Frederic Bastiat - the Law

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French classical economist, statesman, and author. He did most of his writing during the years before and after the Revolution of February 1848. This was the period when France was rapidly turning to complete socialism. As a Deputy to the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Bastiat was studying and explaining each socialist fallacy as it appeared. And he explained how socialism must inevitably degenerate into communism. But most of his countrymen chose to ignore his logic. The fight against socialism drained Bastiat's already fading energy, and by 1850--a mere six years alter his first published article and only two since his election to the National Assembly--he was on his deathbed. But far from being a flash in the pan, Bastiat's influence reached well beyond his own sphere. Jodie Gilmore, a free glance writer for “The New American,” says that Bastiat’s seven volumes of work (all eminently readable) and his ideas on freedom are as applicable today as they were two centuries ago. The present threat of not just a national dictator, but a global cadre of dictators, under the auspices of the United Nations, should give us pause. We would do well to listen to Bastiat and apply his principles to our own government, before we lose our freedom.

“The Law,” a book presents the situation when France was being seduced by the false promises of socialism in 1848, Bastiat was 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. The same socialist-communist ideas and plans that were then adopted in France are now sweeping America. Some idea could be create a very long time ago and still can be use today but not many of it though; Bastiat’s book is one of the one that we can use today. Reading this book is like reading a book on current events in the United States even though it was written over 150 years ago about France.

Many philosophers have made important contributions to the discourse on liberty, Bastiat among them. But Bastiat's greatest contribution is that he took the discourse out of the ivory tower and made ideas on liberty so clear that even the unlettered can understand them. Like others, Bastiat recognized the greatest single threat to liberty is government.

Law, according to Bastiat, "is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense" (pg. 2). Bastiat starts off saying that the basic gifts man has from God, it exists only to do what individuals have a right to do: protect their persons, their liberties and their properties. Bastiat gave the same rationale for government as did our Founders, saying, "Life, liberty and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it is the fact that life, liberty and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." No finer statements of natural or God-given rights have been made than those found in our Declaration of Independence and “The Law.” The law was created to ensure that individuals in society were allowed to use these gifts. "Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent" (pg. 12).When the law is used for more than these three goals, the law becomes an instrument of injustice. Similar to the use of the law is abused by the greed and false philanthropy of man.

“Legal plunder” is "the state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everyone else" as Frederick Bastiat puts it. He also points out how in the long run “legal plunder” will ruin society. Plunder is easier than labor and can easily become a tool of those who make the laws to make life easier for them. When law uses plunder, all classes of people attempt to enter into the making of laws to get their piece of the pie. It's legalized plunder when people use government, such as our Congress, to do the same thing. It is very tempting for those who make laws to use the law to plunder. Bastiat says "legal plunder" is to use the law to take property, which if was done without the benefit of the law would have been considered a crime.

Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates