The Law

If you believe good law exists only to protect natural rights, and the rest is bad law, youll find little new here except maybe a different approach and some historical perspective. If you have thought (or still think) law is for enforcing rules over natural rights, you should read this book (and others) and reevaluate your view of rights. If your undaunted opinion is that theres no such thing as unregulated rights, Im not sure you can be helped... there are thousands of books supporting all manner of tyrannies you may find more to your taste.

Though not light reading by any means, this essay is something that should be taught in all high school class rooms around America. His point (which is repeated candidly many times) is that Law is there for structure and protection, not to redistribute wealth among social classes. History has shown us that this idea is one that ultimately fails, and this essay by a 19th century Frenchman explains why in broad terms. No matter your personal political views, one should attempt a read of The Law. If nothing else, you can see the other sides perspective.

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 a revolution, of insurrection, of the slightest uprising could arise against a government whose organized force was confined only to suppressing injustice. This, in essence, is Bastiats thesis. Confine the powers of law and government to correcting wrongs against life, liberty and property, and all will be well. Citizens will simply accept that government has no more power to correct social injustice than it has to control the weather. I must confess that I laughed after reading the sentences above. Really? Bastiat imagines that when groups of individuals freely associate and advocate for preferences the government will simply say we have nothing to do with that and the groups will shrug their shoulders and go back home content? I doubt a government like that could last a year; the majority of vested interests in society would have every reason to see it fail. If you wish to look at a contemporary example, take the economic shock therapy approach in Russia where the government attempted to abandon its control over the economy. The result was the rise of an oligarchy, mass political unrest and eventually a return to a strongly authoritarian style of government. The problem with Bastiat is that although he purports to base his arguments on fact and logic, in fact they are based on faith. He acknowledges this in the last section of his essay: 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 or persons are so constituted that they will develop themselves harmoniously in the clear air of liberty ... liberty is an acknowledgement of faith in God and His works. Bastiat is, in reality, tied back to the medieval notion of a universe ordered by God with a single right way to do things, and a simple model of justice that we all supposedly agree on. Like most purveyors of faith, he believes that his is the right way. But the test of any political philosophy is not how good it sounds in theory; it is how well it works in practice. Bastiat spends a great deal of time criticizing various socialist agendas for being utopian. It is fair to ask, then, do Bastiats ideas really work? Is it true, as he argues, that in the kind of state he proposes there would be the most prosperity -- and it would be the most equally distributed with its people the most peaceful, the most moral, and the happiest? Since no nation has seen fit to actually try Bastiats ideas (odd, since they are supposedly so natural, and produce superior results) it is difficult to evaluate these criteria without a Bastiat proponent being able to argue that results are skewed due to improper implementation. What data there is, however, is mostly against Bastiat. According to the World Value Surveys, the worlds happiest country is Denmark (the US ranks 16th), which also enjoys the most equal distribution of wealth. Denmark is a constitutional monarchy with a large welfare state and a mixed-market economy with a high minimum wage and high levels of unemployment compensation. On the other hand, Denmark does have relatively free markets, and competes well internationally, ranking higher on the Heritage Foundations Index of Economic Freedom than the US. It appears that, contrary to Bastiats expectations, economic freedom and social intervention are not mutually incompatible. This is not altogether surprising; both socialism and capitalism have come a long way since 1848. Its not my intention to disparage this book. It is well worth reading. Bastiat is clear and concise, and very readable, especially for his era. There is a lot to like in his defence of liberty and his critique of the socialism of the time is devastating. However, reading the reviews on Amazon make it sound as if Bastiat is some kind of political genius, immune from any problems in his theory. I just want to say do read this book -- it will make you think. But read it with an open and questioning mind.

To the point! Explains the foundation of law that stands today.

The antithesis to Communist Manifesto written the same decade.

It is a wonderful document in history.

Bastiat hit a home run with this excellent book. It should be required reading in every school. Bastiat lays out what liberty and the law means in simple terms. There are few books that are done this well on such an important topic.

This work gives a wonderful insight into the differences between negative (natural) rights, which are to be protected by governments, and positive (economic) rights which are supposedly to be provided by governments. It is in the latter category, in the effort to provide justice, that the law is easily corrupted and perverted by violating the negative rights of some to arbitrarily supply positive rights to others. Some of my favorite passages: ...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. 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. [And this quote perfectly expresses why collectivist and socialist governments DO NOT always have the intended charitable results that are promised, but are often best suited to those (rich or poor) willing to game the system:] When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating.

The law perverted! Yes this books reveals what the law has been made to do. This is an old book but it is very relevant today, as it shows just how far the law has been perverted because of peoples ignorance of it. A must read!

Fast Delivery!! Great quality overall.