The Law

by Frederic Bastiat

What is the book about as a whole?

The Law is Bastiat’s explanation of what Law is and what it means to respect it.

What is being said?

(It may seem a bit random but this is the way I traced the dialogue with my notes and it makes sense to me this way. If it is too confusing and you would like to talk about it let me know and I’ll gladly have a conversation :D! jparelladac@ufm.edu )

What is Law? Frederick Bastiat asks. asks. It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. The organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. However Bastiat claims that law and its enforcement is something that if you don’t have the right to do it as an individual you don’t have the right to do it collectively.

He brings in the concept of legal plunder which is basically taxation because taxation forces people to pay part of their profits, if they don’t they go to jail. (So through the use of force you are making someone give you their money. What’s the difference with stealing?) It’s called LEGAL plunder because we’ve broadly accepted it as a natural function of Government, and buying into the “Social Contract” theory of Rousseau we believe that it is valid to be forced to pay this.

“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”

“They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.)”

“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”

“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”

Legal plunder and the misuse of the law erases from everyone’s conscience the distinction between justice and injustice.

“But there remains this question of fact: who is capable? Are minors, females, insane persons, and persons who have committed certain major crimes the only ones to be determined incapable?”

“In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organised combination of the individual’s right to self defence; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder – is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?”

Socialism is legal plunder. Change the law but fight it in harmony with the law, with justice and morality. Revolutions are too violent and often bring costly consequences one couldn’t think of, Bastiat claims then that through evolution the law can be modified to better serve its purpose.

A citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free. Enforced Fraternity Destroys Liberty, if you MUST cooperate with someone or else you suffer huge consequences, could you actually call that cooperation? Fraternity must be voluntary.

Bastiat is not attacking the intentions or morality of anyone, but rather an idea and a system. He actually recognizes that there are very well intentioned and morally correct persons who desire such a system, so he believes that the secret (LIKE IN DIALOGUE!) resides in separating the person from the idea and having reason as the authority.

3 Systems of Plunder: Protectionism, Socialism and Communism.

Plunder: When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it – without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud – to anyone who does not own it.

Law: Is not to organize anything else than Justice. It is defensive; defend equally the rights of all.

What is the root of Socialism? (What are the differences between these systems?) General welfare by General Plunder What is protectionism? Restricting access to an industry.

Plundering of rights (take money of some, expand to others. Take liberty from some, expand to others).

Fee vs. Tax?

Tax – Amount paid by some activity so that you can afford the expenses of the state.

Fee – cost of paperwork for transaction.

Buying all the surplus is another way in which government intervenes unjustly (it is unjust because Government is buying the surplus of a specifi business with everyone’s money).

Surplus: An amount of something left over when requirements have been met; an excess of production or supply over demand (If no one buys then the state will buy.)

Progressive taxation: If income increases then the % of taxes also increases.

Socialism confuses government and society.

It’s not about whether we should have education or not, but rather who will provide it and who is more competent to do so and to innovate and provide better.

*I’m happy to hear how everyone is having these awesome conversations in their homes and workplaces outside MPC! (Grace gave an example of how she was telling her younger brother about this).

Isn’t the world that we have today product of anarchism? I mean, just humans let to their own means deciding to rule over each other in different ways.

These ideas come from Classical Education (greeks). The child of classical studies, the mother of socialism.

Rosseau: Transform human nature so that a greater whole can be merged.

Legislator is the source of what is good an desirable in society, and he can implement this.

Legislator needs to realize that he is equal (in the sense of humanly equal) to the people he intends to govern.

Mably – Temporary Dictatorship

Once you decide that the purpose of government is to establish virtue, the method will be terror (use of force). There cannot be another way.

“Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle to injustice.”

“The organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. “

What was most meaningful to me?

At the time we read this book Venezuela was going through a crisis (not that they aren’t anymore but it was much more notable back then). People were out protesting against the regime of the Chavistas (especially against Nicolás Maduro) because of his policies where he started nationalizing more industries, censoring the press, sending in the army to silence the people, and closing on more and more liberties. This was horrible to witness from abroad but seeing it through the spectacles of The Law was a very rewarding experience in the sense that I could identify different factors beyond emotional discontent as to what is wrong in Venezuela and the consequences of having “just a little bit” of legal plunder in the beginning. You could see how the phrase that “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” applied to so many individuals who were in a very tight and frustrating position to having to choose between their personal values and those imposed by the society. Having books like the law, and being able to apply them that instantaneously showed me how theory serves to get a fuller grasp of the world, to be aware of things you couldn’t even conceive before simply because you had absolutely no idea.