Monday, February 11, 2013

Frederic Bastiat

For my class this week, I had to read The Law by Frederic Bastiat. I first read this for a discussion at a seminar in 2009, I believe. Ever since then, I have loved Bastiat, because he has clear, logical reasoning that makes absolute sense. In 2009 I didn't really understand it very well, being very young, but I love Bastiat's works even more now that I have read them over a few times and have grown in my mental capacity.

In The Law, a few of Bastiat's points are:
1. The right to life, liberty, and property are born in man.
2. An attempt to take the fruits of property without the consent of the labourer who produced this property is plunder.
3. A person can live either by plunder or work.
4. The law is established only to protect the rights to liberty, life, and property, which is simply protecting from injustice. Any other use is a perversion of the law.
5. There are two types of plunder; legal and illegal. Illegal plunder is when a person or a group of people plunder without the consent of the law. Legal plunder is when a legislature makes some sort of plunder "okay" by using the law to protect it.
6. Both types of plunder are wrong.
7. Where the law is perverted, conflict will follow.

In case you would like to read The Law, here is a link to a website where you can read it for free:
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html

I would highly recommend reading any of Bastiat's essays. I think they are truly classics, which can be read over and over, teaching more every time.

4 comments:

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  2. Megan, as usual your posts intrigue me! This one, again has my interest. Thanks for sharing the link! I' m going to check it out. What you've learned and shared is true and you brought it across well! Thank you.
    -Greg

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