The Law

Prescient book for what happened to the U.S. At the time this book was written, the author considered the U.S. one of the most just nations, but he described perfectly what happens, and did happen, when you have an increase in the size of government, and the power of the legislators to legally plunder the citizens through the laws they enact.

Im amazed when I read this type of material that mans inhumanity to man is nothing new. It may change its name or be less or more violent but as humans, we always seem to organize in one of two ways. Those that want to tell others how to live and those that prefer self-direction. Bastiat makes the case that socialism/communism/marxism/statism, whatever you want to call it, has been around well over 200 years now. It hits the same stumbling blocks now as it did then. If youre looking for something that supports the argument that social governance vs. free government is wrong from a historical perspective, youll find some support here.

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.

I think that every tax paying American needs to read this book. Everything bastiat talks about in this book applies to whats happening in America today. Its almost creepy. If you love your liberty and your freedom, you MUST READ THIS BOOK. Based on his assessment of the early 1800s French government, this book describes our current governmant and all of the consequences that we the people will suffer if it continues to expand its size and capabilities while systematicly eliminating our liberty, rights and freedom. I was a little worried before I read The Law. Now im soiling my pants !

Excellent read. The realization that the same political turmoil we are going through now was going on in 19th century France is stunning and Bastiat has a way of laying out the truth unlike any of todays pundits.

This book is an interesting read. It can be little difficult to follow sometimes because of the authors reference to other historical people and economists of the period (1850). The author was French and this book has been translated (quite well, I think). The book is only 88 pages and I got through it in a few hours. Im sure if I were interested, I could have gone more slowly and taken notes or researched the people the author referenced. If you are interested in Libertarian ideas or believe that the government has become too big, powerful and intrusive, you will probably like this book. While Im not a Libertarian, Im a fan of economics and probably lean a little Austrian School and I enjoyed reading this book. Keynesians will probably like this book, Marxists...not so much. I hope this review was useful to you!

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.

Frederic Bastiat makes one infallible argument for the purpose of law and the govts role of enforcing it. Law is Justice! And Justice is not robbing one group of men for the benefit of another such as the laws of Plunder. (tariffs, subsidies, bailouts, corporate or union tax breaks) Law is Justice! Nor is law a way to enforce government driven philanthropy, essentially robbing one man of rightful claim to his own money and give it to another man to which it does not rightfully belong. SOCIALIST PLUNDER! Mr. Bastiat goes on to break down any attempt to justify socialist society or laws and leaves but one clear and well defined role for law that every freedom loving man can praise, that is that LAW IS JUSTICE! Following on with the role of Law is the need to enforce it, which is the very reason for which men make Government. Frederic Bastiat explains the limitations of govt through this very clear role of it. Govt cannot give that which it does not posses. The governments realm is that of justice and you cannot expect it produce prosperity no more than you can expect a carpenter to fix cars or a miner to build houses. The government is to prevent injustice, you cannot expect to build the economy, make men moral, and feed the hungry any more than you can expect to take fire to stone and expect corn to grow. It is not going to happen because it is not its purpose, it is not its role, it is not within its realm of possibility. Mr. Bastiat purposes a society where the economy controls the values of products, the law denies all forms of injustice towards a mans rights and the government is not a bureaucracy of special interest groups to meddle in social and economic affairs. In The Law, Frederic Bastiat defends the principle that the Law is to enforce Justice and the govt is to enforce that just Law.

There are others that can and will write much more intelligent reviews, but Im writing this in support of the book and the ideas in it. To only boost the reviews by a micro fragment. In the United States, we have pastors and religious leaders telling us that we are to obey the laws that the state decrees because it is Gods will. That if man left to his own devices and desires will only seek atheism and destruction. Nothing can be a worse lie. It is the worse lie because it subjects man under other mens desires, making the many individuals of a country lower than the minority - the real inequality. This is cruel. It is the worse lie because it deviates reality that God has appointed and allows a few to override truth to use the force of law to their benefit. This is cruel. Personally, incredibly, at the end of reading this short book, I was not angered at politicians, though they are at the center of this issue. I was angered at so-called church leaders giving lies about what has been established before mans arrival, that is good as declared by the Creator, and calling it evil. They teach this to the masses, who sit in hours upon hours through these contorted messages that believe there is something bigger, better than this docile and passive lifestyle. Sadly, most people will never know that what they know inside of themselves is true. Religious leaders will never allow it. I find myself not wanting to fight against the politics of the day, but the religion that supports the state. Law is justice; it is to protect life, liberty, property. Thats it. To violate any of those is injustice. There is no gray area, no middle ground. Justice or injustice. Religious leaders in their warped mind tell their audience that legal plunder is ordained by God. Legal plunder is an injustice. God did not setup man to be violated by others: Existence, faculties, assimilation - in other words, personality, property - this is man. They perverse the law. They tell people of another religion. That officials that are ordained by God - the enlightened ones - however that occurred so that they have higher elevated thinking nobody knows, are to subject them by force a philanthropic spirit, but really is only their selfish will. So, somehow Gods salvation is not enough that we must play revolution roulette because we allow a group of men to take part in Gods acts. As if, God did not do enough in His decrees that we ought to subject ourselves to another god. Pastors, reverends, priests - most espouse that man needs to have guidelines by the state. Yet, you cant have guidelines by the state and keep liberty; it will all end in destruction, ironically. Yes, what they preach is a violation of what is true, of Gods Law. As Bastiat states: And now, after having vainly inflicted upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to have begun - reject all systems, and try liberty - liberty , which is an act of faith in god and in HIs work.

Frederic Bastiat was a man of my kidney. This is a clear, simple crie de cour from someone who saw the law perverted to an instrument of plunder to almost everyones injury. He is eloquent in his plea for reform. The evil he wants to eradicate is socialism, and its face is all to familiar to readers 150 years after he wrote this powerful critique. Alas, we never learn.