||
defined, 22
|
||
illegal, 16, 19
|
||
legal, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, 16, 17–20, 22,
|
||
23, 24, 27, 28
|
||
property and, 6, 22
|
||
victims of, 7
|
||
Political science, 9–10
|
||
Politicians, 26, 30
|
||
Politics, 10, 67, 68
|
||
Population, 4
|
||
Poverty, 32
|
||
Power, 7, 58, 59, 66
|
||
Protectionism, 14, 18, 23–24
|
||
Progress, 73
|
||
Property, 1–2, 3, 6, 9, 12, 13, 14–15,
|
||
22, 25, 42, 69, 73
|
||
Regulation, 66
|
||
Relief, 14, 18, 27
|
||
Religion, 24, 28, 29
|
||
Rights
|
||
acquired, 17
|
||
individual, 2, 72
|
||
political, 60
|
||
natural, 2, 3
|
||
Robespierre, Maximilien, 53, 54–56
|
||
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 10, 42–46,
|
||
52, 54, 56
|
||
Saint-Simon, Claude Henri, 57
|
||
Slavery, 5, 15
|
||
Socialism, 16, 18–19, 21, 23, 24, 29,
|
||
58, 61, 62
|
||
84
|
||
Socialists, 19, 28, 30, 31–32, 37, 38,
|
||
45, 49, 53, 62, 64
|
||
Sparta, 40, 44, 50
|
||
Subsidies, 18, 27
|
||
Suffrage, 10, 11, 65
|
||
Superman idea, 63
|
||
Tariffs, 15, 18, 27, 62
|
||
Taxation, 18, 27
|
||
Telemachus (Fenelon), 36
|
||
Trade, 62, 66
|
||
United States, 15
|
||
Utopia of Salentum (Fenelon),
|
||
36
|
||
Virtue, 33, 54
|
||
War, 5
|
||
Writers, 30–31, 51
|
||
85 |