The Law

Bastiat crams a lot of wisdom, logic, and common sense into just fifty-five pages. Don’t let this deter you from reading the book but Bastiat is French and died on Christmas Eve, 1850. Yet his words resonate today. He was a great admirer of America because of its freedom and Constitution and the protection of individual liberties. In the foreword to the book written in 2007 by Loyola College economics professor Thomas J. DiLorenzo, however, Lorenzo speculates how Bastiat would have reacted to America’s Civil War. “It is unlikely that he would have considered the U.S. government’s military invasion of the Southern States in 1861, the killing of some 300,000 citizens, and the bombing, burning, and plundering of the region’s cities, towns, farms, and businesses as being consistent in any way with the protection of lives, liberties, and properties of those citizens as promised by the Declaration of Independence.” Bravo. No political correctness or revisionist history there. DiLorenzo goes on to say, “Anyone who reads this great essay along with other free-market classics, such as Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson and Murray Rothbard’s Power and Market, will possess enough intellectual ammunition to debunk the socialist fantasies of this or any other day.” Nuff said. Maybe I will just add a quote directly from Bastiat. “Nothing can enter the public treasury, in favor of one citizen or one class, but what other citizens and other classes have been forced to send to it.”

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

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

To the point! Explains the foundation of law that stands today.

It is a wonderful document in history.

I always kept this little book in my travel bag because it contains great wisdom on every page and I could get a quick hit of inspiration by opening any page and reading for a few minutes where time allowed.

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

My husband is very pleased with this book.

good

I think that other reviews have done a fine job of praising the importance and genius of Bastiats work. And I thoroughly enjoyed his reasoning and clarity as well. But I was pretty disappointed by the quality of this edition. The book has misplaced punctuation and typos in it -- the kind that would be caught by a simple spell checker. Maybe Im picky, but I find such errors to be rather distracting when reading. When I buy a book, I expect that someone has carefully proofread it, but somehow that seems to have been overlooked here. So, 5+ stars for Bastiat, and a generous 2 stars for the publisher.