The Law

...has placed the collective force at the service of those who wish to exploit, without risk and without scruple, the Person, the Liberty, or the Property of others; it has converted Plunder original: "Spoliation." This is a central term in Bastiat’s work, referring to the act of seizing the property or labor of others through the mechanism of the law. into a Right in order to protect it, and legitimate defense into a crime, in order to punish it.

How has this perversion of the Law been accomplished? What have been its consequences?

The Law has been perverted under the influence of two very different causes: unintelligent selfishness and false philanthropy.

Let us speak of the first:

To preserve oneself and to develop oneself is the aspiration common to all men, so that if everyone enjoyed the free exercise of their faculties and the free disposal of their products, social progress would be incessant, uninterrupted, and infallible.

But there is another disposition that is also common to them. It is to live and to develop, whenever they can, at the expense of one another. This is not a rash accusation, stemming from a gloomy and pessimistic spirit. History bears witness to it through incessant wars, the migrations of peoples, priestly oppressions original: "oppressions sacerdotales." Bastiat refers here to historical instances where religious institutions or castes used their authority to extract wealth or labor from the people., the universality of slavery, and frauds...