Trevon Jones
Professor Trost
EEE-2083
24 March 2023
Bastiat’s Law
The Law is an essay written by Frederic Bastiat, Bastait is a well-known writer from France. He believed that France was going to be overrun with socialism and feared this. He wrote Law after the french revolution of 1848 to argue against these socialist practices. I want to analyze a few points in the essay to help understand his argument and problem with socialism.
Bastiat believed that socialism was going to ruin France’s economy. He started Law by trying to understand the meaning of what law is. He explains that the law didn’t come before Personality, liberty, and property. Instead, he believes that these came before the creation of the law. Claims that nature gives everyone the right to defend their property, person, and liberty. With this idea, it’s fair to believe that Basitat believes in everyone’s natural rights and liberty. These rights can be compared to a person's unalienable rights, which are rights that can’t be taken away. From this reading thus far from Bastiat’s explanation of the law, it seems that he is afraid that his rights would be taken in some way due to socialism. Another argument of Bastiat’s is that the law has been corrupted by greed and misconceived philanthropy. With this argument, he explains that before this issue this wasn’t a problem. Bastiat believes that a society can’t exist without laws that are followed by its people. Also that the people won’t follow laws that aren’t respected by their community so it’s best to make them respectable. If morality and Law contradict each other it leaves a person with one of two options internally. Losing your moral judgment or losing one's self-respect out sake of the law. Claiming two wrongs that would make it difficult for citizens to choose between.
“Bastiat (1845, p. 54) No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree, but the safest way to make them respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or of losing his respect for the law—two evils of equal magnitude, between which it would be difficult to choose.”
An example of these ideals is the prohibition era, a time when alcohol was found as a narcotic due to the scientific definition of the substance. This in turn led some people in the U.S. to start bootlegging alcohol and selling it. This actually raised the crime rate by a good margin due. Even though the loss of the right to alcohol shouldn’t challenge people morally but it in fact did. This is what Bastiat feared from my understanding of his essay. He saw a future where citizens would constantly break laws that they don’t respect or shouldn’t even be a law in the first place. I feel his insight on socialism was to avoid situations like the prohibition era. With people are being jailed for a law that the community doesn’t support or get behind. I think Bastiat was trying to help warn people or just spread awareness for the possible future of his society but I also believe that he wanted to show the evidence that society is supposed to be between the government and its citizens. Bastiat wants it to stay away from socialism due to the fact that the line between people and the government could become a gray area in the future. Socialism can bring a few things that can be negative to society. The first negative impact I thought about while reading is mainly the government. With socialism, the government would eventually run out of money because socialism in a short explanation is the government giving handouts to the people of society, and from what I have learned that money has to come from somewhere.
Bastiat Insight
Bastiat’s message throughout The Law was to give people an example of what socialism can hold for the future of his society like stated prior it was a warning to his fellow citizens. He claims Bastiat (1845, p. 58) As long as it’s acknowledged that the law can be diverted from its true intention it could breach the right to protect one’s property instead of giving one the right. He is saying that he doesn't want citizens to lose the right to protect themselves due to laws that can be brought up. Bastiat wrote this essay as a comeback to the socialist movement in France because he didn’t agree with the ideology. He also didn't want the line between the government and the people to be blurred. He wants a clear definition between the two and to make sure that the power the government has is necessary. Bastiat just wanted to use his influence to help the people understand the socialist movement that was starting in France. He just didn’t want to lose his right to protect his own liberty.