By
Frederic Bastiat
1848
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life –
physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The creator of life has entrusted us
with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order
that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous
faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By
application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into
products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run
its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production - in other words, life, liberty, property - this is
man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts
from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.
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.
What, then is law? It is the collective organization
of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right – from God – to defend his person,
his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life,
and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the
preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of
our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties?
If every person has the right to defend – even by force – his
person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men has
the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights
constantly. Thus the principle of collective right – its reason for
existing, its lawfulness – is based on individual right. And the common
force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other
purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus,
since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or
property of another individual, then the common force – for the same
reason – cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or
property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise.
Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare
to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our
brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to
destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same
principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the
organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the
organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of
a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what
the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect
persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause
justice to reign over us all.
A JUST AND ENDURING GOVERNMENT
If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail
among the people, in thought as well as in deed. It seems to me that such a
nation would have the most simple, easy to accept,
economical, limited, non-oppressive, just, and enduring government imaginable -
whatever its political form might be. Under such an administration, everyone
would understand that he possessed all the privileges as well as all the
responsibilities of his existence. No one would have any argument with government,
provided that his person was respected, his labor was free, and the fruits of
his labor were protected against all unjust attack. When successful, we would
not have to thank the state for our success. And, conversely, when
unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune
than would farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be
felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided by this concept of
government.
It can be further stated that, thanks to the non-intervention of the state in
private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions would develop themselves in
a logical manner. We would not see poor families seeking literary instruction
before they have bread. We would not see cities populated at the expense of
rural districts, nor rural districts at the expense of cities. We would not see
the great displacements of capital, labor, and population that are caused by
legislative decisions.
The sources of our existence are made uncertain and precarious by these
state-created displacements. And, furthermore, these acts burden the government
with increased responsibilities.
THE COMPLETE PERVERSION OF THE LAW
But, unfortunately, law by no means confides itself to its proper functions.
And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in
some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this;
it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to
destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that
it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real
purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal
of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and
property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect
plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish
lawful defense.
How has this perversion of the law been accomplished? And what have been the
results?
The law has been perverted by the influence of two entirely different causes:
stupid greed and false philanthropy. Let us speak of the first.
A FATAL TENDENCY OF MANKIND
Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people.
And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free
disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless,
uninterrupted, and unfailing.
But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can,
they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others. This is no rash
accusation. Nor does it come from a gloomy and uncharitable spirit. The annals
of history bear witness to the truth of it: the incessant wars, mass
migrations, religious persecutions, universal slavery, dishonesty in commerce,
and monopolies. This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man –
in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to
satisfy his desires with the least possible pain.
PROPERTY AND PLUNDER
Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless
application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin
of property.
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and
consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of
plunder.
Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain – and since labor is
pain in itself – it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever
plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these
conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it.
When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more
dangerous than labor.
It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its
collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of work. All
the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder.
But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. And since law
cannot operate without the sanction and support of a dominating force, this
force must be entrusted to those who make the laws.
This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to
satisfy his wants with the least possible effort, explains the almost universal
perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of
checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to
understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees
among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their
liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the
benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power he
holds.
VICTIMS OF LAWFUL PLUNDER
Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when
plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the
plundered classes try somehow to enter – by peaceful or revolutionary
means – into the making of laws. According to their degree of
enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely
different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may
wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the
mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to
make laws!
Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common
practice where the right to participate in the making of a law is limited to a
few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal.
And then, men seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder.
Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make these
injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they
establish a system of reprisals against other classes. They do not abolish
legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they
possess.) Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in
this legal plunder, even though it is against their own interests.
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone
to suffer a cruel retribution – some for their evilness, and some for
their lack of understanding.
THE RESULTS OF LEGAL PLUNDER
It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil
than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would require volumes to
describe them all. Thus we must content ourselves with pointing out the most
striking.
In the first place, it erases from everyone's conscience the distinction
between justice and injustice.
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The
safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and
morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either
losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are
of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between
them.
The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the
minds of the people, law and justice are one and the
same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything
lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have
erroneously held that things are "just" because the law makes them
so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences,
it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery,
restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from
them but also among those who suffer from them.
[NOTE: Because
of length, I must here skip 62 pages of this essay and go to the last section]
LET US NOW TRY
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 of persons are so constituted that they will develop themselves
harmoniously in the clean air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and
organizers! Away with their rings, chains, hooks and pincers! Away with their
artificial systems! Away with the whims of government administrators, their socialized
projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their
state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations,
their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious
moralizations!
And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many
systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May
they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of
faith in God and His works.
[Note: The
preceding essay is taken from "THE LAW" written by Frederic Bastiat (a Frenchman) in 1848. If the world had listened to
him then, there never would have been a Nazi (National Socialist) party or a
Communist party, and the world would have been spared all of the harm which
socialists have caused.]
Recommended
"The
Story Of
“
"Christianity
And The Constitution" – by John Eidsmore
"Faith
And freedom" – by Benjamin Hart
"
"
"Basic
American Government" – by Clarence B. Carson
"Basic
Economics" – by Clarence Carson
"The
Roots of American Order" – by Russell Kirk
"The
Law" – by Frederic Bastiat
"What
Is Seen And Not Seen" – by Frederic Bastiat
"Economics
In One Lesson" – by Henry Hazlitt
"The
Revolution Myth" – by Gene Fisher and Glen Chambers
“The
United States: A Christian Nation” – by David J.
Brewer,
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court