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                                    1850

                                  THE LAW

                            by Frederic Bastiat

INTRODUCTION
    THE BOOK AND AUTHOR:     When a reviewer wishes to give special re-
cognition to a book, he predicts that it will still be read "a hundred
years from now." The Law, first published as a pamphlet in June, 1850, is
already more than a hundred years old. And because its truths are eternal,
it will still be read when another century has passed.
         Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist, statesman,
and author. He did most of his writing during the years just before--and
immediately following--the Revolution of February 1848. This was the period
when France was rapidly turning to complete socialism. As a Deputy to the
Legislative Assembly, Mr. Bastiat was studying and explaining each
socialist fallacy as it appeared. And he explained how socialism must
inevitably degenerate into communism. But most of his countrymen chose to
ignore his logic.
         The Law is here presented again because the same situation exists
in America today as in the France of 1848. The same socialist-communist
ideas and plans that were then adopted in France are now sweeping America.
The explanations and arguments then advanced against socialism by Mr.
Bastiat are-word for word equally valid today. His ideas deserve a serious
hearing.

THE TRANSLATION


                            THE TRANSLATION

This translation of The Law was done by Dean Russell of The Foundation
staff. His objective was an accurate rendering of Mr. Bastiat's words and
ideas into twentieth century, idiomatic English.
         A nineteenth century translation of The Law, made in 1853 in
England by an unidentified contemporary of Mr. Bastiat, was of much value
as a check against this translation. In addition, Dean Russell had his work
reviewed by Bertrand de Jouvenel, the noted French economist, historian,
and author who is also thoroughly familiar with the English language.
         While Mr. de Jouvenel offered many valuable corrections and
suggestions, it should be clearly understood that Dr. Russell bears full
responsibility for the translation.

THE_LAW
                                    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
re-quires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.
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                            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 has 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 cunning 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.
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                            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 be-comes 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.
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                          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.
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                          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
from 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?
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                      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 acts
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 is not the place to exhaust a
controversy of this nature. I wish merely to observe here that this
controversy over 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, 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?
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                        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 and 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, and 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 instances 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.
-
-
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                          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 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.
         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.
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                          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, be in by rooting out every particle of socialism
that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task.
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                           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 monopolists, de-sire 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.
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                              THE CHOICE BEFORE US
         This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for
all, and 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.
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                         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, education, 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 the liberty of citizens without it also being
used against justice, and thus acting against its proper purpose?
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                        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.
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                      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 in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy.
          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 agression 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 different stages of
its growth. All that can be said is that legal plunder is more visible
in communism because it is complete plunder; and in protectionism
because the plunder is limited to specific groups and industries.*
Thus it follows that, of the three systems, socialism is the
vaguest, the most indecisive, and, consequently, the most sincere
stage of development.
         *If the special privilege of government protection against
competition 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.
         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 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 that 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, motion-less 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.
-
                         THE SOCIALISTS DESPISE MANKIND
         According to these writers, it is indeed fortunate that
Heaven has bestowed upon certain men-governors and legislators-the
exact opposite inclinations, not only for their own sake but also
for the sake of the rest of the world! While mankind tends toward
evil, the legislators yearn for good; while mankind advances toward
darkness, the legislators aspire for enlightenment; while mankind is
drawn toward vice, the legislators are attracted toward virtue.
Since they have decided that this is the true state of affairs, they
then demand the use of force in order to substitute their own
inclinations for those of the human race.
         Open at random any book on philosophy, politics, or
history, and you will probably see how deeply rooted in our country is
this idea-the child of classical studies, the mother of socialism.
In all of them, you will probably find this idea that mankind is
merely inert matter, receiving life, organization, morality, and
prosperity from the power of the state. And even worse, it will be
stated that mankind tends toward degeneration, and is stopped from
this downward course only by the mysterious hand of the legislator.
Conventional classical thought everywhere says that behind passive
society there is a concealed power called law or legislator (or called
by some other terminology that designates some unnamed person or
persons of undisputed influence and authority) which moves,
controls, benefits, and improves mankind.
-
                          A DEFENSE OF COMPULSORY LABOR
         Let us first consider a quotation from Bossuet [tutor to
the Dauphin in the Court of Louis XIV]: One of the things most
strongly impressed (by whom?) upon the minds of the Egyptians was
patriotism....No one way permitted to be useless to the state. The law
assigned to each one his work, which was handed down from father to
son. No one was permitted to have two professions. Nor could a
person change from one job to another....But there was one task to
which all were forced to conform: the study of the laws and of wisdom.
Ignorance of religion and of the political regulations of the
country was not excused under any circumstances. Moreover, each
occupation was assigned (by whom?) to a certain district....Among
the good laws, one of the best was that everyone was trained (by
whom?) to obey them. As a result of this, Egypt was filled with
wonderful inventions, and nothing was neglected that could make life
easy and quiet.
         Thus, according to Bossuet, persons derive nothing from
themselves. Patriotism, prosperity, inventions, husbandry, science-all
of these are given to the people by the operation of the laws, the
rulers. All that the people have to do is to bow to leadership.
-
                        A DEFENSE OF PATERNAL GOVERNMENT
         Bossuet carries this idea of the state as the source of all
progress even so far as to defend the Egyptians against the charge
that they rejected wrestling and music. He said:
         How is that possible? These arts were invented by
Trismegistus [who was alleged to have been Chancellor to the
Egyptian god Osiris].
         And again among the Persians, Bossuet claims that all comes
from above:
         One of the first responsibilities of the prince was to
encourage agriculture....Just as there were offices established for
the regulation of armies, just so were there offices for the direction
of farm work.... The Persian people were inspired with an overwhelming
respect for royal authority.
         And according to Bossuet, the Greek people, although
exceedingly intelligent, had no sense of personal responsibility; like
dogs and horses, they themselves could not have invented the most
simple games:
         The Greeks, naturally intelligent and courageous, had been
early cultivated by the kings and settlers who had come from Egypt.
From these Egyptian rulers, the Greek people had learned bodily
exercises, foot races, and horse and chariot races....But the best
thing that the Egyptians had taught the Greeks was to become docile,
and to permit themselves to be formed by the law for the public good.
-
                          THE IDEA OF PASSIVE MANKIND
         It cannot be disputed that these classical theories [advanced
by these latter-day teachers, writers, legislators, economists, and
philosophers] held that everything came to the people from a source
outside themselves. As another example, take Fenelon [archbishop,
author, and instructor to the Duke of Burgundy].
         He was a witness to the power of Louis XIV. This, plus the
fact that he was nurtured in the classical studies and the
admiration of antiquity, naturally caused Fenelon to accept the idea
that mankind should be passive; that the misfortunes and the
prosperity-vices and virtues-of people are caused by the external
influence exercised upon them by the law and the legislators. Thus, in
his Utopia of Salentum, he puts men-with all their interests,
faculties, desires, and possessions-under the absolute discretion of
the legislator. Whatever the issue may be, persons do not decide it
for themselves; the prince decides for them. The prince is depicted as
the soul of this shapeless mass of people who form the nation. In
the prince resides the thought, the foresight, all progress, and the
principle of all organization. Thus all responsibility rests with him.
         The whole of the tenth book of Fenelon's Telemachus proves
this. I refer the reader to it, and content myself with quoting at
random from this celebrated work to which, in every other respect, I
am the first to pay homage.
-
                       SOCIALISTS IGNORE REASON AND FACTS
         With the amazing credulity which is typical of the
classicists, Fenelon ignores the authority of reason and facts when he
attributes the general happiness of the Egyptians, not to their own
wisdom but to the wisdom of their kings:
         We could not turn our eyes to either shore without seeing
rich towns and country estates most agreeably located; fields, never
fallowed, covered with golden crops every year; meadows full of
flocks; workers bending under the weight of the fruit which the
earth lavished upon its cultivators; shepherds who made the echoes
resound with the soft notes from their pipes and flutes. "Happy," said
Mentor, "is the people governed by a wise king."...
         Later, Mentor desired that I observe the contentment and
abundance which covered all Egypt, where twenty-two thousand cities
could be counted. He admired the good police regulations in the
cities; the justice rendered in favor of the poor against the rich;
the sound education of the children in obedience, labor, sobriety, and
the love of the arts and letters; the exactness with which all
religious ceremonies were performed; the unselfishness, the high
regard for honor, the faithfulness to men, and the fear of the gods
which every father taught his children. He never stopped admiring
the prosperity of the country. "Happy," said he, "is the people
ruled by a wise king in such a manner."
-
                       SOCIALISTS WANT TO REGIMENT PEOPLE
         Fenelon's idyl on Crete is even more alluring. Mentor is made
to say:
         All that you see in this wonderful island results from the
laws of Minos. The education which he ordained for the children
makes their bodies strong and robust. From the very beginning, one
accustoms the children to a life of frugality and labor, because one
assumes that all pleasures of the senses weaken both body and mind.
Thus one allows them no pleasure except that of becoming invincible by
virtue, and of acquiring glory....Here one punishes three vices that
go unpunished among other people: ingratitude, hypocrisy, and greed.
There is no need to punish persons for pomp and dissipation, for
they are unknown in Crete....No costly furniture, no magnificent
clothing, no delicious feasts, no gilded palaces are permitted.
         Thus does Mentor prepare his student to mold and to
manipulate-doubtless with the best of intentions-the people of Ithaca.
And to convince the student of the wisdom of these ideas, Mentor
recites to him the example of Salentum.
         It is from this sort of philosophy that we receive our
first political ideas! We are taught to treat persons much as an
instructor in agriculture teaches farmers to prepare and tend the
soil.
-
                         A FAMOUS NAME AND AN EVIL IDEA
         Now listen to the great Montesquieu on this same subject:
         To maintain the spirit of commerce, it is necessary that
all the laws must favor it. These laws, by proportionately dividing up
the fortunes as they are made in commerce, should provide every poor
citizen with sufficiently easy circumstances to enable him to work
like the others. These same Laws should put every rich citizen in such
lowered circumstances as to force him to work in order to keep or to
gain.
         Thus the laws are to dispose of all fortunes!
         Although real equality is the soul of the state in a
democracy, yet this is so difficult to extablish that an extreme
precision in this matter would not always be desirable. It is
sufficient that there be established a census to reduce or fix these
differences in wealth within a certain limit. After this is done, it
remains for specific laws to equalize inequality by imposing burdens
upon the rich and granting relief to the poor. Here again we find
the idea of equalizing fortunes by law, by force.
         In Greece, there were two kinds of republics, One, Sparta,
was military; the other, Athens, was commercial. In the former, it was
desired that the citizens be idle; in the latter, love of labor was
encouraged.
         Note the marvelous genius of these legislators: By debasing
all established customs-by mixing the usual concepts of all
virtues-they knew in advance that the world Would admire their wisdom.
         Lycurgus gave stability to his city of Sparta by combining
petty thievery with the soul of justice; by combining the most
complete bondage with the most extreme liberty; by combining the
most atrocious beliefs with the greatest moderation. He appeared to
deprive his city of all its resources, arts, commerce, money, and
defenses. In Sparta, ambition went without the hope of material
reward. Natural affection found no outlet because a man was neither
son, husband, nor father. Even chastity was no longer considered
becoming. By this road, Lycurgus led Sparta on to greatness and glory.
         This boldness which was to be found in the institutions of
Greece has been repeated in the midst of the degeneracy and corruption
of our modern times. An occasional honest legislator has molded a
people in whom integrity appears as natural as courage in the
Spartans.
         Mr. William Penn, for example, is a true Lycurgus. Even
though Mr. Penn had peace as his objective-while Lycurgus had war as
his objective-they resemble each other in that their moral prestige
over free men allowed them to overcome prejudices, to subdue passions,
and to lead their respective peoples into new paths.
         The country of Paraguay furnishes us with another example [of
a people who, for their own good, are molded by their legislators].*
         *Translator's note: What was then known as Paraguay was a
much larger area than it is today. It was colonized by the Jesuits who
settled the Indians into villages, and generally saved them from
further brutalities by the avid conquerors.
         Now it is true that if one considers the sheer pleasure of
commanding to be the greatest joy in life, he contemplates a crime
against society; it will, however, always be a noble ideal to govern
men in a manner that will make them happier.
         Those who desire to establish similar institutions must do as
follows: Establish common ownership of property as in the republic
of Plato; revere the gods as Plato commanded; prevent foreigners
from mingling with the people, in order to preserve the customs; let
the state, instead of the citizens, establish commerce. The
legislators should supply arts instead of luxuries; they should
satisfy needs instead of desires.
-
                                A FRIGHTFUL IDEA
         Those who are subject to vulgar infatuation may exclaim:
"Montesquieu has said this! So it's magnificent! It's sublime!" As for
me, I have the courage of my own opinion. I say: What! You have the
nerve to call that fine? It is frightful! It is abominable! These
random selections from the writings of Montesquieu show that he
considers persons, liberties, property-mankind itself-to be nothing
but materials for legislators to exercise their wisdom upon.
-
                          THE LEADER OF THE DEMOCRATS
         Now let us examine Rousseau on this subject. This writer on
public affairs is the supreme authority of the democrats. And although
he bases the social structure upon the will of the people, he has,
to a greater extent than anyone else, completely accepted the theory
of the total inertness of mankind in the presence of the legislators:
         If it is true that a great prince is rare, then is it not
true that a great legislator is even more rare? The prince has only to
follow the pattern that the legislator creates. The legislator is
the mechanic who invents the machine; the prince is merely the workman
who sets it in motion.
         And what part do persons play in all this? They are merely
the machine that is set in motion. In fact, are they not merely
considered to be the raw material of which the machine is made?
         Thus the same relationship exists between the legislator
and the prince as exists between the agricultural expert and the
farmer; and the relationship between the prince and his subjects is
the same as that between the farmer and his land. How high above
mankind, then, has this writer on public affairs been placed? Rousseau
rules over legislators themselves, and teaches them their trade in
these imperious terms:
         Would you give stability to the state? Then bring the
extremes as closely together as possible. Tolerate neither wealthy
persons nor beggars.
         If the soil is poor or barren, or the country too small for
its inhabitants, then turn to industry and arts, and trade these
products for the foods that you need....On a fertile soil if you are
short of inhabitants-devote all your attention to agriculture, because
this multiplies people; banish the arts, because they only serve to
depopulate the nation....
         If you have extensive and accessible coast lines, then
cover the sea with merchant ships; you will have a brilliant but short
existence. If your seas wash only inaccessible cliffs, let the
people be barbarous and eat fish; they will live more
quietly-perhaps better-and, most certainly, they will live more
happily.
         In short, and in addition to the maxims that are common to
all, every people has its own particular circumstances. And this
fact in itself will cause legislation appropriate to the
circumstances.
         This is the reason why the Hebrews formerly-and, more
recently, the Arabs-had religion as their principle objective. The
objective of the Athenians was literature; of Carthage and Tyre,
commerce; of Rhodes, naval affairs; of Sparta, war; and of Rome,
virtue. The author of The Spirit of Laws has shown by what art the
legislator should direct his institutions toward each of these
objectives....But suppose that the legislator mistakes his proper
objective, and acts on a principle different from that indicated by
the nature of things? Suppose that the selected principle sometimes
creates slavery, and sometimes liberty; sometimes wealth, and
sometimes population; sometimes peace, and sometimes conquest? This
confusion of objective will slowly enfeeble the law and impair the
constitution. The state will be subjected to ceaseless agitations
until it is destroyed or changed, and invincible nature regains her
empire.
         But if nature is sufficiently invincible to regain its
empire, why does not Rousseau admit that it did not need the
legislator to gain it in the first place? Why does he not see that
men, by obeying their own instincts, would turn to farming on
fertile soil, and to commerce on an extensive and easily accessible
coast, without the interference of a Lycurgus or a Solon or a Rousseau
who might easily be mistaken.
-
                        SOCIALISTS WANT FORCED CONFORMITY
         Be that as it may, Rousseau invests the creators, organizers,
directors, legislators, and controllers of society with a terrible
responsibility. He is, therefore, most exacting with them:
         He who would dare to undertake the political creation of a
people ought to believe that he can, in a manner of speaking,
transform human nature; transform each individual-who, by himself,
is a solitary and perfect whole-into a mere part of a greater whole
from which the individual will henceforth receive his life and
being. Thus the person who would undertake the political creation of a
people should believe in his ability to alter man's constitution; to
strengthen it; to substitute for the physical and independent
existence received from nature, an existence which is partial and
moral.* In short, the would-be creator of political man must remove
man's own forces and endow him with others that are naturally alien to
him.
         Poor human nature! What would become of a person's dignity if
it were entrusted to the followers of Rousseau?
         *Translator's note: According to Rousseau, the existence of
social man is partial in the sense that he is henceforth merely a part
of society. Knowing himself as such-and thinking and feeling from
the point of view of the whole-he
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                       LEGISLATORS DESIRE TO MOLD MANKIND
         Now let us examine Raynal on this subject of mankind being
molded by the legislator:
         The legislator must first consider the climate, the air,
and the soil. The resources at His disposal determine his duties. He
must first consider his locality. A population living on maritime
shores must have laws designed for navigation....If it is an inland
settlement, the legislator must make his plans according to the nature
and fertility of the soil....
         It is especially in the distribution of property that the
genius of the legislator will be found. As a general rule, when a
new colony is established in any country, sufficient land should be
given to each man to support his family....
         On an uncultivated island that yon are populating with
children, you need do nothing but let the seeds of truth germinate
along with the development of reason....But when you resettle a nation
with a past into a new country, the skill of the legislator rests in
the policy of permitting the people to retain no injurious opinions
and customs which can possibly be cured and corrected. If you desire
to prevent these opinions and customs from becoming permanent, you
will secure the second generation by a general system of public
education for the children. A prince or a legislator should never
establish a colony without first arranging to send wise men along to
instruct the youth...
         In a new colony, ample opportunity is open to the careful
legislator who desires to purify, the customs and manners of the
people. If he has virtue and genius, the land and the people at his
disposal will inspire his soul with a plan for society. A writer can
only vaguely trace the plan in advance because it is necessarily
subject to the instability of all hypotheses; the problem has many
forms, complications, and circumstances that are difficult to
foresee and settle in detail.
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                       LEGISLATORS TOLD HOW TO MANAGE MEN
         Raynal's instructions to the legislators on how to manage
people may be compared to a professor of agriculture lecturing his
students: "The climate is the first rule for the farmer. His resources
determine his procedure. He must first consider his locality. If his
sou is clay, he must do so and so. If his soil is sand, he must act in
another manner. Every facility is open to the farmer who wishes to
clear and improve his soil. If he is skillful enough, the manure at
his disposal will suggest to him a plan of operation. A professor
can only vaguely trace this plan in advance because it is
necessarily subject to the instability of all hypotheses; the
problem has many forms, complications, and circumstances that are
difficult to foresee and settle in detail."
         Oh, sublime writers! Please remember sometimes that this
clay, this sand, and this manure which you so arbitrarily dispose
of, are men! They are your equals! They are intelligent and free human
beings like yourselves! As you have, they too have received from God
the faculty to observe, to plan ahead, to think, and to judge for
themselves!
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                            A TEMPORARY DICTATORSHIP
         Here is Mably on this subject of the law and the
legislator. In the passages preceding the one here quoted, Mably has
supposed the laws, due to a neglect of security, to be worn out. He
continues to address the reader thusly:
         Under these circumstances, it is obvious that the springs
of government are slack. Give them a new tension, and the evil will be
cured....Think less of punishing faults, and more of rewarding that
which you need. In this manner you will restore to your republic the
vigor of youth. Because free people have been ignorant of this
procedure, they have lost their liberty! But if the evil has made such
headway that ordinary governmental procedures are unable to cure it,
then resort to an extraordinary tribunal with considerable powers
for a short time. The imagination of the citizens needs to be struck a
hard blow. In this manner, Mably continues through twenty volumes.
         Under the influence of teaching like this-which stems from
classical education-there came a time when everyone wished to place
himself above mankind in order to arrange, organize, and regulate it
in his own way.
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                       SOCIALISTS WANT EQUALITY OF WEALTH
         Next let us examine Condillac on this subject of the
legislators and mankind: My Lord, assume the character of Lycurgus
or of Solon. And before you finish reading this essay, amuse
yourself by giving laws to some savages in America or Africa.
Confine these nomads to fixed dwellings; teach them to tend
flocks....Attempt to develop the social consciousness that nature
has planted in them....Force them to begin to practice the duties of
humanity....Use punishment to cause sensual pleasures to become
distasteful to them. Then you will see that every point of your
legislation will cause these savages to lose a vice and gain a virtue.
         All people have had laws. But few people have been happy. Why
is this so? Because the legislators themselves have almost always been
ignorant of the purpose of society, which is the uniting of families
by a common interest.
         Impartiality in law consists of two things: the
establishing of equality in wealth and equality in dignity among the
citizens....As the laws establish greater equality, they become
proportionately more precious to every citizen....When all men are
equal in wealth and dignity-and when the laws leave no hope of
disturbing this equality-how can men then be agitated by greed,
ambition, dissipation, idleness, sloth, envy, hatred, or jealousy?
         What you have learned about the republic of Sparta should
enlighten you on this question. No other state has ever had laws
more in accord with the order of nature; of equality.
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                       THE ERROR OF THE SOCIALIST WRITERS
         Actually, it is not strange that during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries the human race was regarded as inert matter,
ready to receive everything-form, face, energy, movement, life-from
a great prince or a great legislator or a great genius. These
centuries were nourished on the study of antiquity. And antiquity
presents everywhere-in Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome-the spectacle of
a few men molding mankind according to their whims, thanks to the
prestige of force and of fraud. But this does not prove that this
situation is desirable. It proves only that since men and society
are capable of improvement, it is naturally to be expected that error,
ignorance, despotism, slavery, and superstition should be greatest
towards the origins of history. The writers quoted above were not in
error when they found ancient institutions to be such, but they were
in error when they offered them for the admiration and imitation of
future generations. Uncritical and childish conformists, they took for
granted the grandeur, dignity, morality, and happiness of the
artificial societies of the ancient world. They did not understand
that knowledge appears and grows with the passage of time; and that in
proportion to this growth of knowledge, might takes the side of right,
and society regains possession of itself.
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                                WHAT IS LIBERTY?
         Actually, what is the political struggle that we witness?
It is the instinctive struggle of all people toward liberty. And
what is this liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster
and shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties-liberty
of conscience, of education, of association, of the press, of
travel, of labor, of trade? In short, is not liberty the freedom of
every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not
harm other persons while doing so? Is not liberty the destruction of
all despotism-including, of course, legal despotism? Finally, is not
liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of
organizing the right of the individual to lawful self-defense; of
punishing injustice?
         It must be admitted that the tendency of the human race
toward liberty is largely thwarted, especially in France. This is
greatly due to a fatal desire-learned from the teachings of
antiquity-that our writers on public affairs have in common: They
desire to set themselves above mankind in order to arrange,
organize, and regulate it according to their fancy.
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                              PHILANTHROPIC TYRANNY
         While society is struggling toward liberty, these famous
men who put themselves at its head are filled with the spirit of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They think only of subjecting
mankind to the philanthropic tyranny of their own social inventions.
Like Rousseau, they desire to force mankind docilely to bear this yoke
of the public welfare that they have dreamed up in their own
imaginations.
         This was especially true in 1789. No sooner was the old
regime destroyed than society was subjected to still other
artificial arrangements, always starting from the same point: the
omnipotence of the law.
         Listen to the ideas of a few of the writers and politicians
during that period:
     SAINT-JUST: The legislator commands the future. It is for him
to will the good of mankind. It is for him to make men what he wills
them to be.
     ROBESPIERRE: The function of government is to direct the physical
and moral powers of the nation toward the end for which the
commonwealth has come into being.
     BILLAUD-VARENNES: A people who are to be returned to liberty must
be formed anew. A strong force and vigorous action are necessary to
destroy old prejudices, to change old customs, to correct depraved
affections, to restrict superfluous wants, and to destroy engrained
vices.... Citizens, the inflexible austerity of Lycurgus created the
firm foundation of the Spartan republic. The weak and trusting
character of Solon plunged Athens into slavery. This parallel embraces
the whole science of government.
     LE PELLETIER: Considering the extent of human degradation, I am
convinced that it is necessary to effect a total regeneration and,
if I may so express myself, of creating a new people.
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                        THE SOCIALISTS WANT DICTATORSHIP
         Again, it is claimed that persons are nothing but raw
material. It is not for them to will their own improvement; they are
incapable of it. According to Saint-Just, only the legislator is
capable of doing this. Persons are merely to be what the legislator
wills them to be. According to Robespierre, who copies Rousseau
literally, the legislator begins by decreeing the end for which the
commonwealth has come into being. Once this is determined, the
government has only to direct the physical and moral forces of the
nation toward that end. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the nation are
to remain completely passive. And according to the teachings of
Billaud-Varennes, the people should have no prejudices, no affections,
and no desires except those authorized by the legislator. He even goes
so far as to say that the inflexible austerity of one man is the
foundation of a republic.
         In cases where the alleged evil is so great that ordinary
governmental procedures cannot cure it, Mably recommends a
dictatorship to promote virtue: "Resort," he says, "to an
extraordinary tribunal with considerable powers for a short time.
The imagination of the citizens needs to be struck a hard blow."
This doctrine has not been forgotten. Listen to Robespierre:
         The principle of the republican government is virtue, and the
means required to establish virtue is terror. In our country we desire
to substitute morality for selfishness, honesty for honor,
principles for customs, duties for manners, the empire of reason for
the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for contempt of poverty,
pride for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity, love of glory for
love of money, good people for good companions, merit for intrigue,
genius for wit, truth for glitter, the charm of happiness for the
boredom of pleasure, the greatness of man for the littleness of the
great, a generous, strong, happy people for a good-natured, frivolous,
degraded people; in short, we desire to substitute all the virtues and
miracles of a republic for all the vices and absurdities of a
monarchy.
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                              DICTATORIAL ARROGANCE
         At what a tremendous height above the rest of mankind does
Robespierre here place himself! And note the arrogance with which he
speaks. He is not content to pray for a great reawakening of the human
spirit. Nor does he expect such a result from a well-ordered
government. No, he himself will remake mankind, and by means of
terror.
         This mass of rotten and contradictory statements is extracted
from a discourse by Robespierre in which he aims to explain the
principles of morality which ought to guide a revolutionary
government. Note that Robespierre's request for dictatorship is not
made merely for the purpose of repelling a foreign invasion or putting
down the opposing groups. Rather he wants a dictatorship in order that
he may use terror to force upon the country his own principles of
morality. He says that this act is only to be a temporary measure
preceding a new constitution. But in reality, he desires nothing short
of using terror to extinguish from France selfishness, honor, customs,
manners, fashion, vanity, love of money, good companionship, intrigue,
wit, sensuousness, and poverty. Not until he, Robespierre, shall
have accomplished these miracles, as he so rightly calls them, will he
permit the law to reign again.
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                       THE INDIRECT APPROACH TO DESPOTISM
         Usually, however, these gentlemen-the reformers, the
legislators, and the writers on public affairs-do not desire to impose
direct despotism upon mankind. Oh no, they are too moderate and
philanthropic for such direct action. Instead, they turn to the law
for this despotism, this absolutism, this omnipotence. They desire
only to make the laws.
         To show the prevalence of this queer idea in France, I
would need to copy not only the entire works of Mably, Raynal,
Rousseau, and Fenelon-plus long extracts from Bossuet and
Montesquieu-but also the entire proceedings of the Convention. I shall
do no such thing; I merely refer the reader to them.
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                        NAPOLEON WANTED PASSIVE MANKIND
         It is, of course, not at all surprising that this same idea
should have greatly appealed to Napoleon. He embraced it ardently
and used it with visor. Like a chemist, Napoleon considered all Europe
to be material for his experiments. But, in due course, this
material reacted against him.
         At St. Helena, Napoleon-greatly disillusioned-seemed to
recognize some initiative in mankind. Recognizing this, he became less
hostile to liberty. Nevertheless, this did not prevent him from
leaving this lesson to his son in his will: "To govern is to
increase and spread morality, education, and happiness."
         After all this, it is hardly necessary to quote the same
opinions from Morelly, Babeuf, Owen, Saint-Simon, and Fourier. Here
are, however, a few extracts from Louis Blanc's book on the
organization of labor: "In our plan, society receives its momentum
from power."
         Now consider this: The impulse behind this momentum is to
be supplied by the plan of Louis Blanc; his plan is to be forced
upon society; the society referred to is the human race. Thus the
human race is to receive its momentum from Louis Blanc.
         Now it will be said that the people are free to accept or
to reject this plan. Admittedly, people are free to accept or to
reject advice from whomever they wish. But this is not the way in
which Mr. Louis Blanc understands the matter. He expects that his plan
will be legalized, and thus forcibly imposed upon the people by the
power of the law:
         In our plan, the state has only to pass labor laws (nothing
else?) by means of which industrial progress can and must proceed in
complete liberty. The state merely places society on an incline
(that is all?). Then society will slide down this incline by the
mere force of things, and by the natural workings of the established
mechanism.
         But what is this incline that is indicated by Mr. Louis
Blanc? Does it not lead to an abyss? (No, it leads to happiness.) If
this is true, then why does not society go there of its own choice?
(Because society does not know what it wants; it must be propelled.)
What is to propel it? (Power.) And who is to supply the impulse for
this power? (Why, the inventor of the machine-in this instance, Mr.
Louis Blanc.)
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                        THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF SOCIALISM
         We shall never escape from this circle: the idea of passive
mankind, and the power of the law being used by a great man to
propel the people.
         Once on this incline, will society enjoy some liberty?
(Certainly.) And what is liberty, Mr. Louis Blanc?
         Once and for all, liberty is not only a mere granted right;
it is also the power granted to a person to use and to develop his
faculties under a reign of justice and under the protection of the law.
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         And this is no pointless distinction; its meaning is deep and
its consequences are difficult to estimate. For once it is agreed that
a person, to be truly free, must have the power to use and develop his
faculties, then it follows that every person has a claim on society
for such education as will permit him to develop himself. It also
follows that every person has a claim on society for tools of
production, without which human activity cannot be fully effective.
Now by what action can society give to every person the necessary
education and the necessary tools of production, if not by the
action of the state?
         Thus, again, liberty is power. Of what does this power
consist? (Of being educated and of being given the tools of
production.) Who is to give the education and the tools of production?
(Society, which owes them to everyone.) By what action is society to
give tools of production to those who do not own them? (Why, by the
action of the state.) And from whom will the state take them?
         Let the reader answer that question. Let him also notice
the direction in which this is taking us.
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                          THE DOCTRINE OF THE DEMOCRATS
         The strange phenomenon of our times-one which will probably
astound our descendants-is the doctrine based on this triple
hypothesis: the total inertness of mankind, the omnipotence of the
law, and the infallibility of the legislator. These three ideas form
the sacred symbol of those who proclaim themselves totally democratic.
         The advocates of this doctrine also profess to be social.
So far as they are democratic, they place unlimited faith in
mankind. But so far as they are social, they regard mankind as
little better than mud. Let us examine this contrast in greater
detail.
         What is the attitude of the democrat when political rights
are under discussion? How does he regard the people when a
legislator is to be chosen? Ah, then it is claimed that the people
have an instinctive wisdom; they are gifted with the finest
perception; their will is always right; the general will cannot err;
voting cannot be too universal.
         When it is time to vote, apparently the voter is not to be
asked for any guarantee of his wisdom. His will and capacity to choose
wisely are taken for granted. Can the people be mistaken? Are we not
living in an age of enlightenment? What! are the people always to be
kept on leashes? Have they not won their rights by great effort and
sacrifice? Have they not given ample proof of their intelligence and
wisdom? Are they not adults? Are they not capable of judging for
themselves? Do they not know what is best for themselves? Is there a
class or a man who would be so bold as to set himself above the
people, and judge and act for them? No, no, the people are and
should be free. They desire to manage their own affairs, and they
shall do so.
         But when the legislator is finally elected-ah! then indeed
does the tone of his speech undergo a radical chance. The people are
returned to passiveness, inertness, and unconsciousness; the
legislator enters into omnipotence. Now it is for him to initiate,
to direct, to propel, and to organize. Mankind has only to submit; the
hour of despotism has struck. We now observe this fatal idea: The
people who, during the election, were so wise, so moral, and so
perfect, now have no tendencies whatever; or if they have any, they
are tendencies that lead downward into degradation.
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                        THE SOCIALIST CONCEPT OF LIBERTY
         But ought not the people be given a little liberty?
         But Mr. Considerant has assured us that liberty leads
inevitably to monopoly!
         We understand that liberty means competition. But according
to Mr. Louis Blanc, competition is a system that ruins the businessmen
and exterminates the people. It is for this reason that free people
are ruined and exterminated in proportion to their degree of
freedom. (Possibly Mr. Louis Blanc should observe the results of
competition in, for example, Switzerland, Holland, England, and the
United States.)
         Mr. Louis Blanc also tells us that competition leads to
monopoly. And by the same reasoning, he thus informs us that low
prices lead to high prices; that competition drives production to
destructive activity; that competition drains away the sources of
purchasing power, that competition forces an increase in production
while, at the same time, it forces a decrease in consumption. From
this, it follows that free people produce for the sake of not
consuming; that liberty means oppression and madness among the people;
and that Mr. Louis Blanc absolutely must attend to it.
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                          SOCIALISTS FEAR ALL LIBERTIES
         Well, what liberty should the legislators permit people to
have? Liberty of conscience? (But if this were permitted, we would see
the people taking this opportunity to become atheists.)
         Then liberty of education? (But parents would pay
professors to teach their children immorality and falsehoods; besides,
according to Mr. Thiers, if education were left to national liberty,
it would cease to be national, and we would be teaching our children
the ideas of the Turks or Hindus; whereas, thanks to this legal
despotism over education, our children now have the good fortune to be
taught the noble ideas of the Romans.)
         Then liberty of labor? (But that would mean competition
which, in turn, leaves production unconsumed, ruins businessmen, and
exterminates the people.)
         Perhaps liberty of trade? (But everyone knows-and the
advocates of protective tariffs have proved over and over again-that
freedom of trade ruins every person who engages in it, and that it
is necessary to suppress freedom of trade in order to prosper.)
         Possibly then, liberty of association? (But, according to
socialist doctrine, true liberty and voluntary association are in
contradiction to each other, and the purpose of the socialists is to
suppress liberty of association precisely in order to force people
to associate together in true liberty.)
-
         Clearly then, the conscience of the social democrats cannot
permit persons to have any liberty because they believe that the
nature of mankind tends always toward every kind of degradation and
disaster. Thus, of course, the legislators must make plans for the
people in order to save them from themselves.
         This line of reasoning brings us to a challenging question:
If people are as incapable, as immoral, and as ignorant as the
politicians indicate, then why is the right of these same people to
vote defended with such passionate insistence?
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-
                                THE SUPERMAN IDEA
         The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another
question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know,
they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are
so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that
the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the
legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human
race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay
than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when
left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because
the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim
to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction.
Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received
from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and
above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority.
         They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly
such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to
the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from
the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority.
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                        THE SOCIALISTS REJECT FREE CHOICE
         Please understand that 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.
         I do not insist that the supporters of these various social
schools of thought-the Proudhonists, the Cabetists, the Fourierists,
the Universitarists, and the Protectionists -renounce their various
ideas. I insist only that they renounce this one idea that they have
in common: They need only to give up the idea of forcing us to
acquiesce to their groups and series, their socialized projects, their
free-credit banks, their Graeco-Roman concept of morality, and their
commercial regulations. I ask only that we be permitted to decide upon
these plans for ourselves; that we not be forced to accept them,
directly or indirectly, if we find them to be contrary to our best
interests or repugnant to our consciences.
         But these organizers desire access to the tax funds and to
the power of the law in order to carry out their plans. In addition to
being oppressive and unjust, this desire also implies the fatal
supposition that the organizer is infallible and mankind is
incompetent. But, again, if persons are incompetent to judge for
themselves, then why all this talk about universal suffrage?
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                        THE CAUSE OF FRENCH REVOLUTIONS
         This contradiction in ideas is, unfortunately but
logically, reflected in events in France. For example, Frenchmen
have led all other Europeans in obtaining their rights -or, more
accurately, their political demands. Yet this fact has in no respect
prevented us from becoming the most governed, the most regulated,
the most imposed upon, the most harnessed, and the most exploited
people in Europe. France also leads all other nations as the one where
revolutions are constantly to be anticipated. And under the
circumstances, it is quite natural that this should be the case.
         And this will remain the case so long as our politicians
continue to accept this idea that has been so well expressed by Mr.
Louis Blanc: "Society receives its momentum from power." This will
remain the case so long as human beings with feelings continue to
remain passive; so long as they consider themselves incapable of
bettering their prosperity and happiness by their own intelligence and
their own energy; so long as they expect everything from the law; in
short, so long as they imagine that their relationship to the state is
the same as that of the sheep to the shepherd.
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                        THE ENORMOUS POWER OF GOVERNMENT
         As long as these ideas prevail, it is clear that the
responsibility of government is enormous. Good fortune and bad
fortune, wealth and destitution, equality and inequality, virtue and
vice-all then depend upon political administration. It is burdened
with everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything;
therefore it is responsible for everything.
         If we are fortunate, then government has a claim to our
gratitude; but if we are unfortunate, then government must bear the
blame. For are not our persons and property now at the disposal of
government? Is not the law omnipotent?
         In creating a monopoly of education, the government must
answer to the hopes of the fathers of families who have thus been
deprived of their liberty; and if these hopes are shattered, whose
fault is it?
         In regulating industry, the government has contracted to make
it prosper; otherwise it is absurd to deprive industry of its liberty.
And if industry now suffers, whose fault is it?
         In meddling with the balance of trade by playing with
tariffs, the government thereby contracts to make trade prosper; and
if this results in destruction instead of prosperity, whose fault is
it?
         In giving the maritime industries protection in exchange
for their liberty, the government undertakes to make them
profitable; and if they become a burden to the taxpayers, whose
fault is it?
         Thus there is not a grievance in the nation for which the
government does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it
surprising, then, that every failure increases the threat of another
revolution in France?
         And what remedy is proposed for this? To extend
indefinitely the domain of the law; that is, the responsibility of
government.
         But if the government undertakes to control and to raise
wages, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes to care for
all who may be in want, and cannot do it; if the government undertakes
to support all unemployed workers, and cannot do it; if the government
undertakes to lend interest-free money to all borrowers, and cannot do
it; if, in these words that we regret to say escaped from the pen of
Mr. de Lamartine, "The state considers that its purpose is to
enlighten, to develop, to enlarge, to strengthen, to spiritualize, and
to sanctify the soul of the people"-and if the government cannot do
all of these things, what then? Is it not certain that after every
government failure-which, alas! is more than probable-there will be an
equally inevitable revolution?
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                             POLITICS AND ECONOMICS
         [Now let us return to a subject that was briefly discussed in
the opening pages of this thesis: the relationship of economics and of
politics-political economy.]
         A science of economics must be developed before a science
of politics can be logically formulated. Essentially, economics is the
science of determining whether the interests of human beings are
harmonious or antagonistic. This must be known before a science of
politics can be formulated to determine the proper functions of
government.
         Immediately following the development of a science of
economics, and at the very beginning of the formulation of a science
of politics, this all-important question must be answered: What is
law? What ought it to be? What is its scope; its limits? Logically, at
what point do the just powers of the legislator stop?
         I do not hesitate to answer: Law is the common force
organized to act as an obstacle to injustice. In short, law is
justice.
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                          PROPER LEGISLATIVE FUNCTIONS
         It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over
our persons and property. The existence of persons and property
preceded the existence of the legislator, and his function is only
to guarantee their safety.
         It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our
consciences, our ideas, our wigs, our education, our opinions, our
work, our trade, our talents, or our pleasures. The function of law is
to protect the free exercise of these rights, and to prevent any
person from interfering with the free exercise of these same rights by
any other person.
         Since law necessarily requires the support of force, its
lawful domain is only in the areas where the use of force is
necessary. This is justice.
         Every individual has the right to use force for lawful
self-defense. It is for this reason that the collective force -which
is only the organized combination of the individual forces-may
lawfully be used for the same purpose; and it cannot be used
legitimately for any other purpose.
         Law is solely the organization of the individual right of
self-defense which existed before law was formalized. Law is justice.
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                        LAW AND CHARITY ARE NOT THE SAME
         The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and
plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a
philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect persons and property.
         Furthermore, it must not be said that the law may be
philanthropic if, in the process, it refrains from oppressing
persons and plundering them of their property; this would be a
contradiction. The law cannot avoid having an effect upon persons
and property; and if the law acts in any manner except to protect
them, its actions then necessarily violate the liberty of persons
and their right to own property-The law is justice-simple and clear,
precise and bounded. Every eye can see it, and every mind can grasp
it; for justice is measurable, immutable, and unchangeable. Justice is
neither more than this nor less than this.
         If you exceed this proper limit-if you attempt to make the
law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial,
literary, or artistic-you will then be lost in an uncharted territory,
in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in
a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it
upon you. This is true because fraternity and philanthropy, unlike
justice, do not have precise limits. Once started, where will you
stop? And where will the law stop itself?
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                           THE HIGH ROAD TO COMMUNISM
         Mr. de Saint-Cricq would extend his philanthropy only to some
of the industrial groups; he would demand that the law control the
consumers to benefit the producers.
         Mr. Considerant would sponsor the cause of the labor
groups; he would use the law to secure for them a guaranteed minimum
of clothing, housing, food, and all other necessities of life.
         Mr. Louis Blanc would say-and with reason-that these
minimum guarantees are merely the beginning of complete fraternity; he
would say that the law should give tools of production and free
education to all working people.
         Another person would observe that this arrangement would
still leave room for inequality; he would claim that the law should
give to everyone-even in the most inaccessible hamlet-luxury,
literature, and art.
         All of these proposals are the high road to communism;
legislation will then be-in fact, it already is-the battlefield for
the fantasies and greed of everyone.
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                        THE BASIS FOR STABLE GOVERNMENT
         Law is justice. In this proposition a simple and enduring
government can be conceived. And I defy anyone to say how even the
thought of revolution, of insurrection, of the slightest uprising
could arise against a government whose organized force was confined
only to suppressing injustice.
         Under such a regime, there would be the most prosperity-and
it would be the most equally distributed. As for the sufferings that
are inseparable from humanity, no one would even think of accusing the
government for them. This is true because, if the force of
government were limited to suppressing injustice, then government
would be as innocent of these sufferings as it is now innocent of
changes in the temperature.
         As proof of this statement, consider this question: Have
the people ever been known to rise against the Court of Appeals, or
mob a Justice of the Peace, in order to get higher wages, free credit,
tools of production, favorable tariffs, or government-created jobs?
Everyone knows perfectly well that such matters are not within the
jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals or a Justice of the Peace. And if
government were limited to its proper functions, everyone would soon
learn that these matters are not within the jurisdiction of the law
itself.
         But make the laws upon the principle of fraternity
-proclaim that all good, and all bad, stem from the law; that the
law is responsible for all individual misfortunes and all social
inequalities-then the door is open to an endless succession of
complaints, irritations, troubles, and revolutions.
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                           JUSTICE MEANS EQUAL RIGHTS
         Law is justice. And it would indeed be strange if law could
properly be anything else! Is not justice right? Are not rights equal?
By what right does the law force me to conform to the social plans
of Mr. Mimerel, Mr. de Melun, Mr. Thiers, or Mr. Louis Blanc? If the
law has a moral right to do this, why does it not, then, force these
gentlemen to submit to my plans? Is it logical to suppose that
nature has not given me sufficient imagination to dream up a utopia
also? Should the law choose one fantasy among many, and put the
organized force of government at its service only?
         Law is justice. And let it not be said-as it continually is
said-that under this concept, the law would be atheistic,
individualistic, and heartless; that it would make mankind in its
own image. This is an absurd conclusion, worthy only of those
worshippers of government who believe that the law is mankind.
         Nonsense! Do those worshippers of government believe that
free persons will cease to act? Does it follow that if we receive no
energy from the law, we shall receive no energy at all? Does it follow
that if the law is restricted to the function of protecting the free
use of our faculties, we will be unable to use our faculties?
Suppose that the law does not force us to follow certain forms of
religion, or systems of association, or methods of education, or
regulations of labor, or regulations of trade, or plans for charity;
does it then follow that we shall eagerly plunge into atheism,
hermitary, ignorance, misery, and greed? If we are free, does it
follow that we shall no longer recognize the power and goodness of
God? Does it follow that we shall then cease to associate with each
other, to help each other, to love and succor our unfortunate
brothers, to study the secrets of nature, and to strive to improve
ourselves to the best of our abilities?
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                        THE PATH TO DIGNITY AND PROGRESS
         Law is justice. And it is under the law of justice-under
the rein of right; under the influence of liberty, safety,
stability, and responsibility-that every person will attain his real
worth and the true dignity of his being. It is only under this law
of justice that mankind will achieve-slowly, no doubt, but
certainly-God's design for the orderly and peaceful progress of
humanity.
         It seems to me that this is theoretically right, for whatever
the question under discussion-whether religious, philosophical,
political, or economic; whether it concerns prosperity, morality,
equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, cooperation,
property, labor, trade, capital, wages, taxes, population, finance, or
government-at whatever point on the scientific horizon I begin my
researches, I invariably reach this one conclusion: The solution to
the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty.
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                                PROOF OF AN IDEA
         And does not experience prove this? Look at the entire world.
Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most moral, and the
happiest people? Those people are found in the countries where the law
least interferes with private affairs; where government is least felt;
where the individual has the greatest scope, and free opinion the
greatest influence; where administrative powers are fewest and
simplest; where taxes are lightest and most nearly equal, and
popular discontent the least excited and the least justifiable;
where individuals and groups most actively assume their
responsibilities, and, consequently, where the morals of admittedly
imperfect human beings are constantly improving; where trade,
assemblies, and associations are the least restricted; where labor,
capital, and populations suffer the fewest forced displacements; where
mankind most nearly follows its own natural inclinations; where the
inventions of men are most nearly in harmony with the laws of God;
in short, the happiest, most moral, and most peaceful people are those
who most nearly follow this principle: Although mankind is not
perfect, still, all hope rests upon the free and voluntary actions
of persons within the limits of right; law or force is to be used
for nothing except the administration of universal justice.
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                         THE DESIRE TO RULE OVER OTHERS
         This must be said: 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.
         Now someone will say: "You yourself are doing this very
thing."
         True. But it must be admitted that I act in an entirely
different sense; if I have joined the ranks of the reformers, it is
solely for the purpose of persuading them to leave people alone. I
do not look upon people as Vancauson looked upon his automaton.
Rather, just as the physiologist accepts the human body as it is, so
do I accept people as they are. I desire only to study and admire.
         My attitude toward all other persons is well illustrated by
this story from a celebrated traveler: He arrived one day in the midst
of a tribe of savages, where a child had just been born. A crowd of
soothsayers, magicians, and quacks-armed with rings, hooks, and
cords-surrounded it. One said: "This child will never smell the
perfume of a peace-pipe unless I stretch his nostrils." Another
said: "He will never be able to hear unless I draw his ear-lobes
down to his shoulders." A third said: "He will never see the
sunshine unless I slant his eyes." Another said: "He will never
stand upright unless I bend his legs." A fifth said: "He will never
learn to think unless I flatten his skull."
         "Stop," cried the traveler. "What God does is well done. Do
not claim to know more than He. God has given organs to this frail
creature; let them develop and grow strong by exercise, use,
experience, and liberty."
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                             LET US NOW TRY LIBERTY
         God has given to men all that is necessary for them to
accomplish their destinies. He has provided a social form as well as a
human form. And these social organs of persons are so constituted that
they will develop themselves harmoniously in the clean air of liberty.
Away, then, with quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, chains,
hooks, and pincers! Away with their artificial systems! Away with
the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects,
their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their
state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their
regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and
their pious moralizations!
         And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so
futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally
end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try
liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His
works.
                                    THE END