The Law

Frederic Bastiat

"The Law created order in my thinking about liberty and just human conduct."

--Walter Williams

"...how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if The Law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime....Then abolish this law without delay..."

--The Law

AIA Lays Down The Law at Conservative University

Other universities require their students to read leftist farces such as Peter Singer’s Practical Ethics; Rigoberta Menchu’s I, Rigoberta Menchu; and Paul Ehlrich’s The Population Bomb. Only at Conservative University are students exposed to such works as The Law for their required reading. Published in 1850 as a campaign pamphlet, The Law was written by the great French statesman and economist, Frederic Bastiat. Bastiat offered his work as an antidote to the rising socialism that confronted the French state in the mid-1800s. Characterized now by the publisher as "The classic blueprint for a just society," Bastiat saw the overbearing state as "that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else."

Analyzing the current relevance of The Law—a book suspiciously absent from the reading lists of political philosophy classes across the spectrum of higher education—and the wisdom contained therein for Conservative University’s students were Karen Vaughn and Joe Sobran. Their verdict: The Law is a must for any conservative-leaning soul who desires an introductory look or clearer grasp of the philosophical underpinnings of just government.

Vaughn, a professor of economics at George Mason University, explained that the foundation of Bastiat’s philosophy was a great understanding of economic thought in the tradition of Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say, as well as a solid understanding of John Locke’s Second Treatise in Government.

"If it’s true that economic systems can function very nicely—thank you very much—without the direction of government," asked Vaughn, "what is the role of government?"

Bastiat derived his answer to this question from three basic premises: First, life is a gift from God. Second, law is the organization of the natural right to lawful defense. Third, if you limit government to that function, you will have economic growth and prosperity. Bastiat thus concluded, as did Locke, that the primary role of government is to provide a common judge to adjudicate disputes.

For Sobran, reading Bastiat was a revelation. "What was really wonderful about it was its simplicity," reminisced Sobran about the day he read The Law for the first time while still in high school during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. "Bastiat was really applying the natural law to economics and politics. And the natural law tends to be pretty simple, if you ask me."

Sobran confided that his view of America’s government changed upon gaining Bastiat’s insights. "Little as I liked Johnson, I really didn’t want to think our government was that bad—it made me feel unpatriotic."

The measure of governmental legitimacy for Bastiat came down to one simple test: "See if the law benefits one person at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime."

Vaughn explained that the huge over-grown and unconstitutional government advanced by President Johnson and that still persists to this day was not only argued against by Bastiat, but also explained. "He says," read Vaughn, "‘Government is rarely so limited, because of greed and false philanthropy.’"

In short, Bastiat advanced a novel idea that would not reappear for over a hundred years: the theory of special interests. People act on their greed by fighting for political power and expanding the voting franchise in order to do through government force what they "cannot do without committing a crime."

Further, well-meaning people are equally to blame. "I think most of my neighbors and friends are basically good people," shared Vaughn, "and what these good people want to do is help others, and they think the government is the way to help others." However, "It is not charity from me [the politician or the well-meaning voter]; what I’ve done is forced your charity onto someone else."

Another negative aspect of this false philanthropy, Sobran mentioned, is the growing inability of the citizenry to differentiate between private social action and government action. He pointed to the debate a few years ago over whether the National Endowment for the Arts should be closed down. Sobran characterized the defenders of the NEA as setting up a tautology, where failure to support government action in the arts indicates that you are against the arts in general. "If the government had always subsidized children’s shoes… and suddenly one day somebody said, ‘we don’t need to do this; people can buy their own shoes,’ he’d be accused by saying, ‘you want children to go barefoot!’" Sobran asserted.

"I’m convinced that all of the really good political arguments are combinations of moral arguments and practical arguments," concluded Vaughn. "And if you can only make the moral argument and not the practical argument, you probably don’t have a good policy. If you can only make the practical argument and not the moral argument, you probably don’t have a good policy."

In the case of The Law, Frederic Bastiat put down a "really good argument" that has certainly withstood the test of time.

-- Eric langborgh

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