The Law

If you believe good law exists only to protect natural rights, and the rest is bad law, youll find little new here except maybe a different approach and some historical perspective. If you have thought (or still think) law is for enforcing rules over natural rights, you should read this book (and others) and reevaluate your view of rights. If your undaunted opinion is that theres no such thing as unregulated rights, Im not sure you can be helped... there are thousands of books supporting all manner of tyrannies you may find more to your taste.

Bastiats perspective is relevant today and provides an in depth understanding of Law. He describes the difference between plunder and legal plunder, the later of which is destroying the foundation of America as solidified by our founding fathers in Constitution. To understand how the foundation is being eroding by legal plunder (none-the-less plunder) one must fully understand the impact of it. Bastiats The Law provides that understanding. Ive also downloaded the audio version and send it to friends regularly. To change what is going on in America we must understand what is really happening as our politicians make every effort to present everything as if it were a nice present wrapped up perfectly for out benefit...it is deceitful.

The antithesis to Communist Manifesto written the same decade.

What book is is important enough that I read it once a year? The Law by Frederic Bastiat. Written in 1848 as a response to socialism in France, this book essay is just as relevant today as it was then. 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. My copy of The Law is filled with highlighted yellow phrases. Among them: 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. Every legislator should be forced to read Bastiats The Law once a month for their entire term and write a synopsis of how they have upheld the ideas contained within it. The tome should be taught in our school systems. It should be drilled into every citizens head from birth until death. When he was alive, Bastiat called the United States the one nation in the world that came close to applying law in a just manner. If he could visit us today, he would puke all over the steps of Congress. He would barf in the halls of the White House. He would upchuck in lobbyists offices all over Washington, D.C. When he was done throwing up, I do believe Bastiat would start a revolution. He would definitely take on our current system of governance because were turning into Socialism Lite Less Filling, More Taxes. 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 legislators 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 mans 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. Read The Law. It will change all your assumptions about what the role of government should be in your life in only 76 pages. When youre done, make your friends read The Law. If they wont, stop being friends with them. Send a copy to your Representatives and Congressmen and ask them what the hell they think theyre doing with this country of ours.

The one dissenter of the philosophers of his day. Bastiat considered the periods just before, during and after the French revolution. He has a very common sense and very practical God fearing thought process to mankind and the rules we make up while sharing his respect and admiration for the ways of God, the Creator.This man will help any American to see what is true and good about the Constitution for the United States. After all, France adopted our constitution shortly after we did. ~A United States born Natural person

Although written in 1850, the principles of freedom from government intrusion into our lives, could not be more appropriate in todays world. Mr. Bastiat elucidates, in 75 pages, his concept of the over-reach of the Socialist style of government, by creating laws which actually limit our rights to free expression. This short treatise should be read and reread by every citizen, and taught in history classes throughout the world. It tells in simple terms, how the government systematically erodes freedoms, and makes the populace dependent upon it for its power over its citizenry. The concept of ominous parallels in our world today, could not be more appropriate and critical to understand. The principles are great ammunition for those who wish to preserve the freedoms our forefathers fought for to bring us.

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This is a deep but excellent discussion of what the law is for and what it is not for. How Liberty of the individual is a high goal. Government should only be there to stop injustice, nothing more.

This is a pretty small book and had to understand its full meaning. It consists of an essay written by Bastiat, one of his most notable works. I would recommend the book but I wouldnt this edition. It had no preface, no words whatsoever about the author, the time of the publishing of this essay or historic context. I had to go online to search for all of this. A book like this needs at least double its content to specify certain things as historical background, about the life and beliefs of the author, about his other works etc. As I said, I do recommend the book, but try and find another edition with at least an introduction to this work. Overall this edition was dry and of a poor quality of paper and print.

I lack necessary intellectual capacity and courage to judge or review such an amazing narrative and book, however, this book taught me more and more and proofed that some of the critical , social, political and philosophical questions were answered long time ago. This book adds to the answers to my own personal questions such as why Europ for example was able to reform while other nations and ethnicities were unable to do so and describe the kind of debate that was going on some 150 years ago that enabled the modern world make such a giant leap in politics and economics. I would defiantly list this book as one of the best written and recommend it to those interested in the subject of political economics. I have therefore given it 5 stars!