The Law - Bastiat E-Book

Frederic Bastiat

• Herausgeber: Lebooks Editora
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 86

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The Law, written by Frédéric Bastiat  in 1850, is a foundational text in classical liberal and libertarian thought. In this concise yet powerful treatise, Bastiat argues that the proper purpose of law is to protect individual rights—specifically life, liberty, and property. He warns against the perversion of law into a tool for "legal plunder," where the state violates these rights by redistributing wealth and enforcing social agendas under the guise of justice. With clarity and forceful logic, Bastiat defends limited government, voluntary exchange, and the moral foundation of a free society. He critiques socialism and interventionist policies, asserting that when the law goes beyond its legitimate function, it fosters injustice rather than curbing it. Since its publication, The Law has influenced generations of thinkers and remains a key work in discussions about personal freedom, economic liberty, and the role of the state. Bastiat's unwavering commitment to individual rights and his accessible writing style have helped the text endure as a powerful argument for freedom rooted in natural law. Its lasting relevance lies in its timeless message: that the law must never become a weapon of oppression, but a safeguard of liberty. In a world still grappling with the balance between authority and freedom, The Law remains as urgent and compelling as ever.

Leseprobe

Frédéric Bastiat

THE LAW

Original Title:

“La Loi”

Contents

INTRODUCTION

THE LAW

INTRODUCTION

Frédéric Bastiat

1801–1850

Frédéric Bastiat was a French economist, writer, and political theorist, widely recognized for his contributions to classical liberalism and free-market economics. Born in Bayonne, France, Bastiat is best known for his clear and persuasive style in defending economic freedom, individual liberty, and limited government. Although his life was relatively short, his writings continue to influence economic thought and policy debates worldwide.

Early Life and Education

Frédéric Bastiat was born into a family of merchants and landowners. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by his grandfather and later inherited the family estate. Bastiat’s formal education was irregular, but he was a voracious reader with a strong interest in economics and philosophy. Influenced by the works of Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say, Bastiat began studying political economy in depth, eventually becoming a prominent voice in the fight against protectionism and government intervention.

Career and Contributions

Bastiat's economic thought flourished during a time of intense debate about tariffs and free trade in France. In 1844, he gained national attention with his article "The Influence of French and English Tariffs on the Future of the Two Peoples," marking the beginning of his career as a public intellectual. He co-founded the French Free Trade Association and became a member of the National Assembly after the 1848 revolution.

Among his most influential works are The Law (1850), Economic Sophisms (1845–1848), and What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen (1850). In The Law, Bastiat argued that the proper role of the state is to protect individual rights—life, liberty, and property—and that legal plunder occurs when the law is used to violate these rights. What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen introduced the powerful concept of opportunity cost and warned against the unintended consequences of economic policies, using the now-famous parable of the broken window.

Impact and Legacy

Bastiat’s writing is noted for its clarity, wit, and use of satire, making complex economic principles accessible to a broader audience. His arguments against socialism, protectionism, and state intervention laid the intellectual groundwork for later economists such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Though often overlooked in academic circles during his time, Bastiat’s influence grew significantly in the 20th century with the rise of libertarian thought.

His work anticipated many modern economic ideas, including the concept of public choice and the importance of individual incentives. Bastiat’s style of blending rigorous economic reasoning with moral philosophy continues to resonate with advocates of free markets and individual freedom.

Frédéric Bastiat died in 1850 at the age of 49, after a long struggle with tuberculosis. Despite his early death and limited formal training, Bastiat’s impact on economic theory and political philosophy endures. His works have been translated into many languages and remain widely read among students of economics, policy makers, and proponents of liberty.

Bastiat's legacy is that of a brilliant communicator of economic truths. His ability to expose the fallacies of interventionist policies with simplicity and elegance ensures his continued relevance. Today, he is celebrated as one of the greatest champions of economic liberty, whose ideas remain a guiding light for those who seek to understand the real costs of government action and the vital importance of individual freedom.

About the work

The Law, written by Frédéric Bastiat in 1850, is a foundational text in classical liberal and libertarian thought. In this concise yet powerful treatise, Bastiat argues that the proper purpose of law is to protect individual rights—specifically life, liberty, and property. He warns against the perversion of law into a tool for “legal plunder,” where the state violates these rights by redistributing wealth and enforcing social agendas under the guise of justice.

With clarity and forceful logic, Bastiat defends limited government, voluntary exchange, and the moral foundation of a free society. He critiques socialism and interventionist policies, asserting that when the law goes beyond its legitimate function, it fosters injustice rather than curbing it.

Since its publication, The Law has influenced generations of thinkers and remains a key work in discussions about personal freedom, economic liberty, and the role of the state. Bastiat’s unwavering commitment to individual rights and his accessible writing style have helped the text endure as a powerful argument for freedom rooted in natural law.

Its lasting relevance lies in its timeless message: that the law must never become a weapon of oppression, but a safeguard of liberty. In a world still grappling with the balance between authority and freedom, The Law remains as urgent and compelling as ever.

THE LAW1

The law perverted! The law — and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation — the law, I say, not only diverted from its proper direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law become the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law guilty of that very iniquity which it was its mission to punish! Truly, this is a serious fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to call the attention of my fellow citizens.

We hold from God the gift that, as far as we are concerned, contains all others, Life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.

But life cannot support itself. He who has bestowed it, has entrusted us with the care of supporting it, of developing it, and of perfecting it. To that end, He has provided us with a collection of wonderful faculties; He has plunged us into the midst of a variety of elements. It is by the application of our faculties to these elements that the phenomena of assimilation and of appropriation, by which life pursues the circle that has been assigned to it are realized.

Existence, faculties, assimilation — in other words, personality, liberty, property — this is man.

It is of these three things that it may be said, apart from all demagogic subtlety, that they are anterior and superior to all human legislation.

It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist beforehand, that men make laws. What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of which is rendered complete by the others, and that cannot be understood without them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our personality? and what is property, but an extension of our faculties?

If every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, a number of men have the right to combine together to extend, to organize a common force to provide regularly for this defense.

Collective right, then, has its principle, its reason for existing, its lawfulness, in individual right; and the common force cannot rationally have any other end, or any other mission, than that of the isolated forces for which it is substituted. Thus, as the force of an individual cannot lawfully touch the person, the liberty, or the property of another individual — for the same reason, the common force cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individuals or of classes.

For this perversion of force would be, in one case as in the other, in contradiction to our premises. For who will dare to say that force has been given to us, not to defend our rights, but to annihilate the equal rights of our brethren? And if this be not true of every individual force, acting independently, how can it be true of the collective force, which is only the organized union of isolated forces?

Nothing, therefore, can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense; it is the substitution of collective for individual forces, for the purpose of acting in the sphere in which they have a right to act, of doing what they have a right to do, to secure persons, liberties, and properties, and to maintain each in its right, so as to cause justice to reign over all.

And if a people established upon this basis were to exist, it seems to me that order would prevail among them in their acts as well as in their ideas. It seems to me that such a people would have the simplest, the most economical, the least oppressive, the least to be felt, the most restrained, the most just, and, consequently, the most stable Government that could be imagined, whatever its political form might be.

For under such an administration, everyone would feel that he possessed all the fullness, as well as all the responsibility of his existence. So long as personal safety was ensured, so long as labor was free, and the fruits of labor secured against all unjust attacks, no one would have any difficulties to contend with in the State. When prosperous, we should not, it is true, have to thank the State for our success; but when unfortunate, we should no more think of taxing it with our disasters than our peasants think of attributing to it the arrival of hail or of frost. We should know it only by the inestimable blessing of Safety.

It may further be affirmed, that, thanks to the nonintervention of the State in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions would develop themselves in their natural order. We should not see poor families seeking for literary instruction before they were supplied with bread. We should not see towns peopled at the expense of rural districts, nor rural districts at the expense of towns. We should not see those great displacements of capital, of labor, and of population, that legislative measures occasion; displacements that render so uncertain and precarious the very sources of existence, and thus enlarge to such an extent the responsibility of Governments.