The Law
Frederic Bastiat
[Part Two]
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
plunder.
Slavery is a violation, by law, of liberty. The protective tariff
is a violation, by law, of property.
Its is a most remarkable fact that this double legal crime - a
sorrowful inheritance of 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 only in the instance of slavery and tariffs -
what must be the consequences in Europe, where the perversion of law
is a principle; a system?
Two Kinds of Plunder
Mr. de Montalembert [politician and writer] adopting the thought
contained in a famous proclamation by Mr. Carlier, has said: "We
must make war against socialism." According to the definition
of socialism advanced by Mr. Charles Dupin, he meant: "We must
make war against plunder."
But of what plunder was he speaking? For there are two kinds of
plunder: legal and illegal.
I do not think that illegal plunder, such as theft or swindling --
which the penal code defines, anticipates, and punishes -- can be
called socialism. It is not this kind of plunder that systematically
threatens the foundations of society. Anyway, the war against this
kind of plunder has not waited for the command of these gentlemen.
The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning
of the world. Long before the Revolution of February 1848 -- long
before the appearance even of socialism itself -- France had
provided police, judges, gendarmes, prisons, dungeons, and scaffolds
for the purpose of fighting illegal plunder. The law itself conducts
this war, and it is my wish and opinion that the law should always
maintain this attitude toward plunder.
The Law Defends Plunder
But it does not always do this. Sometimes the law defends plunder
and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame,
danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve.
Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police,
prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats
the victim -- when he defends himself -- as a criminal. In short,
there is a legal plunder, and it is of this, no doubt, that Mr. de
Montalembert speaks.
This legal plunder may be only an isolated stain among the
legislative measures of the people. If so, it is best to wipe it out
with a minimum of speeches and denunciations -- and in spite of the
uproar of the vested interests.
How to Identify Legal Plunder
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See
if the law takes from some persons what belongs to 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.
Legal Plunder Has Many Names
Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways.
Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs,
protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive
taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits,
minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor,
free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole --with
their common aim of legal plunder -- constitute socialism.
Now, since under this definition socialism is a body of doctrine,
what attack can be made against it other than a war of doctrine? If
you find this socialistic doctrine to be false, absurd, and evil,
then refute it. And the more false, the more absurd, and the more
evil it is, the easier it will be to refute. Above all, if you wish
to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that
may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task.
Socialism Is Legal Plunder
Mr. de Montalembert has been accused of desiring to fight
socialism by the use of brute force. He ought to be exonerated from
this accusation, for he has plainly said: "The war that we must
fight against socialism must be in harmony with law, honor, and
justice."
But why does not Mr. de Montalembert see that he has placed
himself in a vicious circle? You would use the law to oppose
socialism? But it is upon the law that socialism itself relies.
Socialists desire to practice legal plunder, not illegal plunder.
Socialists, like all other monopolists, desire to make the law their
own weapon. And when once the law is on the side of socialism, how
can it be used against socialism? For when plunder is abetted by the
law, it does not fear your courts, your gendarmes, and your prisons.
Rather, it may call upon them for help.
To prevent this, you would exclude socialism from entering into
the making of laws? You would prevent socialists from entering the
Legislative Palace? You shall not succeed, I predict, so long as
legal plunder continues to be the main business of the legislature.
It is illogical -- in fact, absurd -- to assume otherwise.
The Choice Before Us
This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all,
and there are only three ways to settle it:
- The few plunder the many.
- Everybody plunders everybody.
- Nobody plunders anybody.
We must make our choice among limited plunder, universal plunder,
and no plunder. The law can follow only one of these three.
Limited legal plunder: This system prevailed when the right to
vote was restricted. One would turn back to this system to prevent
the invasion of socialism.
Universal legal plunder: We have been threatened with this system
since the franchise was made universal. The newly enfranchised
majority has decided to formulate law on the same principle of legal
plunder that was used by their predecessors when the vote was
limited.
No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order,
stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall
proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas!
is all too inadequate).*
*Translator's note: At the time this was written, Mr.
Bastiat knew that he was dying of tuberculosis. Within a year, he
was dead.
The Proper Function of the Law
And, in all sincerity, can anything more than the absence of
plunder be required of the law? Can the law -- which necessarily
requires the use of force -- rationally be used for anything except
protecting the rights of everyone? I defy anyone to extend it beyond
this purpose without perverting it and, consequently, turning might
against right. This is the most fatal and most illogical social
perversion that can possibly be imagined. It must be admitted that
the true solution -- so long searched for in the area of social
relationships -- is contained in these simple words: Law is
organized justice.
Now this must be said: When justice is organized by law -- that
is, by force -- this excludes the idea of using law (force) to
organize any human activity whatever, whether it be labor, charity,
agriculture, commerce, industry, 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?
The Seductive Lure of Socialism
Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not
considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be
philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to
every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for
physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is
demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and
morality throughout the nation.
This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These
two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We
must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be free
and not free.
Enforced Fraternity Destroys Liberty
Mr. de Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: "Your doctrine is
only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I go on to
fraternity." I answered him: "The second half of your
program will destroy the first."
In fact, it is impossible for me to separate the word fraternity
from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly understand how fraternity
can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed, and
thus justice being legally trampled underfoot.
Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said before,
is 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 aggression against rights is even worse. In this case
of legal plunder, however, the person who receives the benefits is
not responsible for the act of plundering. The responsibility for
this legal plunder rests with the law, the legislator, and society
itself. Therein lies the political danger.
It is to be regretted that the word plunder is offensive. I have
tried in vain to find an inoffensive word, for I would not at any
time -- especially now -- wish to add an irritating word to our
dissentions. Thus, whether I am believed or not, I declare that I do
not mean to attack the intentions or the morality of anyone. Rather,
I am attacking an idea which I believe to be false; a system which
appears to me to be unjust; an injustice so independent of personal
intentions that each of us profits from it without wishing to do so,
and suffers from it without knowing the cause of the suffering.
Three Systems of Plunder
The sincerity of those who advocate protectionism, socialism, and
communism is not here questioned. Any writer who would do that must
be influenced by a political spirit or a political fear. It is to be
pointed out, however, that protectionism, socialism, and communism
are basically the same plant in three 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 -- a monopoly -- were granted only to one group in
France, the iron workers, for instance, this act would so obviously
be legal plunder that it could not last for long. It is for this
reason that we see all the protected trades combined into a common
cause. They even organize themselves in such a manner as to appear
to represent all persons who labor. Instinctively, they feel that
legal plunder is concealed by generalizing it.
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.
Part Three *
Return to Part One
