The Law
Translated by The Foundation for Economic Education Permission to reprint granted without special request.
The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its
proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead
of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!
If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.
Life Is a Gift from God
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life – physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing,
and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And
He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources
we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production – in other words, individuality, liberty, property – this is man. And in spite
of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to
it.
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty,
and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
What Is Law ?
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.
A Just and Enduring Government
If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail among the people, in thought as well as
in 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.
Under such an administration, everyone would understand that he possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities
of his existence. No one would have any argument with government, provided that his person was respected, his labor was free,
and the fruits of his labor were protected against all unjust attack. When successful, we would not have to thank the state
for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than would
the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided
by this concept of government.
It can be further stated that, thanks to the non- intervention of the state in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions
would develop themselves in a logical manner. We would not see poor families seeking literary instruction before they have
bread. We would not see cities populated at the expense of rural districts, nor rural districts at the expense of cities.
We would not see the great displacements of capital, labor, and population that are caused by legislative decisions.
The sources of our existence are made uncertain and precarious by these state-created displacements. And, furthermore,
these acts burden the government with increased responsibilities.
The Complete Perversion of the Law
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.
A Fatal Tendency of Mankind
Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted
use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted,
and unfailing.
But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense
of others. This is no rash accusation. Nor does it come from a gloomy and uncharitable spirit. The annals of history bear
witness to the truth of it: the incessant wars, mass migrations, religious persecutions, universal slavery, dishonesty in
commerce, and monopolies. This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man – in that primitive, universal,
and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain.
Property and Plunder
Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources.
This process is the origin of property.
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others.
This process is the origin of plunder.
Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain – and since labor is pain in itself – it follows that men
will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions,
neither religion nor morality can stop it.
When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.
It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency
to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder.
But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and support
of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to those who make the laws.
This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible
effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice,
becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying
degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property
by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.
Victims of Lawful Plunder
Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit
of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter – by peaceful or revolutionary means –
into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely
different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish
to share in it.
Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize
the power to make laws!
Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon the many, a common practice where the right to participate in
the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, participation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men
seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder. Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society,
they make these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain political power, they establish a system of reprisals
against other classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would demand more enlightenment than they possess.)
Instead, they emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal plunder, even though it is against their own
interests.
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears, for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution – some
for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding.
The Results of Legal Plunder
It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into
an instrument of plunder.
What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would require volumes to describe them all. Thus we must content ourselves
with pointing out the most striking.
In the first place, it erases from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice.
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make
them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his
moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person
to choose between them. The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people,
law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is
also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are "just" because law makes
them so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree
and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also among
those who suffer from them.
The Fate of Non-Conformists
If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these institutions, it is boldly said that "You are a dangerous innovator,
a utopian, a theorist, a subversive; you would shatter the foundation upon which society rests."
If you lecture upon morality or upon political science, there will be found official organizations petitioning the government
in this vein of thought: "That science no longer be taught exclusively from the point of view of free trade (of liberty, of
property, and of justice) as has been the case until now, but also, in the future, science is to be especially taught from
the viewpoint of the facts and laws that regulate French industry (facts and laws which are contrary to liberty, to property,
and to justice). That, in government-endowed teaching positions, the professor rigorously refrain from endangering in the
slightest degree the respect due to the laws now in force."*
*General Council of Manufacturers, Agriculture, and Commerce, May 6, 1850.
Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not
even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and
political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely
because it is a law.
Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and
conflicts, and to politics in general.
I could prove this assertion in a thousand ways. But, by way of illustration, I shall limit myself to a subject that has
lately occupied the minds of everyone: universal suffrage.
Who Shall Judge?
The followers of Rousseau's school of thought – who consider themselves far advanced, but whom I consider twenty
centuries behind the times – will not agree with me on this. But universal suffrage – using the word in its strictest
sense – is not one of those sacred dogmas which it is a crime to examine or doubt. In fact, serious objections may be
made to universal suffrage.
In the first place, the word universal conceals a gross fallacy. For example, there are 36 million people in France. Thus,
to make the right of suffrage universal, there should be 36 million voters. But the most extended system permits only 9 million
people to vote. Three persons out of four are excluded. And more than this, they are excluded by the fourth. This fourth person
advances the principle of incapacity as his reason for excluding the others.
Universal suffrage means, then, universal suffrage for those who are capable. But there remains this question of fact:
Who is capable? Are minors, females, insane persons, and persons who have committed certain major crimes the only ones to
be determined incapable?
The Reason Why Voting Is Restricted
A closer examination of the subject shows us the motive which causes the right of suffrage to be based upon the supposition
of incapacity. The motive is that the elector or voter does not exercise this right for himself alone, but for everybody.
The most extended elective system and the most restricted elective system are alike in this respect. They differ only in
respect to what constitutes incapacity. It is not a difference of principle, but merely a difference of degree.
If, as the republicans of our present-day Greek and Roman schools of thought pretend, the right of suffrage arrives with
one's birth, it would be an injustice for adults to prevent women and children from voting. Why are they prevented? Because
they are presumed to be incapable. And why is incapacity a motive for exclusion? Because it is not the voter alone who suffers
the consequences of his vote; because each vote touches and affects everyone in the entire community; because the people in
the community have a right to demand some safeguards concerning the acts upon which their welfare and existence depend.
The Answer Is to Restrict the Law
I know what might be said in answer to this; what the objections might be. But this is not the place to exhaust a controversy
of this nature. I wish merely to observe here that this controversy over universal suffrage (as well as most other political
questions) which agitates, excites, and overthrows nations, would lose nearly all of its importance if the law had always
been what it ought to be.
In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more
than the organized combination of the individual's right to self defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher
of all oppression and plunder – is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?
Under these circumstances, is it likely that the extent of the right to vote would endanger that supreme good, the public
peace? Is it likely that the excluded classes would refuse to peaceably await the coming of their right to vote? Is it likely
that those who had the right to vote would jealously defend their privilege?
If the law were confined to its proper functions, everyone's interest in the law would be the same. Is it not clear that,
under these circumstances, those who voted could not inconvenience those who did not vote?
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:
1. The few plunder the many.
2. Everybody plunders everybody.
3. 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.
The Law and Morals
You say: "Here are persons who are lacking in morality or religion," and you turn to the law. But law is force. And need
I point out what a violent and futile effort it is to use force in the matters of morality and religion?
It would seem that socialists, however self-complacent, could not avoid seeing this monstrous legal plunder that results
from such systems and such efforts. But what do the socialists do? They cleverly disguise this legal plunder from others –
and even from themselves – under the seductive names of fraternity, unity, organization, and association. Because we
ask so little from the law – only justice – the socialists thereby assume that we reject fraternity, unity, organization,
and association. The socialists brand us with the name individualist.
But we assure the socialists that we repudiate only forced organization, not natural organization. We repudiate the forms
of association that are forced upon us, not free association. We repudiate forced fraternity, not true fraternity. We repudiate
the artificial unity that does nothing more than deprive persons of individual responsibility. We do not repudiate the natural
unity of mankind under Providence.
A Confusion of Terms
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a
result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being
done at all.
We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion.
Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are
against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because
we do not want the state to raise grain.
The Influence of Socialist Writers
How did politicians ever come to believe this weird idea that the law could be made to produce what it does not contain
– the wealth, science, and religion that, in a positive sense, constitute prosperity? Is it due to the influence of
our modern writers on public affairs?
Present-day writers – especially those of the socialist school of thought – base their various theories upon
one common hypothesis: They divide mankind into two parts. People in general – with the exception of the writer himself
– from the first group. The writer, all alone, forms the second and most important group. Surely this is the weirdest
and most conceited notion that ever entered a human brain!
In fact, these writers on public affairs begin by supposing that people have within themselves no means of discernment;
no motivation to action. The writers assume that people are inert matter, passive particles, motionless atoms, at best a kind
of vegetation indifferent to its own manner of existence. They assume that people are susceptible to being shaped –
by the will and hand of another person – into an infinite variety of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic, and
perfected.
Moreover, not one of these writers on governmental affairs hesitates to imagine that he himself – under the title
of organizer, discoverer, legislator, or founder – is this will and hand, this universal motivating force, this creative
power whose sublime mission is to mold these scattered materials – persons – into a society.
These socialist writers look upon people in the same manner that the gardener views his trees. Just as the gardener capriciously
shapes the trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, vases, fans, and other forms, just so does the socialist writer whimsically
shape human beings 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, just so does the socialist writer need the force
that he can find only in law to shape human beings. For this purpose, he devises tariff laws, tax laws, relief laws, and school
laws.
The Socialists Wish to Play God
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 legislator's
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 man's 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.
The Socialists Despise Mankind
According to these writers, it is indeed fortunate that Heaven has bestowed upon certain men – governors and legislators
– the exact opposite inclinations, not only for their own sake but also for the sake of the rest of the world! While
mankind tends toward evil, the legislators yearn for good; while mankind advances toward darkness, the legislators aspire
for enlightenment; while mankind is drawn toward vice, the legislators are attracted toward virtue. Since they have decided
that this is the true state of affairs, they then demand the use of force in order to substitute their own inclinations for
those of the human race.
Open at random any book on philosophy, politics, or history, and you will probably see how deeply rooted in our country
is this idea – the child of classical studies, the mother of socialism. In all of them, you will probably find this
idea that mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization, morality, and prosperity from the power of the state.
And even worse, it will be stated that mankind tends toward degeneration, and is stopped from this downward course only by
the mysterious hand of the legislator. Conventional classical thought everywhere says that behind passive society there is
a concealed power called law or legislator (or called by some other terminology that designates some unnamed person or persons
of undisputed influence and authority) which moves, controls, benefits, and improves mankind.
