The Law
This week we’re looking at a classic of political theory, The Law by Frederic Bastiat.
So, kind of like last week, I’m going to start with a quick bio on Bastiat. Frederic was born in 1801 in France and was orphaned by the age of 9. From there he was raised by his uncle in the family export business, which means he got a birds eye view of how government regulations affect markets. Usually not in a good way. Like tariffs. <ahem>
Anyways, he read through and self taught economic and political theory by reading Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, Richard Cobden and judging by the quotes in The Law, Robespierre, Rousseau…a lot of political theoreticians.
In this book, he comes hard after socialism and its eventual end game, communism. Yes, he names both, and hates them. I already love this man. Too bad he’s dead.
He calls out public education, the danger of political empires, lobbying and lobbyists, and those who would seek to push tariffs to benefit themselves, or even those who lobby against tariffs that would hurt their own industry.
And to that end, he comes out swinging, stating emphatically from the get go that the law has been perverted to serve the needs of the elected few. He saw this as far back as 1850 when he first published The Law, and pointed out that the countries that lead the way in happiness, productivity, advancements…are those that govern least. In 1850, he saw the United States as an ideal nation, with two exceptions….Slavery, and Protectionist Tariff’s. He wasn’t wrong.
As I was reading through this book, it became eerily prescient. It was like foreshadowing for the next 150 years…all the way up through the early 21st century. He said “it is in the nature of men to rise against the injustice of which they are the victims. When, therefore, plunder is organized by law, for the profit of those who perpetrate it, all the plundered classes tend either by peaceful or revolutionary means, to enter in some way into manufacturing of laws.”
When people have been victimized, they join the political class and become the victimizers. A cycle which repeats itself ad nauseum until we find ourselves in our current political predicament. He points out that people tend to see the law as justice. And ideally, yes! Law IS Justice. Bastiat says that repeatedly. Unless it’s been perverted for the uses of those of the political class.
But lets unpack that a little further. Spite has driven many to join the political class, where they then use their political cudgel to bludgeon those who disagree with them into silence. So much so that Being Libertarian just tweeted this out this week “It’s safe to say the lawfare Bullshit really pissed off Trump with his selection of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General.”
Lawfare, which means The strategic use of legal proceedings to intimidate or hinder an opponent, is largely how Trump got his second term. The American people saw the Democrats…well, trumping up charges…to prosecute him. And A LOT of American’s saw this as a deliberate attempt to keep Trump from running again. Which also shows just how much the sitting congress critters have not read the Constitution, which does not actually preclude anyone with a criminal record from being a sitting president. The Constitution allows for the REMOVAL of a president in the case of high crimes and misdemeanors. But even a felony conviction is not enough to keep a felon from being sworn in. Maybe the Democrats should have read the constitution a little better before engaging in lawfare. Because America spoke loud and clear on this one.
And reading through this, you see how Bastiat in turn influenced those who came after, including Dr. Ron Paul.
Bastiat says “In fact, if law were confined to causing all persons, all liberties, and all properties to be respected—if it were the obstacle, the check, the chastisement opposed to all oppression, to all plunder—is it likely that we should dispute much, as citizens, on the subject of the greater or lesser universality of suffrage?”
And really that’s it. The Law should ONLY exist to protect property rights. This does NOT include the right to own others. Slavery should always have been illegal, which Bastiat acknowledges. Anything else leads to corruption and abuse of power.
Bastiat recounts a letter exchange he had with Mr. de Lamartine, who wrote to Bastiat “Your doctrine is only the half of my program; you have stopped at liberty, I go on to fraternity.” Bastiat responds “The second part of your program will destroy the first.” And in fact it is impossible for me to separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly conceive fraternity legally enforced, without liberty being legally destroyed and justice legally trampled under foot.”
This is awfully hard to argue with. Government forcing association has not ended well for anyone. Hell, the first lawsuit against affirmative action laws was filed during I believe it was Carters administration. And free markets have shown that if you let people associate by choice rather than force, most of them are going to choose what will bring them a profit. Most of em. Because doing otherwise results in loss of income through loss of business as news of their jackassery spreads.
What about public education? This is highly topical as President elect Trump promises to dismantle the department of education. This was CREATED under Carter, and has literally accomplished nothing good. Other than the spread of homeschooling in defense against public indoctrination. I think one of my favorite freak out tweets was this one:
I especially love that apparently she deleted it when people pointed out that is not the win she thought it was.
And as Bastiat points out “Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State—then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion—then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc. etc.”
Now, to anyone who actually TALKS to their neighbors, family, and friends, who maybe don’t see eye to eye with them politically, it’s obvious that the above statement is hyperbolic. We are not against education, religion, or equality. We are against those things being provided by, or more accurately, forced on us, by the state. Because when the state supplies the education, it’s education that ONLY benefits the state. In last weeks review I pointed out that students these days are not taught the Constitution. I talked with a friend of mine who had to explain to her check out clerk that if you didn’t like the options, you could select none of the above or even skip an option all together. Because these things are not taught in schools. Because why would the state EVER teach us what we needed to legally overthrow them?
Religion is probably a shared thing with the socialists, no one wants the state takng over religion. But certain sects of society have deemed certain religions untouchable…as in, don’t you dare ever criticize this religion. Which has led to an interesting political twist in Palestine being avidly defended on campuses nationwide….there’s that dig against public education again….even though Palestine or more specifically Islam…is avidly anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-Jewish, anti-…well, core western values of freedom.
Bastiat spends quite a few pages cherry picking political theory he disagrees with and explaining why they are wrong, and rounds out the essay with his central premise. Law is Justice.
And if a law is not just, then it is abhorrent, and is NOT law. Like the laws that allowed slavery to flourish. If a law steals from one to give to another, then it should be ignored…according to Bastiat. I may be fully in sympathy to what he says, but I’m not looking to get myself arrested for directing people to…I don’t know…not pay their taxes? Because income taxes, as discussed last week…are theft. They are stealing your money from you, to support others. Something charities did just fine. Until 1913 when the income tax was introduced.
This one gives me plenty of food for thought. There’s a lot to unpack, and it probably needs to be read more than once to really unpack it. But I enjoy anything that makes me think, so if you want to delve into a thought process that has influenced political theorists for the last 174 years, then I recommend The Law by Frederic Bastiat.
