The Law

Rating:
Summary: A Blue Print for Stable Government
Review: One of the greatest tome's on legal philosohy ever written; and by a Frenchman no less!! "Legal Plunder," the act of government taking from one person or group and giving to another person or group, only fosters negative feelings, class resentment, and condems the lowest class to professional groveling. Overall, Bastiat argues, a government that practices legal plunder under the auspices of equality and social necessity deserves not to be in power and people must have the courage to fumigate these corosive thoughts from public discourse. A book which deserves to be in the rooms of every high school civics class, "The Law" is a work that will last forever.

Rating:
Summary: On Amazon.com's scale of 1-10.........no less than a 12
Review: To read this essay knowing nothing of the author or when he wrote it, one would never guess that it was first published 150 years ago. This book is as timeless as ANY publication in human history. Bastiat demonstrates a thorough and flawless understanding of both the bright and dark sides of human nature, of the essential role each has played in the growth and divergence of collectivist and (18th century) liberal ideologies, and most importantly, the resulting tendency for government, in all of its most common manifestations, to grow and for liberty to yield. The principles proffered herein are the very genesis of the body of thought most commonly attributed to such brilliant authors as Milton Friedman, F. A. Hayek, Adam Smith, and Thomas Paine. Bastiat was the consummate humanitarian, and a genius with no peer. If you read no other book during your lifetime, read "The Law".

Rating:
Summary: Good short argument for limited government
Review: This was written in 1850, just after the 1848 revolution in France. Bastiat was concerned by all the different groups that were trying to use "The Law" or in Hayek's words, "The State" to remake society into their vision of a more perfect society. Bastiat argues that trying to use the law to help out one group does so at the expense of another group, he calls this "legal plunder" and points out how in the long run this will ruin society.

Bastiat starts off saying that the basic gifts man has from God are: life, liberty, and property. It is appropriate and correct to defend yourself, your liberty, and your property. "The Law" was created to ensure that individuals in society were allowed to use these gifts.

Bastiat says that unfortunately "The Law" is abused by the greed and false philanthropy of man. There are two basic ways of getting ahead in life, the first is to work hard and produce, the second is to plunder from others. When trade off and risks for plunder are better than labor, many people will turn to plunder. It is very tempting for those who make laws to use the law to plunder. Bastiat says "legal plunder" is to use the law to take property, which if was done without the benefit of the law would have been considered a crime.

He has some fairly pointed barbs at socialists. He says many of the writers at his time seem to view people as raw material, to be formed or controlled. He says that most socialists see mankind as evil, while they (the socialists) are good. This leads the socialists to feeling justified in using "The Law" to make mankind be good. Bastiat asks why so many people in government feel that mankind makes too many mistakes, but that they in government are nobler and will make better choices.

This is short, and because the original format was a pamphlet, Bastiat acknowledges that it is not complete. So many of his points and arguments are brief.

This is a good call to action, to encourage people to be more informed about their government, and to work to limit the government. So much of what Bastiat said long ago is still true.

Rating:
Summary: Clear, Elegant Phrasing and Startling Insights
Review: Bastiat's The Law is a liberal's nightmare. Written over 150 years ago ago, it clearly defines what is wrong with socialism and explains (actually Bastiat accurately predicted) why socialist programs breed their own corruption and defines "Legal Plunder" in the clearest of terms. Don't be put off by the age of the book; the writing is more clear and more concise than almost any current book.

Here is a quote, "But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See 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."

I have given away at least a dozen copies of this book; I believe the book is that important. I can think of no higher personal endorsement.

Rating:
Summary: A 19th Century Writer Gives Birth To 21st Century Ideology
Review: Fredric Bastiat was a 19th century French law-maker, economist and author. He wrote a number of highly technical works of economic theory, books that are still considered valuable contributions to free-market economic thought. But his least technical work, a pamphlet called The Law, has proven to be perhaps his most enduring from a modern political standpoint.

Written in 1850, just two years after the French Revolution of 1848, the Law is part treatise and part polemic, an appeal to the French people reminding them of the proper sphere of the law and government and begging them to turn away from their descent into socialism. The Law is also a summary of much of what Bastiat considered to be important from his own work; at the time The Law was written he was very sick, and he would be dead within a year of its publication. As a French patriot, Bastiat was deeply moved by the disintegration he saw in French society.

As the last vestiges of the class-society were replaced and the new "democratic" order was being instituted, the State was more and more being used as a means by which groups of citizens (special interests) could plunder one another through taxes, transfer payments, tariffs, etc, committing what Bastiat calls "legal plunder." As he saw it, the law was being perverted into a so-called "creative" entity, through which controlling groups would seek to enforce their particular agendas at the expense and through the pocketbooks of the people in general.

Bastiat argues that the law should be properly viewed as the formal embodiment of Force. That is, human laws should be the organized and formal construction of justice. Just law, he says, is nothing more than the organization of the human right to self-defense. This is a surprisingly narrow definition, perhaps almost too narrow to be truly useful. But I can imagine that Bastiat wouldn't have seen much moral value in the philosophy of pragmatism; he certainly would have made a bad present-day politician, a "flaw" which I find highly admirable.

Bastiat is revered by many modern libertarians as one of the founding fathers of their ideology, and rightly so. But it seems to me that his work is more accurately anarcho-capitalist than libertarian. To say that Bastiat is arguing for "limited" government is a gross understatement. In fact, Bastiat seems instead to be arguing for the abolition of most all of what today we would call The Government. Many libertarians, for example, probably wouldn't argue the abolition of all forms of taxation on moral grounds. Personally I appreciate his definition of plunder as "...tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on..."

Obviously although Bastiat may not share the views of modern libertarians in every respect, they have much to respect in him. And of course, the average economic and social liberal won't care for him at all, as he makes a special point of going after the vast majority of liberal sacred cows. But more surprisingly, the Religious Right should be wary of taking Bastiat on as too great of an ally. Although Bastiat and his book have been instrumental in forming many right-wing/libertarian ideas about free markets and the proper role of government, Bastiat argues forcefully against the use of the law as a tool for the shaping of moral values. Jerry Falwell and Bastiat are notably out of step with one another. I can imagine that Bastiat would not have much use for the Congressional institution of days of prayer, or for teacher-led prayer in the public schools he so despised, for anti-drug and pro-abstinence programs, or for the ministerial functions that many politicians have sought to usurp.

Conservatives have an unfortunate habit of revering political figures. But as Bastiat says, "There are too many 'great' men in the world--legislators, organizers, do-gooders, leaders of the people, fathers of nations, and so on, and so on. Too many persons place themselves above mankind; they make a career of organizing it, patronizing it, and ruling it."

Bastiat didn't believe in the inherent value of rulers of men. Many conservatives hope that their sons will grow up to be leaders in a political sense. Bastiat believed that we would be better served if more people sought to be useful, productive, inventive and moral, instead of trying to lead all the rest of society. Society will function much more desirably when we relinquish the desire for power over our fellow men, and instead seek power over our own actions.

Although Bastiat's views on law and government may be too simplistic and dated to be implemented literally in a modern society, I believe that there is still much instruction to be had from this book. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in developing an understanding of the roots of modern libertarian thought.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and thought-provoking
Review: Frederic Bastiat (1801-50) was a French economist, philosopher and statesman, and this book was written by him as he was already dying of tuberculosis. In The Law, Monsieur Bestiat examines what the natures of law and government are and what they should be, and shows how the natural greed of humanity leads to a perversion of them. He goes on to show that the natural result of this "legal plunder" is ultimately communism and a dictatorship, not of the proletariat, but of a self-styled elite that views the proletariat as a raw material to be molded and, if necessary, broken.

I must say that Frederic Bastiat was able to pack more fascinating analysis into a short space than any other writer I have ever seen. He was definitely cast in the same mold as the founding fathers of the United States, with his belief that life, liberty and property are the unalienable gifts of God. He persuasively argues for the defense of these rights, and shows what happens when a people decide to trample upon them.

If you are interested in the philosophy that produced the United States of America, then I highly recommend that you read this fascinating and thought-provoking book!

Rating:
Summary: Good short argument for limited government
Review: This was written in 1850, just after the 1848 revolution in France. Bastiat was concerned by all the different groups that were trying to use "The Law" or in Hayek's words, "The State" to remake society into their vision of a more perfect society. Bastiat argues that trying to use the law to help out one group does so at the expense of another group, he calls this "legal plunder" and points out how in the long run this will ruin society.

Bastiat starts off saying that the basic gifts man has from God are: life, liberty, and property. It is appropriate and correct to defend yourself, your liberty, and your property. "The Law" was created to ensure that individuals in society were allowed to use these gifts.

Bastiat says that unfortunately "The Law" is abused by the greed and false philanthropy of man. There are two basic ways of getting ahead in life, the first is to work hard and produce, the second is to plunder from others. When trade off and risks for plunder are better than labor, many people will turn to plunder. It is very tempting for those who make laws to use the law to plunder. Bastiat says "legal plunder" is to use the law to take property, which if was done without the benefit of the law would have been considered a crime.

He has some fairly pointed barbs at socialists. He says many of the writers at his time seem to view people as raw material, to be formed or controlled. He says that most socialists see mankind as evil, while they (the socialists) are good. This leads the socialists to feeling justified in using "The Law" to make mankind be good. Bastiat asks why so many people in government feel that mankind makes too many mistakes, but that they in government are nobler and will make better choices.

This is short, and because the original format was a pamphlet, Bastiat acknowledges that it is not complete. So many of his points and arguments are brief.

This is a good call to action, to encourage people to be more informed about their government, and to work to limit the government. So much of what Bastiat said long ago is still true.

Rating:
Summary: A work of compelling simplicity and relevance
Review: I have advanced degrees in economics and engineering, a successful career both within the corporate world and as an entrepeneur, have had the great fortune to know senators, justices and generals. My life has been blessed by a rise from scarce means and an absence of fear. Until I stumbled upon this book, which says a lot about my Magnolia League education, I had not ever felt compelled to examine the conditions under which I have been successful. I have been able to follow my talents and conscience due to my own persistance and due to the freedom afforded me by the rule of law. It is amazing that someone in France decades ago was able to desribe this environment we live in so succinctly with such relevance.
Regardless of your political persuasion, please read this book. It defines the american mind and experience in the same way that "Grapes of Wrath," "Casablanca" and "Apocalypse Now" have told the stories of america in crisis. Bastiat's simple statement of the sanctity of the rule of law produces a visceral conviction that individuals should and will triumph; this should satisfy eveyone who believes that men and women can excell.

Rating:
Summary: Liberty
Review: This book was given to me by a friend and it encapsulated all that i believed government should do. A great political and economic primer for all those who love liberty and cherish freedom. The book is short and inexpensive so purchase more than one and give the surplus away.

Rating:
Summary: We've Met the Enemy, and He is Us
Review: In short, Bastiat wrote this to combat the rise of socialism and communism. He complains that the re-distribution of wealth requires that money be stolen from those who have to be given to those who have not. He calls this legal plunder. Ironicly, Bastiat himself advocates legal plunder, just instead of the government taking it, Bastiat and those who think like him will take it. All of it if given a chance. Communism arose because of the legal plunder and abuse of the wealthy elite. Yet because of the greed of the leaders of the communist revolution, it became the very thing it fought. Bastiat is no different. If you follow his logic, he's merely a mafia boss complaining that another syndicate (the communist/socialist) took over his racket. Does it really matter what your political affiliation is? A greedy communist and a greedy libertarian are both inflicted with the same disease, greed. Take off the party hat, and you have the same individual. Bastiat is what he is fighting. Such irony.