'Government'
To begin this series of Bastiat and his beliefs according to government, he gives his own definition of government, which is “that great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”
I believe that this still holds true to the world we live in today, because our lives are affected by everyone else around us, especially the government, whom makes the rules that we must follow in the United States.
Bastiat also says that the government has two hands, one to receive and one to give. It is explained that it is impossible to create wealth when speaking of giving to beggars/the poor. This is because in order to give, they have to take from society, then fund themselves, then after give back to the poor. This will not result in a net gain, but more so a net loss.
'The Law'
Bastiat feared France may be overtaken by socialistic values after the French Revolution of 1848, so he then pinned ‘The Law’ as many arguments against socialism. He first explained natural law, and that this meant every human has the right to individual personhood, liberty, and property from God since they are alive. Along with this, every person also has a right to self-defense when it comes to someone trying to take away to his life, liberty, or property. Bastiat expresses these rights to be elements of life and says that they must be applied all together, because that is the only way they are complete. Bastiat says the soul purpose of the law is to defend any individual/classes and their right to life, liberty, and their property.
Life, Liberty, and Property
In simple words, if a law performed to help one individual financially hurts another citizen(s) financially or in any way and does so in a way that would be criminal if the certain individual did this on their own, this law is unjust and would result in legal plunder. There are three choices before it: when the few plunder the many (partial plunder), when everybody plunders everybody (universal plunder), or when nobody plunders anybody (absence of plunder). Bastiat says that absence of plunder should be our goal, which is the principle of peace, order, justice, conciliation, stability, and good sense. Bastiat fought for this concept until his death and explained that the solution to social issues lie in the words “law is organized justice”. “A definition of government is whatever entity has a monopoly on the use of violence to achieve its stated or desired agenda.” Throughout Bastiat’s essay, he implies that just because an action is legal, that doesn’t make it just. In other words, since the government is a monopoly on the use of violence to reach its goals, it must be restricted beyond certain actions that fit within the very slim, collective defense of individual rights. The French Republic established a moto in the wake of the 1848 Revolution that said “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite,” which is translated to “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”. Bastiat expressed that he “cannot possibly conceive fraternity legally enforced, without liberty being legally destroyed, and justice legally trampled under foot.” Bastiat believes that any extension of the law’s core mandate will be corrupted. He also believes that public education is legal plunder, which is because he thought that any public good paid for by taxation is also legal plunder.
My thoughts on Public Education
Public education does provide equal education to all students within the United States despite their socio-economic status in grade school, but along with that can bring some issues about. There may be issues within public schools that those children cannot control, such as bad teachers, violence, bullying, safety issues, poverty, etc. This may influence some families and their children to move to private schools in hopes of better education and circumstances. On the other hand, all children are not given an equal opportunity for college, trade school, or anything beyond elementary, middle, and high school. This is because college and such costs money, which may be too expensive for some people. Therefore, this creates a situation where it is not equal for all students within the United States. Bastiat was against compulsory philanthropy, which means to be required to donate to certain issues such as public school because he thought it would in turn result in more injustices within society. He believed that philanthropy should be voluntary, and only that to eliminate potential ills and injustices.
'Petition'
In Bastiat’s essay “Petition,” he pretended to be a widely diverse group of manufacturers that produced artificial light to complain about a French supplier of light that sold their products for a huge undercut price. This was purposely to explain how this competitor threatened the profitability of the entire French lighting manufacturers. Bastiat explains that by eliminating this competitor, it will keep not only his employees, but all of the workers for the other manufacturers as well. The production of tallow benefits agriculture as a whole; the production of oil for light depends on poppies and olives, which depends on manure production; the ships used to transport whale fat for lamps and candles are allowed for French forces to use if ever needed, which protects the nation. With this being said, Bastiat explains how these manufacturers will greatly increase productivity if their workers are given higher wages only if this competitor is banned. This can either help or greatly hurt the lighting industry. Bastiat addresses this potential argument that the consumer will suffer this great loss of the cheap products produced by the competitor by saying foreign products such as iron, coal, corn, textile fabrics will have a tariff added upon them instead of being freely imported. Furthermore, he is explaining how the government always chooses to hurt the consumer over the producer anyways, so there’s no difference in this situation.
'Image Source'
“Frédéric Bastiat Quote: ‘The Law Commit Legal Plunder by Violating Liberty and Property.’” Quotefancy, quotefancy.com/quote/1085144/Fr-d-ric-Bastiat-The-law-commit-legal-plunder-by-violating-liberty-and-property. Accessed 4 Feb. 2025.