My Views on Bastiat's Collection
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A Good Point
To start off this assignment, I would like to point out something that Bastiat and I agree on. While it seems clear that Bastiat was an extremist in his views, he still had, what I found, to be a very valid point. . In the reading we were assigned, Bastiat claims that people should not be trying to get schooling if they can’t even put food on the table. This point stood out to me, just because it was very easy for me to see both the thought processes and the truthfulness behind this statement. Food is a need and literacy, though extremely important, is still a want and people's needs must be fulfilled before their wants. On the flip side, I can understand that people may want an education in order to get a better job to provide for themselves, but Bastiat’s view of fulfilling needs before wants was a very good point.
My Disagreements
However, there are also some points that Bastiat makes that I have to disagree with, which seemed based on his pessimistic views of mankind. When he basically says that any man will step all over one another if it means avoiding their own labor or pain, I must simply disagree. This isn’t to say that this doesn’t happen, there’s a debate currently going on in 2023 asking if any billionaire can get there ethically or if they must step all over other people to get there. I can see there being some validity in that statement, it’s naive to think that all politicians and billionaires got there in an ethical way. But, I’ve also seen people do things selflessly from the good of their hearts. I’ve seen people come together and do very labor intensive tasks for no other reason than helping out someone who is struggling. The first example that comes to my mind of people coming together to help selflessly is Hurricane Harvey. People took time off of work and went down to Houston in order to help bring relief and restoration efforts to all those affected. Homes were rebuilt, food and water were sent and millions of dollars were donated.
People didn’t have to send their hard earned money, or donate meals, or even take time off work to go to aid with physical labor. But people did. It was labor intensive work and for no other reason than the good of people's hearts did they go to help these victims, so I truly believe that Bastiat's idea that basically implies that all men are corrupt is false. I can agree that there are some bad apples out there, but not all, and that is proof enough for me.
Bastiat also goes on to say that those who are moralists and question the government due to their morals are a utopian and “Would shake the basis on which society rests” (Bastiat 55). But isn’t this how change and reform are made? He uses slavery as an example here, which has since been abolished which occurred 15 years after his passing. The laws which we abide by are meant to be questioned when regarding the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
Views of Life
It’s his pessimistic views that made this harder for me to find things to agree on. He seems to be able to find corruption in just about everything like religion, mankind, public schooling etc. and I just find it hard to see eye to eye on these topics. However, I must keep in mind that he lived during the 19th century and vs the 21st century there certainly are a lot of differences, however I found it disheartening by how low he seems to view mankind as a whole.
Contradictory, something that I find myself more pessimistic on is comparing his view of law to that of my own. In the reading, Bastiat claims that, “law is justice”(Bastiat 89). But is it? When we go back and take a look at history I’m very inclined to disagree. Is law still justice when there’s a tyrant who is in charge? Hitler created laws in Germany, but to say that the Holocaust is anything but just. It was a horrible time in our history and Hitler was nothing but an evil man who was able to corrupt the law to pursue his evil deeds. To me, laws are the rules which we must abide by, but whether or not the law is just depends entirely on the individual law.
Conclusion
There are debates over laws going on in our society today, where some people will argue whether or not a law is just or not, and there are plenty of times where different people will disagree on whether they find the law fair or not. Plenty are up for debate right now, some which bring great controversy, so I won’t bring them up. But I’m sure they come to mind, and the opinions regarding the justice of certain laws can easily divide family members depending which side they take. When calling law justice, it’s simplifying an argument which I don’t believe is capable of being simplified. Bastiat seemed set in his views, and while I don’t consider myself philosophical by any means, I think that simplifying things into black and which just isn’t right for his argument.
Citation
Bastiat, F. (2011). The bastiat collection. Ludwig von Mises Institute.