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PART I
THE LAW
THE LAW PERVERTED! AND THE POLICE POWERS OF THE STATE
PERVERTED ALONG WITH IT! THE LAW, I SAY, NOT ONLY TURNED
FROM ITS PROPER PURPOSE BUT MADE TO FOLLOW AN ENTIRELY
CONTRARY PURPOSE! THE LAW BECOME THE WEAPON OF EVERY KIND
OF GREED! INSTEAD OF CHECKING CRIME, THE LAW ITSELF GUILTY
OF THE EVILS IT IS SUPPOSED TO PUNISH!
IF THIS IS TRUE, IT IS A SERIOUS FACT, AND MORAL DUTY
REQUIRES ME TO CALL THE ATTENTION OF MY FELLOW-CITIZENS TO
IT.
LIFE IS A GIFT FROM GOD
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 put us in the midst of a
variety of natural resources. By the 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,
individuality, liberty, property--this is man. And in spite
of the conning 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 IS LAW?
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 have 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 the 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 confines 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 to 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 that 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 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 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.
THE FATE OF NON-CONFORMISTS
If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these
institutions, it is boldly said that "You are a dangerous
innovator, a utopian, a theorist, a subversive; you would
shatter the foundation upon which society rests."
If you lecture upon morality or upon political science,
there will be found official organizations petitioning the
government in this vein of thought: "That science no longer
be taught exclusively form the point of view of free trade
(of liberty, of property, and of justice) as has been the
case until now, but also, in the future, science is to be
especially taught from the viewpoint of the facts and laws
that regulate French industry (facts and laws which are
contrary to liberty, to property, and to justice). That, in
government-endowed teaching positions, the professor
rigorously refrain from endangering in the slightest degree
the respect due to the laws now in force." (General Council
of Manufacturers, Agriculture, and Commerce, May 6, 1850).
Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or
monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it
must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned
without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still
further, morality and political economy must be taught from
the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it
must be a just law merely because it is a law.
Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is
that it gives an exaggerated importance to political
passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.
I could prove this assertion in a thousand ways. But,
by way of illustration, I shall limit myself to a subject
that has lately occupied the minds of everyone: universal
suffrage.
WHO SHALL JUDGE?
The followers of Rousseau's school of thought--who
consider themselves far advanced, but whom I consider twenty
centuries behind the times--will not agree with me on this.
But universal suffrage--using the word in its strictest
sense--is not one of those sacred dogmas which it is a crime
to examine or doubt. In fact, serious objections may be
made to universal suffrage.
In the first place, the word UNIVERSAL conceals a gross
fallacy. For example, there are 36 million people in
France. Thus, to make the right of suffrage universal,
there should be 36 million voters. But the most extended
system permits only 9 million people to vote. Three persons
out of four are excluded. And more than this, they are
excluded by the fourth. This fourth person advances the
principle of INCAPACITY as his reason for excluding the
others.
Universal suffrage means, then, universal suffrage for
those who are capable. 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?
THE REASON WHY VOTING IS RESTRICTED
A closer examination of the subject shows us the motive
which causes the right of suffrage to be based upon the
supposition of incapacity. The motive is that the elector
or voter does not exercise this right for himself alone, but
for everybody.
The most extended elective system and the most
restricted elective system are alike in this respect. They
differ only in respect to what constitutes incapacity. It is
not a difference of principle, but merely a difference of
degree.
If, as the republicans of our present-day Greek and
Roman schools of thought pretend, the right of suffrage
arrives with one's birth, it would be an injustice for
adults to prevent women and children from voting. Why are
they prevented? Because they are presumed to be incapable.
And why is incapacity a motive for exclusion? Because it is
not the voter alone who suffers the consequences of his
vote; because each vote touches and affects everyone in the
entire community; because the people in the community have a
right to demand some safeguards concerning the act upon
which their welfare and existence depend.
THE ANSWER IS TO RESTRICT THE LAW
I know what might be said in answer to this; what the
objections might be. But this not the place to exhaust a
controversy of this nature. I wish merely to observe here
that this controversy over the universal suffrage (as well
as most other political questions) which agitates, excites,
and overthrows nations, would lose nearly all of its
importance if the law had always been what it ought to be.
In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all
persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were
nothing more than the organized combination of the
individual's right to self defense; 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?
Under these circumstances, is it likely that the extent
of the right to vote would endanger that supreme good, and
the public peace? Is it likely that the excluded classes
would refuse to peaceably await the coming of their right to
vote? Is it likely that those who had the right to vote
would jealously defend their privilege?
If the law were confined to its proper functions,
everyone's interest in the law would be the same. Is it not
clear that, under these circumstances, those who voted could
not inconvenience those who did not vote?
THE FATAL IDEA OF LEGAL PLUNDER
But on the other hand, imagine that this fatal
principle has been introduced: Under the pretense of
organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the
law takes property from one person and gives it to another;
the law takes the wealth of all gives it to a few--whether
farmers, manufacturers, shipowners, artists, or comedians.
Under these circumstances, then certainly every class will
aspire to grasp the law, and logically so.
The excluded classes will furiously demand their right
to vote--and will overthrow society rather than not to
obtain it. Even beggars and vagabonds will then prove to
you that they also have an incontestable title to vote.
They will say to you:
"We cannot buy wine, tobacco, or salt without paying
the tax. And a part of the tax that we pay is given by law-
-in privileges and subsidies--to men who are richer than we
are. Others use the law to raise the prices of bread, meat,
iron, or cloth. Thus, since everyone else uses the law for
his own profit, we also would like to use the law for our
own profit. We demand from the law the RIGHT TO RELIEF,
which is the poor man's plunder. To obtain this right, we
also should be voters and legislators in order that we may
organize Beggary on a grand scale for our own class, as you
have organized Protection on a grand scale for your class.
Now don't tell us beggars that you will act for us, then
toss us, as Mr. Mimerel proposes, 600,000 francs to keep us
quiet, like throwing us a bone to gnaw. We have other
claims. And anyway, we wish to bargain for ourselves as
other classes have bargained for themselves!"
And what can you say to answer that argument!
PERVERTED LAW CAUSES CONFLICT
As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted
from its true purpose--that it may violate property instead
of protecting it--then everyone will want to participate in
making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or
to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be
prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be
fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the
struggle within will be no less furious. To know this, it
is hardly necessary to examine what transpires in the French
and English legislatures; merely to understand the issue is
to know the answer.
Is there any need to offer proof that this odious
perversion of the law is a perpetual source of hatred and
discord; that it tends to destroy society itself? If such
proof is needed look at the United States [in 1850]. There
is no country in the world where the law is kept more within
its proper domain: the protection of every person's liberty
and property. As a consequence of this, there appears to be
no country in the world where the social order rests on a
firmer foundation. But even in the United States, there are
two issues--and only two--that have always endangered the
public peace.
SLAVERY AND TARIFFS ARE PLUNDER
What are these two issues? They are slavery and
tariffs. These are the only two issues where, contrary to
the general spirit of the republic of the United States, law
has assumed the character of a plunderer.
Slavery is a violation, by law, of liberty. The
protective tariff is a violation, by law, of property.
It is a most remarkable fact that this double LEGAL
CRIME--a sorrowful inheritance from the Old World--should be
the only issue which can, and perhaps will, lead to the ruin
of the Union. It is indeed impossible to imagine, at the
very heart of a society, a more astounding fact than this:
THE LAW HAS COME TO BE AN INSTRUMENT OF INJUSTICE. And if
this fact Brings terrible consequences to the United States-
-where the proper purpose of the law has been perverted only
in the instance of slavery and tariffs--what must be the
consequences in Europe, where the perversion of the law is a
principle; a system?
TWO KINDS OF PLUNDER
Mr. de Montalembert [politician and writer] adopting
the thought contained in a famous proclamation by Mr.
Carlier, has said: "We must make war against socialism."
According to the definition of socialism advanced by Mr.
Charles Dupin, he meant: "We must make war against plunder."
But of what plunder was he speaking? For there are two
kinds of plunder: legal and illegal.
I do not think that illegal plunder, such as theft or
swindling--which the penal code defines, anticipates, and
punishes--can be called socialism. It is not this kind of
plunder that systematically threatens the foundations of
society. Anyway, the war against this kind of plunder has
not waited for the command of these gentlemen. The war
against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning
of the world. Long before the Revolution of February 1848--
long before the appearance even of socialism itself--France
had provided police, judges, gendarmes, prisons, dungeons,
and scaffolds for the purpose of fighting illegal plunder.
The law itself conducts this war, and it is my wish and
opinion that the law should always maintain this attitude
toward plunder.
THE LAW DEFENDS PLUNDER
But it does not always do this. Sometimes the law
defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the
beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple
which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law
places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and
gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the
victim--when he defends himself--as a criminal. In short,
there is a LEGAL PLUNDER, and it is of this, no doubt, that
Mr. de Montalembert speaks.
This legal plunder may be only an isolated stain among
the legislative measures of the people. If so, it is best
to wipe it out with a minimum of speeches and denunciations-
-and in spite of the uproar of the vested interests.
HOW TO IDENTIFY LEGAL PLUNDER
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite
simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs
to then, 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.
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only
an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further
evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law--which
may be an isolated case--is not abolished immediately, it
will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.
The person who profits from this law will complain
bitterly, defending his ACQUIRED RIGHTS. He will claim that
the state is obligated to protect and encourage his
particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state
because the protected industry is thus able to spend more
and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.
Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests.
The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder
into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred.
The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at
the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal
under the pretense of organizing it.
LEGAL PLUNDER HAS MANY NAMES
Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite
number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans
for organizing it: 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. All these plans as a whole--with their
common aim of legal plunder--constitute socialism.
Now, since under this definition socialism is a body of
doctrine, what attack can be made against it other than a
war of doctrine? If you find this socialistic doctrine to
be false, absurd, and evil, then refute it. And the more
false, the more absurd, and the more evil it is, the easier
it will be to refute. Above all, if you wish to be strong,
begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may
have crept into your legislation. This will be no light
task.
SOCIALISM IS LEGAL PLUNDER
Mr. de Montalembert has been accused of desiring to
fight socialism by the use of brute force. He ought to be
exonerated from this accusation, for he has plainly said:
"The war that we must fight against socialism must be in
harmony with law, honor, and justice."
But why does not Mr. de Montalembert see that he has
placed himself in a vicious circle? You would use the law
to oppose socialism? But it is upon the law that socialism
itself relies. Socialists desire to practice LEGAL plunder,
not ILLEGAL plunder. Socialists, like all other mono-
polists, desire to make the law their own weapon. And when
once the law is on the side of socialism, how can it be used
against socialism? For when plunder is abetted by the law,
it does not fear your courts, your gendarmes, and your
prisons. Rather, it may call upon them for help.
To prevent this, you would exclude socialism from
entering into the making of laws? You would prevent
socialists from entering the Legislative Palace? You shall
not succeed, I predict, so long as legal plunder continues
to be the main business of the legislature. It is illogical
--in fact, absurd--to assume otherwise.
THE CHOICE BEFORE US
This question of legal plunder must be settle once and
for all, there are only three ways to settle it:
1. The few plunder the many.
2. Everybody plunders everybody.
3. Nobody plunders anybody.
We must make our choice among limited plunder,
universal plunder, and no plunder. The law can follow only
one of these three.
LIMITED LEGAL PLUNDER: This system prevailed when the
right to vote was restricted. One would turn back to this
system to prevent the invasion of socialism.
UNIVERSAL LEGAL PLUNDER: We have been threatened with
this system since the franchise was made universal. The
newly enfranchised majority has decided to formulate law on
the same principle of legal plunder that was used by their
predecessors when the vote was limited.
NO LEGAL PLUNDER: This is the principle of justice,
peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day
of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the
force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate).
[Translator's note: At the time this was written, Mr.
Bastiat knew that he was dying of tuberculosis. Within a
year, he was dead].
THE PROPER FUNCTION OF THE LAW
And, in all sincerity, can anything more than the
absence of plunder be required of the law? Can the law--
which necessarily requires the use of force--rationally be
used for anything except protecting the rights of everyone?
I defy anyone to extend it beyond this purpose without
perverting it and, consequently, turning might against
right. This is the most fatal and most illogical social
perversion that can possibly be imagined. It must be
admitted that the true solution--so long searched for in the
area of social relationships--is contained in these simple
words: LAW IS ORGANIZED JUSTICE.
Now this must be said: When justice is organized by
law--that is, by force--this excludes the idea of using law
(force) to organize any human activity whatever, whether it
be labor, charity, agriculture, commerce, industry, art, or
religion. The organizing by law of any one of these would
inevitably destroy the essential organization--justice. For
truly, how can we imagine force being used against justice,
and thus acting against its proper purpose?
THE SEDUCTIVE LURE OF SOCIALISM
Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times.
It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just;
it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law
should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive
use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral
self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law
should directly extend welfare, education, and morality
throughout the nation.
This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat
again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction
to each other. We must choose between them. A citizen
cannot at the same time be free and not free.
ENFORCED FRATERNITY DESTROYS LIBERTY
Mr. de Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: "Your
doctrine is only the half of my program. You have stopped
at liberty; I go on to fraternity." I answered him: "The
second half of your program will destroy the first."
In fact, it is impossible for me to separate the word
FRATERNITY from the word VOLUNTARY. I cannot possibly
understand how fraternity can be LEGALLY enforced without
liberty being LEGALLY destroyed, and thus justice being
LEGALLY trampled underfoot.
Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have
said before, is human greed; the other is in false philan-
thropy.
At this point, I think that I should explain exactly
what I mean by the word PLUNDER. [Translator's note: The
French word used by Mr. Bastiat is SPOLIATION].
PLUNDER VIOLATES OWNERSHIP
I do not, as is often done, use the word in any vague,
uncertain, approximate, or metaphorical sense. I use it in
its scientific acceptance--as expressing the idea opposite
to that of property [wages, land, money, or whatever]. 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,
then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder
is committed.
I say that this act is exactly what the law is supposed
to suppress, always and everywhere. When the law itself
commits this act that it is supposed to suppress, I say that
plunder is still committed, and I add that from the point of
view of society and welfare, this aggression against rights
is even worse. In this case of legal plunder, however, the
person who receives the benefits is not responsible for the
act of plundering. The responsibility for this legal plunder
rests with the law. the legislator, and society itself.
Therein lies the political danger.
It is to be regretted that the word PLUNDER is
offensive. I have tried in vain to find an inoffensive
word, for I would not at any time--especially now--wish to
add an irritating word to our dissentions. Thus, whether I
am believed or not, I declare that I do not mean to attack
the intentions or the morality of anyone. Rather, I am
attacking an IDEA which I believe to be false; a SYSTEM
which appears to me to be unjust; an injustice so
independent of personal intentions that each of us profits
from it without wishing to do so, and suffers from it
without knowing the cause of the suffering.
THREE SYSTEMS OF PLUNDER
The sincerity of those who advocate protectionism,
socialism, and communism is not here questioned. Any writer
who would do that must be influenced by a political spirit
or a political fear. It is to be pointed out, however, that
protectionism, socialism, and communism are basically the
same plant in three stages of its growth. All that can be
said is that legal plunder is more visible in communism
because the plunder is limited to specific groups and
industries. (If the special privilege of government
PROTECTION against competition--a monopoly--were granted
only to one group in France, the iron workers, for instance,
this act would so obviously be legal plunder that it could
not last for long. It is for this reason that we see all
the protected trades combined into a common cause. They
even organize themselves in such a manner as to appear to
represent ALL PERSONS WHO LABOR. Instinctively, they feel
that legal plunder is concealed by generalizing it.) Thus
it follows that, of the three systems, socialism is the
vaguest, the most indecisive, and, consequently, the most
sincere stage of development.
But sincere or insincere, the intentions of persons are
not here under question. In fact, I have already said that
legal plunder is based partially on philanthropy, even
though it is a false philanthropy.
With this explanation, let us examine the value--the
origin and the tendency--of this popular aspiration which
claims to accomplish the general welfare by general plunder.
LAW IS FORCE
Since the law organizes justice, the socialists ask why
the law should not also organize labor, education, and
religion.
Why should not law be used for these purposes? Because
it could not organize labor, education, and religion without
destroying justice. We must remember that law is force, and
that, consequently, the proper functions of the law cannot
lawfully extend beyond the proper functions of force.
When law and force keep a person within the bounds of
justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They
oblige him only to abstain from harming others. They violate
neither his personality, his liberty, nor his property.
they safeguard all of these, They are DEFENSIVE; they
defend equally the rights of all.
LAW IS A NEGATIVE CONCEPT
The harmlessness of the mission performed by law and
lawful defense is self-evident; the usefulness is obvious;
and the legitimacy cannot be disputed.
As a friend of mine once remarked, this negative
concept of law is so true that the statement, THE PURPOSE OF
THE LAW IS TO CAUSE JUSTICE TO REIGN, is not a rigorously
accurate statement. It ought to be stated that THE PURPOSE
OF THE LAW IS TO PREVENT INJUSTICE FROM REIGNING. In fact,
it is INJUSTICE, instead of justice, that has an existence
of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is
absent.
But when the law, by means of its necessary agent,
force, imposes upon men a regulation of labor, a method or a
subject of education, a religious faith or creed--then the
law is no longer negative; it acts positively upon people.
It substitutes the will of the legislator for their own
wills; the initiative of the legislator for their own
initiatives. When this happens, the people no longer need
to discuss, to compare, to plan ahead; the law does all this
for them. Intelligence becomes a useless prop for the
people; they cease to be men; they lose their personality,
their liberty, their property.
Try to imagine a regulation of labor imposed by force
that is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth
imposed by force that is not a violation of property. If you
cannot reconcile these contradictions, then you must
conclude that the law cannot organize labor and industry
without organizing injustice.
THE POLITICAL APPROACH
When a politician views society from the seclusion of
his office, he is struck by the spectacle of the inequality
that he sees. He deplores the deprivations which are the
lot of so many of our brothers, deprivations which appear to
be even sadder when contrasted with luxury and wealth.
Perhaps the politician should ask himself whether this
state of affairs has not been caused by old conquests and
lootings, and by more recent legal plunder. Perhaps he
should consider this proposition: Since all persons seek
well-being and perfection, would not a condition of justice
be sufficient to cause the greatest efforts toward progress,
and the greatest possible equality that is compatible with
individual responsibility? Would not this be in accord with
the concept of individual responsibility which God has
willed in order that mankind may have the choice between
vice and virtue, and the resulting punishment and reward?
But the politician never gives this a thought. His
mind turns to organizations, combinations, and arrangements-
-legal or apparently legal. He attempts to remedy the evil
by increasing and perpetuating the very thing that caused
the evil in the first place: legal plunder. We have seen
that justice is a negative concept. Is there even one of
these positive legal actions that does not contain the
principle of plunder?
THE LAW AND CHARITY
You say: "There are persons who have no money," and you
turn to the law. But the law is not a breast that fills
itself with milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the law
supplied with milk from a source outside the society.
Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one
citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes
have been FORCED to send it in. If every person draws from
the treasury the amount that he has put in it, it is true
that the law then plunders nobody. But this procedure does
nothing for the persons who have have no money. It does not
promote equality of income. The law can be an instrument of
equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to
other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument
of plunder.
With this in mind, examine the protective tariffs,
subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and
welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation,
free credit, and public works. You will find that they are
always based on legal plunder, organized injustice.
THE LAW AND EDUCATION
You say: "There are persons who lack education," and
you turn to the law. But the law is not, in itself, a torch
of learning which shines its light abroad. The law extends
over a society where some persons have knowledge and others
do not; where some citizens need to learn, and others can
teach. In this matter of education, the law has only two
alternatives: It can permit this transaction of teaching-
and-learning to operate freely and without the use of force,
or it can force human wills in this matter by taking from
some of them enough to pay the teachers who are appointed by
government to instruct others, without charge. But in this
second case, the law commits legal plunder by violating
liberty and property.
THE LAW AND MORALS
You say, "Here are persons who are lacking in morality
or religion," and you turn to the law. But law is force.
And need I point out what a violent and futile effort it is
to use force in the matters of morality and religion?
It would seem that socialists, however self-complacent,
could not avoid seeing this monstrous legal plunder that
results from such systems and such efforts. But what do the
socialists do? They cleverly disguise this legal plunder
from others--and even from themselves--under the seductive
names of fraternity, unity, organization, and association.
Because we ask so little from the law--only justice--the
socialists thereby assume that we reject fraternity, unity,
organization, and association. The socialists brand us with
the name INDIVIDUALIST.
But we assure the socialists the we repudiate only
FORCED organization, not natural organization. We repudiate
the forms of association that are FORCED upon us, not free
association. We repudiate FORCED fraternity, not true
fraternity. We repudiate the ARTIFICIAL unity that does
nothing more than deprive persons of individual
responsibility. We do not repudiate the natural unity of
mankind under Providence.
A CONFUSION OF TERMS
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.
THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIALIST WRITERS
How did politicians ever come to believe this weird
idea that the law could be made to produce what it does not
contain--the wealth, science, and religion that, in a
positive sense, constitute prosperity? Is it due to the
influence of our modern writers on public affairs?
Present-day writers--especially those of the socialist
school of thought--base their various theories upon one
common hypothesis: They divide mankind into two parts.
People in general--with the exception of the writer himself-
-form the first group. The writer, all alone, forms the
second and most important group. Surely this is the
weirdest and most conceited notion that ever entered a human
brain!
In fact, these writers on public affairs begin by
supposing that people have within themselves no means of
discernment; no motivation to action. The writers assume
that people are inert matter, passive particles, motionless
atoms, at best a kind of vegetation indifferent to its own
manner of existence. They assume that people are
susceptible to being shaped--by the will and hand of another
person--into an infinite variety of forms, more or less
symmetrical, artistic, and perfected.
Moreover, not one of these writers on governmental
affairs hesitates to imagine that he himself--under the
title of organizer, discoverer, legislator, or founder--is
this will and hand, this universal motivating force, this
creative power whose sublime mission is to mold these
scattered materials--persons--into a society.
These socialist writers look upon people in the same
manner that the gardener views his trees. Just as the
gardener capriciously shapes the trees into pyramids,
parasols, cubes, vases, fans, and other forms, just so does
the socialist writer whimsically shape human beings into
groups, series, centers, sub-centers, honeycombs,
laborcorps, and other variations. And just as the gardener
needs axes, pruning hooks, saws, and shears to shape his
trees, just so does the socialist writer need the force that
he can find only in law to shape human beings. For this
purpose, he devises tariff laws, tax laws, relief laws, and
school laws.
THE SOCIALISTS WISH TO PLAY GOD
Socialists look upon people as raw material to be
formed into social combinations. This is so true that, if
by chance, the socialists have any doubts about the success
of these combinations, they will demand that a small portion
of mankind be set aside TO EXPERIMENT UPON. The popular idea
of TRYING ALL SYSTEMS is well known. And one socialist
leader has been known seriously to demand that the
Constituent Assembly give him a small district with all its
inhabitants, to try his experiments upon.
In the same manner, an inventor makes a model before he
constructs the full-sized machine; the chemist wastes some
chemicals--the farmer wastes some seeds and land--to try out
an idea.
But what a difference there is between the gardener and
his trees, between the inventor and his machine, between the
chemist and his elements, between the farmer and his seeds!
And in all sincerity, the socialist thinks that there is the
same difference between him and mankind!
It is no wonder that the writers of the nineteenth
century look upon society as an artificial creation of the
legislator's genius. This idea--the fruit of classical
education--has taken possession of all the intellectuals and
famous writers of our country. To these intellectuals and
writers, the relationship between persons and the legislator
appears to be the same as the relationship between the clay
and the potter.
Moreover, even where they have consented to recognize a
principle of action in the heart of man--and a principle of
discernment in man's intellect--they have considered these
gifts from God to be fatal gifts. They have thought that
persons, under the impulse of these two gifts, would fatally
tend to ruin themselves. They assume that if the legislators
left persons free to follow their own inclinations, they
would arrive at atheism instead of religion, ignorance
instead of knowledge, poverty instead of production and
exchange.
END
