The Law

If you have no idea what Libertarianism is and would like to understand, this would be a wonderful book for you. I got my mom to read it and she loved it. Its only around 70 pages, so its really short. But there is so much philosophy in here that it will blow your mind. If I could add any one book to the high school curriculum throughout the U.S., it would be this book. The title of the book is called The Law. The title gives away the whole message. Bastiat shares his views on what the function of law should be in any society. Here is the folly that we have committed in this modern day of legislation - Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our

The most important idea I took from this book was the potential for a repeating cycle of intervention and coercion which follows the first attempt to improve a specific market. Once it begins, all parties it effects want their own improvements. At least on the surface you cant deny the truth of this in todays U.S. markets. Law does not create wealth, it may only redistribute...this is made very clear by the author. Consider this when thinking of price manipulations (tariffs, subsidies...etc.); who is really benefitting from this? Is it the consumer? This book is not a book on economics but a book on political inefficiencies and failures. Its a very quick read (likely just needs a few dedicated hours). I highly recommend it as an introduction to the logical way to think of politics and the role of government.

Nothing to say, except that these are truths long forgotten.

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.

Values are timeless...and history repeats itself

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 !

Bastiat warns us not to kid ourselves about a kind, gentle, caring government. Like George Washington, Bastiat reminds us that law means force, and that any appeal to the law is ultimately an appeal to force. In appealing to the law, therefore, we must ask ourselves if we would be justified in using force to vindicate our appeal. Life, liberty, and property, Bastiat argues, are the rights which God has given to each individual by virtue of the fact that the individual exists, and that with or without government, an individual is justified in defending his or her life, liberty, and property. Ideally, governments should exist to defend these three basic God-given rights. As an individual, I cannot spend all of my time defending my life, liberty, and property, nor can my neighbors. Government is born when my neighbors and I come together to hire a sheriff to defend these rights full-time for us. The sheriffs authority to defend these rights on our behalf is derived from the authority of each of us individually to protect ourselves in these rights. Because government derives its authority from the aggregrate authority of individual citizens, government should not be allowed to do for me what I cannot legally do for myself. This is the foundation of Bastiats argument, and when taken to its natural conclusion, it shows us that redistribution-of-wealth schemes that the government forces upon some members of society to benefit others are a potential threat to a free people. Social security, welfare, and other government entitlements are all examples of this. Bastiat referred to such government programs as legalized plunder which ultimately creates far more social problems than it solves. The recent presidential race has shown us just how weak and dependent Americans have become. Just as Bastiat predicted, every little social group is clamoring to get its own share of government entitlements, and politician are clamoring to pander to these groups in exchange for political power, even if it means continuing the disastrous economic course of deficits and staggering public debt which may someday threaten the country with bankruptcy and economic collapse. We should learn the lesson of communism--it isnt governments job to take care of us. Being responsible for our own subsistence, including the inherent risks involved in such responsibility, is the price we must pay for freedom and prosperity. If we succumb to the lure of government-provided security by means of legalized plunder, we will one day find ourselves bereft of the freedom which we once took for granted. Bastiats classic shows us how to preserve a free society and avoid the consequences of legalized injustice.

In 1850 a French guy wrote this little essay on the Law. It could have been written today in the US, in Europe, because we are certainly not progressing in terms of common-sense, politically. Here are some ideas: -Justice is the absence of injustice. Nothing more than that. -What God does is well done. Do not claim to know more than Him. The fact that this rule is almost universally broken says much about our level of hubris. For Bastiat Law is a minus, it takes away. His subject is so relevant today that we can see the results of the States false philanthropy, just as Orwell warned us in his Animal Farm. Western governments certainly know how to belittle us... we couldnt do without them. In Spain we have this government commercial encouraging drivers to drive well: We cant drive for you! They wished. The only idea that they think about it tells how far theyve got under our skin. This book is dynamite. Makes one see the world today in a clear and detached way. Who are the philanthropists that we owe so much devotion to? Take Gores greedy schemes with his mineral mines behind his climactic facade. Take another homeless, Soros, the preacher of the Left, whose God is money. To be a Pharisee is indeed to love the Law while hating man, to use the Law to make Injustice legal, to pervert Justice, to become a new god to modern State worshippers, wellfare addicts. Yes, Bastiat would sure be ashamed to see what the West has become: the legalized plunder by the State.

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.