The Law

This classic commentary on European Law, especially in France, after the French Revolution had destroyed an oppressive monarchy and the country was faced with another oppressive regime. This little book is an acid commentary on law disguised as social and economic oppression, which in a few years produced another critic of law under royal and aristocratic rule: the founding handbook of Austrian Economics: Carl Mengers Principles of Economics. The mistaken impression is given by the advocates of Austrian Economics that Bastiets The Law is a protest against the State in any form, including the government of the United States and other forms of democratic government. But it is well known that Bastiet admired the government of the United States and praised it for its just laws (except for slavery) and its concern for human rights, including economic rights. The book offers nothing significant in economics, even though advocates of Austrian Economics claim that Bastiets critique of Law would apply to certain laws of the United States. His work is directed to laws under a monarchy, in which laws favor the aristocracy. There is every evidence that he would be quite comfortable in a government of the people, by the prople and for the people. The Foreward to the book by Thomas DiLorenzo is not only deceptive, but positively erroneous. The Foreward is really a diatribe against what the Dilorenzo calls statism, and it is clear that his words are directed at the Congress of the United States, which makes the laws of this country. He hints that the government of the United States is a collectivity, which is another name for Socialism. That certainly was not the view of Frederic Bastiet. Bastiets most virulent accusations are not directed at Thomas Jefferson, the Congress of the United States or the Attorney-General,but against Saint-Just, Robespierre, Lapellitier, all associated with the Reign of Terror that followed the French Revolution. These set up a system of legal plunder and an autocracy that sent ordinary citizens to the guillotine. DiLorenzo gives the impression that Bastiets The Law is directed at the government and laws of the United States. No one could really object to the book as it stands, but its publication by the Ludwig von Mises Institute makes clear the intent of its publication: it is part of a campaign on the part of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the Acton Institute and the devotees of Austrian Economics to place the economy of the United States solely in the hands of entrepreneurs, unmindful of the fact that it was Entrepreneurs who created slavery, child labor, and other social injustices in this country and were put out of business by Supreme Court decisions in Muller v. Oregon(workers rights), United States v. the Darby Lumber Company(child labor), and Brown v. Board of Education(segregation), and laws that followed upon those Supreme Court decisions - - like the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bastiets descripion of Law in the last pages of the book is the finest part of the book and it captures in his virile prose what a free government should be. But the Ludwig von Mises Institute does not want the economy of any country regulated by just laws, - - - only by the action and interests of Entrepreneurs. It was to free the economy of the country from an economics decided by Entrpreneurs that this country was founded, and it has taken 200 years to undo the social, economic and political claims forged by several generations of Entrepreneurs, who either created economic monopolies or built their economic advantage on the economic disadvantages of others. The Enron scandal and the Bernie Madoff fiasco are two current examples of a certain kind of Entrepreneurship, but there are others less known that have not hit the headlines. The recent movie The Wolf of Wall Street highlights the methods and intent of entrepreneurship run wild, and how the just laws of a nation safeguard a just economy. The Law is a good book to read, if you ignore the Foreward, which gives the book a twist never intended by its author. One must consult Bastiets Economic Sophisms and his Economic Harmonies to capture his witty and insightful grasp upon the issue of a national economy. His admiration for a government of the people, by the people, and for the people indicates the direction in which his economic genius was going - and certainly not as one of the fathers and founders of a free market economy. Most of his blasts on economic matters came from his exile in England, far from the terror of the Republic of Louis Napolean. Father Clifford Stevens Archdiocese of Omaha

This was recommended by Mark Moss via his YouTube channel, and I must say, that I regret not knowing about this dynamite of a book sooner. Read this, then view the world, knowing why it is, as it is.

Good thought provoking book. Definitely one to have on your bookshelf.

good

This is a short read, written a few hundred years ago, written by a guy who understood the changes he was seeing around him. Unfortunately, those same agents of change are around today. Give a copy of this to a friend who maybe sees the light, but dimly. This pamphlet can fully open his or her eyes.

Bastiat crams a lot of wisdom, logic, and common sense into just fifty-five pages. Don’t let this deter you from reading the book but Bastiat is French and died on Christmas Eve, 1850. Yet his words resonate today. He was a great admirer of America because of its freedom and Constitution and the protection of individual liberties. In the foreword to the book written in 2007 by Loyola College economics professor Thomas J. DiLorenzo, however, Lorenzo speculates how Bastiat would have reacted to America’s Civil War. “It is unlikely that he would have considered the U.S. government’s military invasion of the Southern States in 1861, the killing of some 300,000 citizens, and the bombing, burning, and plundering of the region’s cities, towns, farms, and businesses as being consistent in any way with the protection of lives, liberties, and properties of those citizens as promised by the Declaration of Independence.” Bravo. No political correctness or revisionist history there. DiLorenzo goes on to say, “Anyone who reads this great essay along with other free-market classics, such as Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson and Murray Rothbard’s Power and Market, will possess enough intellectual ammunition to debunk the socialist fantasies of this or any other day.” Nuff said. Maybe I will just add a quote directly from Bastiat. “Nothing can enter the public treasury, in favor of one citizen or one class, but what other citizens and other classes have been forced to send to it.”

The Law is concentrated and opinionated. I throughly enjoyed reading it, even if I disagreed with some of his points (see below). The concepts are simple and elegant, making this an immortal book. However, the values are strongly one-sided, and lacking concrete examples. Read on for my book review. The Law, published in 1850 France, declares the purpose of the law is to protect life, liberty and property. Thus, when the law is used otherwise, it is misused. Frédéric Bastiat calls this “legal plunder.” There are two types of legal plunder. The first type is motivated by “naked greed.” For example, think of lobbying. In theory, lobbying allows direct democratic participation, by you and I. But modern lobbying usually seeks to manipulate the laws to favor selfish economic agendas. Thus, even for-profit businesses are willing to invest in lobbyists. Bastiat says this is an abuse of the law. Modern economists agree, calling this “rent-seeking,” causing “deadweight-losses” and “opportunity-costs.” Indeed, very few support the commodification of politics. However, most support laws that are philanthropic, and for good reason. They believe the government has a duty to provide education, welfare and food stamps. Bastiat disagrees. The second type of legal plunder is motivated by “misconceived philanthropy.” Although pursued with good motives, Bastiat says that philanthropy and justice are mutually exclusive ends of the law. They “contradict each other,” because misplaced philanthropy necessarily infringes on inalienable rights. Bastiat would probably agree that taxation for police and court systems are acceptable, because they exist to protect our rights. Nevertheless, he reaches the extreme conclusion that education should not be provided by the state! Our automatic tendency is to reject him as ridiculous. But ignore that tendency for a moment, and consider Bastiat’s point: if you are against corn subsidies, does that mean you are against affordable food? No. Just because Bastiat is against public education, does not mean he is against education. Bastiat overlooks practical considerations by focusing on theory. If education was not funded by taxpayers, would private education alone be sufficient? I could imagine the free markets organizing more efficient school systems than the government. But I can also imagine illiteracy, crime and child labor rates increasing. It’s not even clear that taxpayers would would save money. That being said, I wonder if Bastiat rewrote the book today, if he would have reached a different conclusion. Today we consider education to be a human right. And remember, when this book was published, education was much less important in society. Although Bastiat is obviously educated, articulate and well-read, the language he chooses is too absolute for compromise. Even though conflicting with modern conceptions of government. Bastiat gives us a simple formula to identify legal plunder. Ask, “if a private citizen did what the government is doing, would it still be legal?” For example, it’s illegal to steal, even to donate the stolen property to the Salvation Army. Therefore, taxation is a type of systematic stealing. Bastiat quotes a few writers at length, including Rousseau. He criticizes them for proposing systems of government that treat humans like manipulable matter. Bastiat decries the superimposition of materialism and political science. He defends human dignity. He says that human rights precede the law, and not vice versa. Finally, Bastiat reminds us, “the safest way to make [the laws] respected is to make them respectable.” We sometimes forget that the laws crumble in revolutions. If people do not respect the laws, they have no power. Even force cannot prop up oppressive laws, as France witnessed in their bloody revolution. Bastiat seems to think the proper role of the law is what the common-law courts do, not the legislature. The courts enforce rights and prevent injustice. The legislature is officious and political. For me, the word “politician” implies flip-flopping and filibusters. Bastiat wrote during a transition. Europe was shedding its monarchies, and replacing them with legislatures. Bastiat realized that dictatorships do not require kings, because the laws can serve the same purpose. The law is always chosen by a few, and those few should not “regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments.” According to him, the happiest, safest societies are the freest ones.

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.

Fast Delivery!! Great quality overall.

Although written in 1850, the principles of freedom from government intrusion into our lives, could not be more appropriate in todays world. Mr. Bastiat elucidates, in 75 pages, his concept of the over-reach of the Socialist style of government, by creating laws which actually limit our rights to free expression. This short treatise should be read and reread by every citizen, and taught in history classes throughout the world. It tells in simple terms, how the government systematically erodes freedoms, and makes the populace dependent upon it for its power over its citizenry. The concept of ominous parallels in our world today, could not be more appropriate and critical to understand. The principles are great ammunition for those who wish to preserve the freedoms our forefathers fought for to bring us.