The Law Revisited - Part I

The law has been utterly corrupted! Not only that, but those sworn to uphold the law have been defiled as well! I'm telling you right now that the law has not just been derailed from it's original purpose but has completely changed course! Now the law has become the weapon of choice for greed! Rather than punishing crime, the law has become a willing participant in the very evils it was designed to punish!

If this is true, it is most serious and I have a moral obligation to warn my countrymen of it.

Life Is a Gift from God

God gave us a gift which all others derive from. That gift is life: physical, intellectual and moral life.

But life is not self maintaining. God has given us the duty of preserving, developing and perfecting it. In order to succeed in this, we have been a given amazing facutlies and He has given us in the a variety of natural resources. By using our faculties with these natural resources we can turn these resources into products which we can then use. This process is vital to life proceeding as it should.

Life, senses, production-- in other words, individuality, liberty, property -- this is man. Despite the most creative politicians, these gifts predate all human laws and surpass them.

Life, liberty, and property don't exist because a bunch of politicians made laws about them. Not at all! In fact it was because of the fact that life, liberty and property existed that men had to make laws to protect them.

What Is Law?

So then, what is the law? The law is simply the organization of individuals to ensure their right to legal defense.

All of us have the natural right - given to us by God - to protect ourselves, our liberty and our property. These rights are fundamental to life and the protection of any one of these is dependant on the protection of the other two. After all, 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 naturally a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force that would always protect these rights. And so the principle of collective right -- the reason it even exists and is lawful -- 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. Therefore since an individual cannot legally use force against the person, liberty, or property of someone else, 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 would then argue that force exists to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no one person can legally use force to violate someone else's rights, doesn't it make sense that the same principle applies to a collective force which is essentially a group of individuals?

If this is true then it doesn't get any more obvious than this: The law is the organization of man's natural right to legal defense. It's a substitute of a collective force in place of individual forces. And this common force is only to do what the individual has a legal right to do: protect themselves, their liberty and their property; and to maintain the rights of the individual thus ensuring the reign of justice and peace over all.

A Just and Enduring Government

As far as I'm concerned, a nation grounded in such a premise would have a prevailing sense of order among it's citizens in thought and deed. It seems to me that such a nation would have the most simple, easy to accept, economical, limited, nonoppressive, just, and enduring government imaginable -- whatever its political form might be.

In such a situation everyone would know that they are personally responsible for all of their successes and downfalls. Nobody would have any complaints with the government so long as this person was respected, he wasn't forced to work, and his earnings were safeguarded from all unjust attacks. When he succeeded he wouldn't have to thank the government and when he failed he had nobody to blame but himself. After all a farmer can't blame the government for bad weather can he? The only way that the government would be involved would be in the protection of the rights of the individual.

Even better, if the state would stay out of things, we could pursue our own interests in a perfectly logical way. The poor wouldn't be asking to become literate before getting food. And we certainly wouldn't see people un-necessarily being relocated from rural areas to populate cites or vice versae. Nor would we see these huge displacements of money, work and population which is no doubt caused by legislative decisions and not by individual choice.

When the state creates such situations and displacements, the very sources of our livelihood are no longer certain and in fact unstable. Even more so, all this does is burden government with even more responsibilities.

The Complete Perversion of the Law

Unfortunately though law never regulates itself to only do what it's supposed to do. And when it goes beyond it's proper role, it isn't in a trivial manner. It is much worse than that; the law has begun to act in outright rebellion against it's sole task. The law has sought to destroy it's goals: It is used to obliterate the very justice it was meant to uphold; it restricts and destroys the rights it was meant to protect. The collective force has been given to corrupt men who desire nothing more - and with no consequence to them - to take advantage of the person, autonomy and property of everyone else. Theft has become a "right" in order to allow them to continue in their theft and has in turn condemned the act of lawful defense which in turn would make it punishable to defend ones self against this theft.

How did this happen? And what are the consequences.

It happened because of two things: stupid greed and pseudo-philanthropy. Let us begin by analyzing the first cause.

A Fatal Tendency of Mankind

Everyone wishes to preserve their life and improve it. And if people were free and unrestricted in such endeavors by the use of his faculties and assets, then such social progress would be unending, uninhibited and unfailing.

However, there is also a negative tendency to thrive at the expense of others whenever possible. This isn't just some irresponsible statement nor is it made with an attitude of despair and cynicism. History shows over and over again that this is true: unending war, mass migrations, religious persecution, universal slavery, unethical business, and monopolies. Such a desire is part of man's nature - his basic, natural, insatiable urge that compels him to fulfill his dreams in the least painful way possible.

Property and Plunder

Man can only satisfy his desires by working for them; by continually striving to the best of his abilities in conjunction with his natural resources. This process is where property originated.

It is also true however that his wants can be satisfied by stealing and using the fruits of someone else's labor. This is the origin of plunder.

Because man naturally wants to avoid pain - and work is itself pain - then clearly man will attempt to steal whenever theft is the easier option. This is very obvious in history. And when these conditions are present neither religion or morality will stop it.

So when does theft end? Logically, it stops when theft is more dangerous and painful than work.

It should be obvious then that law's proper role is to use it's power to stop this tendency to steal rather than work. Every aspect of law should safeguard one's property and punish theft.

Generally speaking though, one man or a class of men make the laws. Since law wouldn't be able to function without the sanction and support of a dominant force, this force has to be entrusted to those who create legisilation.

This fact, combined with the man's fatal tendency to be satisfied with the least amount of effort explains why the law invariably becomes corrupt. It should be easy to see now how the law changes from punishing injustice to becoming the unstoppable arbiter of injustice. And why a legislator uses the law to destroy to some extent among the people, their autonomy by slavery, their freedom by oppression and their property by theft. This is done only for the benefit of the legislator and is proportional to his degree of power. This is done solely for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.

Victims of Lawful Plunder

Naturally, man will rebel when they are victims of injustice. So when theft is orchestrated by law to profit those who make the law, those victims of legal plunder will try to become lawmakers themselves through either pacifistic or revolutionary methods. Depending on how enlightened these victims are, they will take one of two courses of action once they gain power: they will either try to crush legal plunder or they will try to benefit from it themselves.

Woe to the nation when those victims of legal plunder choose to pursue the latter option once they have legislative power!

Until then, the few steal from the many simply because the power to make laws is limited to few. But then let us assume that the power of law making becomes available to all men. Then those men will seek to make such theft apply to all men in order to balance things out. So rather than trying to fix these social injustices, the simply make them apply to everyone. The moment these victimized classes achieve power, they will develop a retributive system against other social classes. They won't end legal plunder. (That would require more enlightenment than they actually have.) No, instead they decide to imitate their own oppressors by doing the very same thing that they felt was an injustice to them.

It is as though before justice could rule that everyone would have to suffer cruel retribution - some for being evil and some for being stupid.

The Results of Legal Plunder

You couldn't hope to introduce a greater evil to society than changing the law into a tool for stealing from others.

What are results of such corruption? It would require volumes to describe them all. So let us simply focus on the most obvious results.

For starters, it destroys society's conscience of what the difference between justice and injustice is.

Society can't exist without a certain degree of respect for the law. The easiest way to do this is to make respectable laws. However when law and morality oppose each other a citizen has only the cruel choice of abandoning his own sense of morality or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are equally consequential, and how could a person choose between them? The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so vitally important that people equate law and justice without any dissimilarity. We all have a natural tendency to assume that something legal is also right. This is prevelant that many people come to the wrong conclusion that things are right simply because the law says so. So, in order to make people think that theft is perfectly fine, all that needs to happen is for the law to say endorse it. It is this very reason that there are not only defenders of slavery, restrictions and monopolies that profit from these institutions but also from those that are the victims of such institutions as well.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

The Law Revisited - Part III

The Proper Function of the Law

Honestly, what more do we need to expect from the law other than a lack of plunder? Can the law -- which needs to use force -- rationally be used for anything other than protecting everyone's rights? I defy anyone who tries to extend it further without not only corrupting it but turning power against what is just. A more deadly and illogical social distortion can't be imagined. We have to accept that the only real solution -- which has been searched for for a very long time in the realm of social relations -- is simply this: Law is organized justice.

This needs to be said: When justice is lawfully organized -- by force -- this eliminates the idea of using law (force) to organize any human action be it labor, charity, agriculture, commerce, industry, education, art, or religion. If any of these were to be organized by law, the most essential organization, justice, would be destroyed. How can we imagine the force of law being used against people's liberty without the law also being used against justice which in turn makes it go against it's proper task?

The Seductive Lure of Socialism

This brings us to the biggest fallacy of today. It isn't considered good enough that the law be just; now it needs to be philanthropic as well. It isn't even good enough for the law to simply guarantee the people free and inoffensive use of his faulties for physical, mental and moral self improvement. No, now the law is expected to extend welfare, education, and morality nationwide.

This is the seductive lure of socialism. I'll say it again: These two uses of the law are diametrically opposed. We have to choose. It's impossible for someone to be free and not free at the same time.

Enforced Fraternity Destroys Liberty

Mr. de Lamartine once said this in a letter to me: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity." I replied: "The second half of your program will destroy the first."

I find it impossible to separate the word fraternity from voluntary. It doesn't make any sense to me to say that brotherhood can be legally forced without utterly destroying liberty which results in justice being trample on.

There are two sources of legal plunder: As I've said before, one is human greed and the other is false philanthropy.

At this point I guess I need to clarify what I mean when I use the word plunder.*

*Translator's note: The French word used by Mr. Bastiat is spoliation.

Plunder Violates Ownership

I don't use the word vaguely or without a specific meaning. I mean it in its scientific acceptance -- the idea contrary to that of property (wages, land, money, or whatever). When a percentage of wealth is taken from the owner -- against his will and without compensation and whether forcefully or fraudulently -- to someone who is not the owner, then I say that property is violated and that plunder has been committed.

I tell you, this is what the law is always supposed to prevent no matter where. And when it is the law that commits the act it is supposed to prevent, plunder is still committed, and I submit that from the viewpoint of society and welfare, this assault against rights is even more terrible. In this scenario though, the beneficiary is not directly responsible for plundering. That blame lies with the legislator and society itself. That is where the political danger lies.

Regrettably, the word plunder is offensive. I've tried pointlessly to find one that isn't becaus the last thing I want to do -- especially not now -- want to add an offensive word to our disputes. Whether you believe me or not, I promise that I am not trying to attack the motives or virtues of anyone. I'm simply trying to attack an idea which I believe to be false; one that I believe to be unjust; an injustice so independant of motives that everyone benefits without even wanting to, and conversely suffers from it without even knowing why.

Three Systems of Plunder

I'm not doubting the sincerity of those who promote protectionism, socialism, and communism. Anyone who des that must be under influence of either a political spirit or political fear. It does need to be pointed out though that these three systems are basically three different stages of the same plant. It's just that legal plunder is more obvious in communism because it is nothing but pure plunder; and in protectionism as well because it is limited to specific industries and groups.* So then out of the three, socialism is the most vague, indecisive and sincere developmental stage.

*If the special privilege of government protection against competition -- a monopoly -- were granted only to one group in France, let's say the iron workers, it would be so obvious that it wouldn't last long. Because of that we see the protected trades unite for a common purpose. They even do it in a way that makes them look like they represent all laborers. Instinctively they feel like they're hiding legal plunder by generalizing it.

But sincere or insincere, their motives aren't in doubt here. I already mentioned that legal plunder is somewhat based on philanthropy, even though it isn't really true philanthropy.

With this explanation, let us examine the value -- the origin and the tendency -- of this popular goal which claims to succeed in general welfare by general plunder.

Law Is Force

Socialists will ask: since the law organizes justice, why can't it also organize labor, education, and religion?

Why shouldn't the law do that? Because it couldn't accomplish such organization without destrroying justice. Never forget that the law is force and therefore th proper functions of the law cannot go further than the proper functions of force.

When law and force keep someone within the boundaries of justice, the impose simply a negation. The force him only to not harm others. They do not violate his personality, liberty, or property. All of these are protected. They are defensive; they defend everyone's rights equally..

Law Is a Negative Concept

It's obvious that the mission of the law and lawful defense is harmless; the usefulness is obvious; and it's legitimacy is indisputable.

A friend of mine once said that this negative concept of law is so true that the statement that the purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign isn't entirely accurate. More specifically, the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from ruling. It's actually injustice and not justice that exists on it's own. Justice can only be achieved in the absence of injustice.

But when the law, through force, imposes labor regulations, a means or topic of education, a religious faith or creed -- the law has ceased to be a negative force. It begins to act positively upon people. It substitutes the will of the legislator for their own; the initiative of the legislator for their own. When this occurs, people no longer need do discuss, compare or plan ahead; the law already does this for them. Intelligence is simply a worthless prop; they are no longer men; they lose not only their personality but their liberty and property as well.

Give me an example of a labor regulation that is mandated by law that doesn't violate liberty or a forced transfer of wealth that doesn't involve the violation of property. If you can't resolve these contradictions, then you have to realize that the law can't organize labor and industry without organizing injustice as well.

The Political Approach

When a politician looks at society from his office, he is shocked by the inequality in society. He condemns the deprivations that many of our fellow citizens suffer which seem even more depressing when compared with his own luxury and wealth.

Maybe the politician should ask himself if this is because of old conquests and lootings and by more recent legal plunder. Maybe he should think about this: since everyone wants to strive for happiness and perfection, wouldn't a state of justice be good enough to encourage the best efforts for progress and the best possible equality that works with individual responsibility? Wouldn't that mesh with the idea of personal responsibility that God willed so that man would have the choice between vice and virtue and the subsequent punishment or reward?

But, a politician never thinks about that. He immediately thinks of organizations, combinations, and arrangements -- legal or supposedly legal. He tries to fix the evil by increasing and perpetuating what caused the evil to begin with: legal plunder. Does even one of these things not contain the idea of legal plunder?

The Law and Charity

You say: "There are people who don't have money," and you turn to the law. But the law isn't a breast that fills itself with milk. And the lacteal veins of the law aren't supplied by anything outside of society. Nothing goes into the public treasury for someones benefit unless other citizens and classes were already forced to contribute. If everyone only drew out of the treasury what they put in then it's true that the law doesn't plunder anyone. But this doesn't do anything for people with no money. It doesn't promote equality of income. The law only acts as an equalizer when it takes from some people and gives to others. When this happens, the law is an instrument of plunder.

Keep this in mind when you examine protective tarriffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works. You'll see that they are always based on legal plunder and organized injustice.

The Law and Education

You say: "There are people without education," and you turn to the law. But the law isn't a beacon of learning which shines it's light everywhere. The law reaches out over a society where some are knowledgeable and others are not; where some need to learn and others can teach. When it comes to education the law only has two options: It can either allow the procss of teaching and learning to operate freely without being forced, or it can force the will of people by taking from some enough to pay government appointed teachers who teach others that don't have to pay. But in the latter case, the law plunders by violating both liberty and property.

The Law and Morals

You say: "Here are people without morals or religion," so you turn to the law. But law is force. Do I even need to point out how pointless it is to try and force morality and religion?

It seems like socialists, however self-complacent, couldn't avoid seeing the sheer amount of plundering that results from such systems and efforts. But what do they do? They disguise the plunder from others and from themselves under such alluring titles such as fraternity, unity, organization, and association. Because we only really ask justice from the law and nothing else, they assume we reject fraternity, unity, organization and association. They label us as individualists.

But we assure them that we only reject forced, not natural organization. We reject forced association, not free association. We reject forced, not true fraternity. We reject the false unity that does nothing but rob someone of their personal responsibility. We don't reject the natural unity of man under God.

A Confusion of Terms

Socialism, like it's ideological roots, blurs the distinction between government and society. As a result, when we object to something government does, socialists conclude that we object to it being done period.

We disapprove of state education and so they say we oppose any education at all. We object to a state religion so they assume we want no religion at all. We disapprove of state-enforced equality. So then we're obviously against any equality. And so on and so forth. Next we'll be accused of being against someone eating because we don't want the state producing grain.

The Influence of Socialist Writers

How did politicians ever start to believe the absurd idea that the law can somehow produce what it doesn't contain -- the wealth, science, and religion that constitute prosperity? Is it because of our modern writer's influence on public affairs?

Present-day writers -- especially socialist writers -- base their theories on one common idea: They divide society into two groups: people in general -excluding the writer of course -- form the first group. The writer, all by himself, is the second and most important group. This has got to be the most bizarre and arrogant idea that has ever crossed someones mind!

In fact, these writers assume that people in general have absolutely no way of discerning things for themselves; no motivation to action. The writers assume people are just inert, passive, motionless atoms. People might as well just be some vegetable completely indifferent to its own existence. They assume people are easily molded -- by the machinations of someone else -- into an endless variety of forms, more or less even, artistic and perfect.

Even better, not a single of these writers even hesitates to think that he -- under the title of organizer, discoverer, legislator or founder -- is this powerful, genius force whose lofty purpose is to mold these disorganized materials -- people -- into a society.

These socialist writers thinks of people the same way a gardener thinks about his trees. Much like a gardner carfully shapes trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, vases, fans, and such, the socialist writer whimsically shapes people into groups, series, centers, sub-centers, honeycombs, labor corps, and other variations. And just as the gardener needs axes, pruning hooks, saws, and shears to shape his trees, the socialist writer needs the force that he only finds in the law to shape humanity. For that purpose, he makes up tariff laws, tax laws, relief laws, and school laws.

The Socialists Wish to Play God

Socialists think of people as raw materials to be made into social groups. This is so true that, if for some reason the socialist doubts the success of a certain group, they will insist on a smaller group to experiment with. The popular idea of trying all systems is well known. There is one socialist leader who actually wanted an entire district, every inhabitant included, to experiment on.

This is the same way an inventor makes a model before he builds the full machine; the chemist wastes some chemicals -- the farmer wastes some seeds and land -- just to try an idea.

But there is a fundamental difference between the gardner and his trees, the inventor and his machine, the chemist and his elements, and the farmer and his seeds! But the socialist, in all sincerity, thinks there is the same level of difference between himself and the rest of humanity.

No wonder our nineteenth century writers see society as just an artificial cration of the legislator's genius. This idea -- the fruit of classical education -- has taken over the monds of all the intellectuals and famous authors of our country. To them, the relationship between citizen and legislator is identical to that of clay and the potter.

Moreover, even when they admit to a principle of action in man -- and that man can actually think for himself -- they think of these gifts from God to be fatal. They assume that with these two gifts man would just naturally want to wipe himself out. If legislator's didn't do anything, the people would arrive at atheism, ignorance and poverty instead of religion, knowledge, and prosperity.

The Socialists Despise Mankind

According to these writers, man is so fortunate that God decided to bless certain men -- not suprisingly governors and legislators -- the exact opposite impulses, not just for their own sake but for the entire world! While man tends toward evil the legislator only wants what is good; while man sprints into the darkness of ignorance, the legislator searches for enlightenment; while compelled toward vice, the legislator is only attracted toward virtue. Since the writers have somehow come to the conclusion that this is how things really are, they demand to be able to use the law in order to put their inclinations in place of the everyone elses.

Just randomly open any book on philosophy, politics, or history, and you'll see just how deeply rooted this idea has become -- the child of classical studies, the mother of socialism. In all of them, you will more than likely find this idea that man is just some sort of inert matter that recieves its life, organization, morality and prosperity from the state. What's worse is that it will be dclared that the only reason man doesn't keep getting worse and destroy himself is because the state intervenes. Conventional classical thought everywhere says that behind passive society there is a hidden power called law or legislator (or some other term that describes some unnamed person or people of indisputable influence and power) that guides, manipulates, benefits and improves humanity.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.