The Law

Written nearly two centuries ago, this book is as relevant now as it was at the time of writing. Whether you agree or disagree with Bastiats point of view, this is a great pamphlet to read. It is short, well-structured, and strikingly clear and straightforward. If you want to read just one book on politics and economics, read this one and you wont regret it. If you agree with the book, it will give you one of the strongest arguments to defend your position. If you disagree with the book, it will give you plenty of food for thought. For most of history the law of the land had some religious backing. This is no longer true in the modern world, and this is where Bastiat picks up his argument. The first question that he tries to answer : if not God, what is the source from which the law derives its authority? Bastiats answer: the authority comes from the people, the individuals. But if you derive your authority from individuals, rather than deity, then the limitations of those individuals define boundaries beyond which the law cannot be applied. Ask yourself two questions: is every human being born with a right of being an individual? and should the right of one person being an individual supercede the same right of another? Bastiat answers yes to the first and no to the second and thats where the pamphlet begins. This idea at the core of the book: the law that is based on the power of individuals has limitations. Bastiat speaks mostly of economic violations of that rule - the legal plunder. Those who lived in the next century could point to something far graver - millions of lives taken by socialist tyrants, all within the framework of the law. While some would object that violence against a persons property is not the same as violence against the persons life and liberty, Bastiat argues that the two are related. Towards the end of the book the author makes another important observation: the arrogance of the social engineers is not a consequence of their status or their actions - its a prerequisite. Through a number of examples (and that number only increased in the years since the book was written) Bastiat shows how those who attempt to mold manking through laws view themselves as a breed apart from the rest of humanity. Many things were said about hubris of lawmakers, but few are as logical and eloquent. Plenty of books were written on the topic since and many arguments made on both sides of the divide. Why The Law? First, its one thing to know that the argument against uncontrolled legislation is decades old, its quite another to actually observe the same argument made decades ago. Second, some can write a book that appeals to their contemporaries, but only a few can write a book that transcends their time. Bastiat is one of the latter. Finally, this book is short, well-structured, clear, straightforward, thought-provoking, and as relevant now as it was 160 years ago. Read it, and see for yourself.

Bastiat saw the world with clarity while the rest of us still take the world for granted and either accept or not accept the world because of our own confirmation of biases. Like his other works What Is Seen and What is not Seen (e.g. The Broken Window Effect) and The Law (or perversion of it), he merely speaks of what should be obvious. Bastiat influenced later economists such as von Mises, Rothbard, Hazlitt, Sowell, and Hayek. The fact that he is not taught in our schools reveals a failure of our educational system. Teach Marx if you want but teach Bastiat too!

Is the law a sword or a shield? What is the limiting principle of Government? Bastiat considers these weighty topics and presents the views of many other great thinkers thoughtfully and concisely. Easy read yet extremely thought provoking. Highly recommend for everyone.

Read or listen to Bastiats The Law while you can. Cancel culture may cancel this book and its author without ever having read, listened to, or understood it, and its author under the blanket that everything cancel culture hates is hate speech and racism.

In 1850 a French guy wrote this little essay on the Law. It could have been written today in the US, in Europe, because we are certainly not progressing in terms of common-sense, politically. Here are some ideas: -Justice is the absence of injustice. Nothing more than that. -What God does is well done. Do not claim to know more than Him. The fact that this rule is almost universally broken says much about our level of hubris. For Bastiat Law is a minus, it takes away. His subject is so relevant today that we can see the results of the States false philanthropy, just as Orwell warned us in his Animal Farm. Western governments certainly know how to belittle us... we couldnt do without them. In Spain we have this government commercial encouraging drivers to drive well: We cant drive for you! They wished. The only idea that they think about it tells how far theyve got under our skin. This book is dynamite. Makes one see the world today in a clear and detached way. Who are the philanthropists that we owe so much devotion to? Take Gores greedy schemes with his mineral mines behind his climactic facade. Take another homeless, Soros, the preacher of the Left, whose God is money. To be a Pharisee is indeed to love the Law while hating man, to use the Law to make Injustice legal, to pervert Justice, to become a new god to modern State worshippers, wellfare addicts. Yes, Bastiat would sure be ashamed to see what the West has become: the legalized plunder by the State.

This book changed my view of the world, and my peers, and my expectations of life. A concept so simple and straight forward. Translated from early 1800s French, it can take a small adjustment to wording if you arent used to it. So amazingly far ahead of its time, you realize that none of the current political world is new. This has all been tried before...

I can’t believe I had never heard of and wasn’t taught this in school! Bastiat (1801-1850) laid out and explained the most fundamental and vitally important concept, that the law is simply justice, just before his prediction came true, I.e. the French Revolution. The parallels with what is happening right now in America is truly eerie! It’s as if the goals and methods that Bastiat explained about his government are identical to our current government. Reading this was like watching the Wizard of Oz when the curtain was pulled back, revealing that poor man who thought he was doing what was best. I realized that the true power of America is in our individual liberty and that protecting our liberty is the only true purpose of the law.

The law perverted! Yes this books reveals what the law has been made to do. This is an old book but it is very relevant today, as it shows just how far the law has been perverted because of peoples ignorance of it. A must read!

Bastiat is a magnificent thinker and writer. His ideas about the role of law and law as the protection against plundering by some against others, and the perversion of law to aid the powerful at the expense of the less powerful, are timeless. He wrote around the time of the 1848 French Revolution and was personally in the thick of it as an elected official, and passionately interested in persuading his fellow countrymen not to pursue self-defeating economic policies such as trade tariffs, monopolies and misguided government “philanthropy” — all of which he argues — successfully in my view— to be unjust to society in general. His fear, he writes, is that the revolutionaries were itching to sock it to the people they saw as socking it to them, and in the process of doing so would repeat the same mistakes as the government they were ousting, and thus set the stage for the next revolution, ad infinitum.

This classic text challenges readers to think, not just about politics but even the language, and the history behind the authors words. Challenge a high school mind with a text like this on each of these fronts and todays graduating classes could rise to the day. I am a 24 year old and can only just now understand why Bastiats name rings in the annals of history and I wish I had in or before college. If you arent certain this book is what you are looking for, buy it anyway, you wont regret it for a second!