Claude-Fr�d�ric Bastiat (29 June 1801 - 24 December 1850) was a French economist and writer who was a prominent member of the French Liberal School. Bastiat developed the economic concept of opportunity cost and introduced the parable of the broken window. He was also a Freemason and member of the French National Assembly. As an advocate of classical economics and the economics of Adam Smith, his views favored a free market and influenced the Austrian School. Bastiat's most famous work is The Law, originally ...
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Claude-Fr�d�ric Bastiat (29 June 1801 - 24 December 1850) was a French economist and writer who was a prominent member of the French Liberal School. Bastiat developed the economic concept of opportunity cost and introduced the parable of the broken window. He was also a Freemason and member of the French National Assembly. As an advocate of classical economics and the economics of Adam Smith, his views favored a free market and influenced the Austrian School. Bastiat's most famous work is The Law, originally published as a pamphlet in 1850. It defines a just system of laws and then demonstrates how such law facilitates a free society. In The Law, he wrote that everyone has a right to protect "his person, his liberty, and his property". The state should be only a "substitution of a common force for individual forces" to defend this right. "Justice" (defense of one's life, liberty and property) has precise limits, but if government power extends further into philanthropic endeavors, then government becomes so limitless that it can grow endlessly. The resulting statism is "based on this triple hypothesis: the total inertness of mankind, the omnipotence of the law, and the infallibility of the legislator". The public then becomes socially engineered by the legislator and must bend to the legislators' will "like the clay to the potter" Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. I do not dispute their right to invent social combinations, to advertise them, to advocate them, and to try them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk. But I do dispute their right to impose these plans upon us by law - by force - and to compel us to pay for them with our taxes. Bastiat posits that the law becomes perverted when it punishes one's right to self-defense (of his life, liberty and property) in favor of another's right to "legalized plunder", which he defines as "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," in which he includes the tax support of "protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works." Bastiat was thus against redistribution. (wikipedia.org)
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Add this copy of The Law to cart. $11.13, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2019 by Indoeuropeanpublishing.com.
This book was written in a time when people were thinking, not opining. If one is truly interested in freedom and how laws are written and the rationale behind those written laws should read this book.
Khlit
Jun 22, 2009
Short but to the point; easy but powerful
This very short book is a very powerful treatise in favor of natural law, the free market, capitalism, the private sector, and limited government. Refutes the ideas of socialism very quickly and easily. Its very easy to understand and does not take long to read at all. Every US legislator should have to read this book. Next to the constitution and declaration of independence, it is the most important book in america
ShawnCL
Jul 5, 2007
Paradigm Shift
I grew up in a socialist country thinking that government intervention was a good thing. Moreover, I thought that 'rights' entailed entitlements I had on everyone else, especially the wealthy. Bastiat's work on 'The Law' challenges that whole conception from head to toe. Moreover, it is the kind of paradigm shifting gem you rarely come across in political, legal, or economic literature. In less than a hundred pages, Bastiat lucidly argues the case that laws should only be minimally used to defend, and not to remove, personal liberty. It single-handedly changed my mind on a number of issues. Highly reccomended, especially since it can be had so cheaply.
JSGINC
Jun 22, 2007
Economic version of LEX REX
Excellent book! A necessary read for all engaged in economics and politics (hence, everybody)!!! This book should be a required reading for all university students in all disciplines.
Bastiat is both brilliant and rhetorically sublime with his depth and ease of comprehension.
Huffy
May 24, 2007
LIBERTY's TRUE MEANING
This skinniest of wee tomes, is packed with amazing philosophical truths. In it, one of the great philosophers so clearly presents a discourse on Liberty, it can be understood by even us ordinary citizens.
Many readers will have epiphanies upon learning Bastiat?s definition of the SOCIALISM, so cleverly incorporated in U.S. government since the 1860?s. He terms Socialism ?LEGAL PLUNDER, ? contending that the LAW [ which is in our case, our government] has as its purpose protection of citizens from plunder, but ?the Law, not only fails to do so, it participates in it,? placing ?the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons ?? at the service of the plunderers. The government then treats the victim--when he defends himself?as a criminal.?
Bastiat defines Legal Plunder: ?See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to others 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.?
Every person who pays taxes, loves his U.S. heritage, or cares about his children?s future, should read The Law as an accompaniment of the United States Constitution.
