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    The Law
    The Law
    The Law
    Ebook66 pages1 hour

    The Law

    By Frédéric Bastiat

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    The Law was originally published as a pamphlet in 1850 by Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850). Bastiat wrote most of his work in the few years before and after the French Revolution of 1848. The Law is considered a classic and his ideas are still relevant today. The essay was published in French in 1850. This piece was published in English as part of E

    LanguageEnglish
    Publisher12th Media Services
    Release dateFeb 3, 2017
    ISBN9781680920208

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    Reviews for The Law

    4.5/5

    202 ratings7 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A sign of the the times in revolutionary France. Ability is everyone’s lot and Bastiat wants the able to remember.
    • 5/5
      Filled to the brim with bright wonderful words. Bastiat is a shining example to all ages. Sets the thinking gears in motion on what are laws, and why do they eist, and what is our relation to them.
    • 2/5
      I was greatly greatly disappointed by this audio book. Like most writings of the 19th century I have read lately, this one was clearly written for an audience with a much larger attention span, and much more educated than the average 21st century American. I felt like Bastiat kept repeating the same thing over and over again. I'm not sure how much of this is true, and how much of this was the fact that I learned this particular MP3 CD exposed a bug in the radio in my VW. At one point, I learned, that my CD starts over at 27 minutes into the track regardless of where it left off. However, the fact it took several ignition cycles for me to figure this out indicates how uninteresting this book was. I had high hopes, I had friends indicate to me that this was the great Catholic Anarchinst novel. Bastiat i wouldn't take to be an anarchist after "reading" this and although he may be a Catholic, he didn't seem to be much of one either. I can some up this whole book as, the law is only valid if it protects individual rights, that what ever other libertarian says, nothing "new" here.
    • 5/5
      One of the fundamental 19th century texts for understanding why communism and socialism are total failures and wholly and irretrievably immoral in application. Bastiat describes the basis for stable government, and explains why liberty is tied to theological, economic, and political ideas.
    • 5/5
      A classic view of politics. This is another book that our current politicians should read carefully. Bastiat was absolutely correct when he said that "Law is justice" and that its primary purpose should be protect rights and not to dictate actions.
    • 4/5
      Bastiat's most important work was probably "The Law." Published in the year of his death, it is a concise formulation of the case for classic liberalism, and a stern warning against the dark clouds of socialism that were descending upon Europe, particularly after the great upheavals of 1848.Bastiat begins by clarifying the proper role of law in an enlightened Liberal society: the preservation of life, liberty, and property:"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."Bastiat explains how the collectivist agitation sweeping Western Europe in the mid nineteenth century sought to use the law for purposes well outside its purview. In a passage that sounds like it was written today, he laments this unfortunate turn of events:"The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating 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."One of the causes of this perversion of the law, says Bastiat, is greed. To satisfy his needs, man must labor. But needs can also be met by resorting to plunder, i.e., appropriating the fruits of someone else's labor. Socialism is nothing but generalized plunder, where groups who feel aggrieved enter the political process with the goal of using the law to steal from those they consider to be their oppressors.What are the consequences of this trend?"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 consciousness the distinction between justice and injustice...The nature of the 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."Bastiat's words bring to mind the contemporary wave of legislation and adjudications in the realm of affirmative action. This is one of our own highly-developed methods of legal plunder, and it has done much to "erase from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice."Taking the perversion of law to its logical extreme, Bastiat declares:"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?"On page after page, Bastiat picks apart socialist ideology, revealing its arrogance and its true intentions. I was particularly struck by the following passage, which carried the heading, "The Socialists Wish 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 defend that the Constituent Assembly give him a small district with all its inhabitants, to try his experiments upon.I conclude with Bastiat's clarion call for classic liberalism:"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..."
    • 3/5
      Bastiat's "La Loi" is undoubtedly an interesting read, for those already of a libertarian-dispostion, and for others curious about the ideas and arguments of those who advocate a limited government. The arguments put across by Bastiat, however, did not win me round to the completely libertarian way of thinking.The book is certainly short, serving more as an introduction to the ideas of liberty, property and the role of government. However, the style the book is written in makes it difficult to pick out some of the more complex arguments, and makes the book quite boring at times. However, it is worth reading as the actual essay is fairly short.

    Book preview

    The Law - Frédéric Bastiat

    The Law

    Frédéric Bastiat

    The essay was published in French in 1850. This piece was published in English as part of Essays on Political Economy (G.P. Putnams & Sons, 1874) with authoritative translation by British economist Patrick James Stirling (1809-1891). Spellings are American English.

    Published by 12th Media Services

    ISBN 978-1-68092-020-8

    The Law

    The law perverted! ¹ The law - and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation - the law, I say, not only diverted from its proper direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law become the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law guilty of that very iniquity which it was its mission to punish! Truly, this is a serious fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to call the attention of my fellow citizens.

    We hold from God the gift which, as far as we are concerned, contains all others, Life - physical, intellectual, and moral life.

    But life cannot support itself. He who has bestowed it, has entrusted us with the care of supporting it, of developing it, and of perfecting it. To that end, He has provided us with a collection of wonderful faculties; He has plunged us into the midst of a variety of elements. It is by the application of our faculties to these elements, that the phenomena of assimilation and of appropriation, by which life pursues the circle which has been assigned to it, are realized.

    Existence, faculties, assimilation - in other words, personality, liberty, property - this is man.

    It is of these three things that it may be said, apart from all demagogue subtlety, that they are anterior and superior to all human legislation.

    It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist beforehand, that men make laws. What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

    Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of which is rendered complete by the others, and cannot be understood without them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our personality? And what is property, but an extension of our faculties?

    If every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, a number of men have the right to combine together, to extend, to organize a common force, to provide regularly for this defense.

    Collective right, then, has its principle, its reason for existing, its lawfulness, in individual right; and the common force cannot rationally have any other end, or any other mission, than that of the isolated forces for which it is substituted. Thus, as the force of an individual cannot lawfully touch the person, the liberty, or the property of another individual - for the same reason, the common force cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individuals or of classes.

    For this perversion of force would be, in one case as in the other, in contradiction to our premises. For who will dare to say that force has been given to us, not to defend our rights, but to annihilate the equal rights of our brethren? And if this be not true of every individual force, acting independently, how can it be true of the collective force, which is only the organized union of isolated forces?

    Nothing, therefore, can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense; it is the substitution of collective for individual forces, for the purpose of acting in the sphere in which they have a right to act, of doing what they have a right to do, to secure persons, liberties, and properties, and to maintain each in its right, so as to cause justice to reign over all.

    And if a people established upon this basis were to exist, it seems to me that order would prevail among them in their acts as well as in their ideas. It seems to me that such a people would have the most simple, the most economical, the least oppressive, the least to be felt, the least responsible, the most just, and, consequently, the most solid Government which could be imagined, whatever its political form might be.

    For, under such an administration, every one would feel that he possessed all the fullness, as well as all the responsibility of his existence. So long as personal safety was ensured, so long as labor was free, and the fruits of labor secured against all unjust attacks, no one would have any difficulties to contend with in the State. When prosperous, we should not, it is true, have to thank

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