The Law

Is the law a sword or a shield? What is the limiting principle of Government? Bastiat considers these weighty topics and presents the views of many other great thinkers thoughtfully and concisely. Easy read yet extremely thought provoking. Highly recommend for everyone.

Frederick Bastiat was a French Farmer in the first half of the 19th century who watched his countrys government assume more and more power. That is what I thought made this book unique - In the first paragraph, he states his intent of the book to be an alert to his countrymen - which is probably why the book is so emotional as well as succinct. Bastiat manages to describe the purpose of law, from a religious standpoint, in the first 3-4 pages. The rest of the book is mostly specific details of how his description of the proper purpose of the law has been thwarted in France in 1850. Many of the same principals apply today. For three bucks and an hour of your time, this book is guaranteed to engage you and make you think. In my experience, its ability to persuade people is uncanny.

Was a bit wordy but was able to pick out the important parts. Very interesting information and when compared to what is happening today it is easy to see how the LAW has been used to suppress and corrupt our lives rather than support us the way it should. Marked sections to review for further comparison to things in the News today.

The most important idea I took from this book was the potential for a repeating cycle of intervention and coercion which follows the first attempt to improve a specific market. Once it begins, all parties it effects want their own improvements. At least on the surface you cant deny the truth of this in todays U.S. markets. Law does not create wealth, it may only redistribute...this is made very clear by the author. Consider this when thinking of price manipulations (tariffs, subsidies...etc.); who is really benefitting from this? Is it the consumer? This book is not a book on economics but a book on political inefficiencies and failures. Its a very quick read (likely just needs a few dedicated hours). I highly recommend it as an introduction to the logical way to think of politics and the role of government.

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 aquired rights. .... The present day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it. Frederick Bastiat, The Law Profound words from a man who died in the 1850s. The Law remains one of the classics of its age for a reason. People and human nature remain the same, and men are always looking for benefits they didnt work for at the expense of another. Hence the hall mark of socialism is that it steals from one and gives to another. When an individual researches the topic honestly they soon discover this truth: Socialism in any form will always degrade into tyranny and the loss of liberty. Many socialists have nothing but good intentions (Bastiat makes this clear). However, it is important that intentions are only good for the intent of the person, and are absolutely no guarantee for truth. Bastiats common sense and precise logic reveal to his audience what socialism really is. Unmasked are all the twisted logic and slight of hand. In the end anyone who reads this with a pure heart will understand socialism, and why its a poisonous coctail to liberty.

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.

My husband is very pleased with this book.

Bastiat is a magnificent thinker and writer. His ideas about the role of law and law as the protection against plundering by some against others, and the perversion of law to aid the powerful at the expense of the less powerful, are timeless. He wrote around the time of the 1848 French Revolution and was personally in the thick of it as an elected official, and passionately interested in persuading his fellow countrymen not to pursue self-defeating economic policies such as trade tariffs, monopolies and misguided government “philanthropy” — all of which he argues — successfully in my view— to be unjust to society in general. His fear, he writes, is that the revolutionaries were itching to sock it to the people they saw as socking it to them, and in the process of doing so would repeat the same mistakes as the government they were ousting, and thus set the stage for the next revolution, ad infinitum.

One of the best books I ever read. Bastiat is a sheer genius! We have been swindled, our liberties have been chipped away and our freedom has been usurped by the government that in the name of justice robs the talented and just, creates a huge spread for itself and gives a few morsels here and there to the dumb, lazy and degenerate mob which by default is just as unjust as the government as it contributes to this very robbery by electing the government into the public office. And this entire enterprise is backboned on the pseudo-academia - the basket-weaving Ph.D.s of the basket-weaving universities who day after day crank out a study after as study to provide theoretical support for this mass injustice. On behalf of the American nation, I would like to thank everyone that participated in publishing this amazing book. P.S. I would also highly recommend the following books: 1. Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman 2. Freedom and Prosperity in the 21st Century by George Stasen and Zviad Kliment Lazarashvili 3. The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek 4. Liberalism by Ludwig von Mises 5. American Heroes by Zviad Kliment Lazarashvili