{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_44800/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_44800","id":"gutenberg_44800","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44800","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: French Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Justice, Administration of","Law -- Philosophy","Law and socialism","Property","Socialism and liberty"],"text":"THE LAW\n\nBy Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat\n\nLudwig von Mises Institute Auburn, Alabama\n\nCover: Prise de la Bastille (\"The Storming of the Bastille\"); 1789.\nPainting by Jean-Pierre Hoiiel (1735-1813). Permission was obtained from\nthe Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France for its use.\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2007 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Printed in China.\n\nPublished by the Ludwig von Mises Institute\n\n518 West Magnolia Avenue, Auburn, Alabama 36832\n\nISBN: 978-1-933550-14-5\n\nThis book is licensed under a Creative Commons license.\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\n{v}\n\nAnyone building a personal library of liberty must include in it a copy\nof Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat's classic essay, \"The Law.\" First published in 1850\nby the great French economist and journalist, it is as clear a statement\nas has ever been made of the original American ideal of government, as\nproclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, that the main purpose of\nany government is the protection of the lives, liberties, and property\nof its citizens.\n\nBastiat believed that all human beings possessed the God-given, natural\nrights of \"individuality, liberty, property.\" \"This is man,\" he wrote.\nThese \"three gifts from God precede all human legislation.\" But even in\nhis time--writing in the late 1840s--Bastiat was alarmed over how the\nlaw had been \"perverted\" into an instrument of what he called legal\nplunder. Far from protecting individual rights, the law was increasingly\nused to deprive one group of citizens of those rights for the benefit\nof another group, and especially for the benefit of the state itself. He\ncondemned the legal plunder of protectionist\n\n{vi}\n\ntariffs, government subsidies of all kinds, progressive taxation, public\nschools, government \"jobs\" programs, minimum wage laws, welfare, usury\nlaws, and more.\n\nBastiat's warnings of the dire effects of legal plunder are as relevant\ntoday as they were the day he first issued them. The system of legal\nplunder (which many now celebrate as \"democracy\") will erase from\neveryone's conscience, he wrote, the distinction between justice and\ninjustice. The plundered classes will eventually figure out how to enter\nthe political game and plunder their fellow man. Legislation will never\nbe guided by any principles of justice, but only by brute political\nforce.\n\nThe great French champion of liberty also forecast the corruption of\neducation by the state. Those who held \"government-endowed teaching\npositions,\" he wrote, would rarely criticize legal plunder lest their\ngovernment endowments be ended.\n\nThe system of legal plunder would also greatly exaggerate the importance\nof politics in society. That would be a most unhealthy development as\nit would encourage even more citizens to seek to improve their own\nwell-being not by producing goods and services for the marketplace but\nby plundering their fellow citizens through politics.\n\nBastiat was also wise enough to anticipate what modern economists call\n\"rent seeking\" and \"rent avoidance\" behavior. These two clumsy phrases\nrefer, respectively, to the phenomena of lobbying for political favors\n(legal plunder), and of engaging in political activity directed at\nprotecting oneself from being the victim of plunder seekers. (For\nexample, the steel manufacturing industry lobbies for high tariffs on\nsteel, whereas steel-using industries, like the automobile industry, can\nbe expected to lobby against high tariffs on steel).\n\n{vii}\n\nThe reason why modem economists are concerned about \"rent seeking\" is\nthe opportunity cost involved: the more time, effort and money that\nis spent by businesses on conniving to manipulate politics--merely\ntransferring wealth--the less time is spent on producing goods and\nservices, which increases wealth. Thus, legal plunder impoverishes\nthe entire society despite the fact that a small (but politically\ninfluential) part of the society benefits from it.\n\nIt is remarkable, in reading \"The Law,\" how perfectly accurate Bastiat\nwas in describing the statists of his day which, it turns out, were not\nmuch different from the statists of today or any other day. The French\n\"socialists\" of Bastiat's day espoused doctrines that perverted charity,\neducation, and morals, for one thing. True charity does not begin\nwith the robbery of taxation, he pointed out. Government schooling is\ninevitably an exercise in statist brainwashing, not genuine education;\nand it is hardly \"moral\" for a large gang (government) to (legally) rob\none segment of the population, keep most of the loot, and share a little\nof it with various \"needy\" individuals.\n\nSocialists want \"to play God,\" Bastiat observed, anticipating all the\nfuture tyrants and despots of the world who would try to remake the\nworld in their image, whether that image would be communism, fascism,\nthe \"glorious union,\" or \"global democracy.\" Bastiat also observed\nthat socialists wanted forced conformity; rigid regimentation of the\npopulation through pervasive regulation; forced equality of wealth; and\ndictatorship. As such, they were the mortal enemies of liberty.\n\n\"Dictatorship\" need not involve an actual dictator. All that was needed,\nsaid Bastiat, was \"the laws,\" enacted\n\n{viii}\n\nby a Congress or a Parliament, that would achieve the same effect:\nforced conformity.\n\nBastiat was also wise to point out that the world has far too many\n\"great men,\" \"fathers of their countries,\" etc., who in reality are\nusually nothing but petty tyrants with a sick and compulsive desire\nto rule over others. The defenders of the free society should have a\nhealthy disrespect for all such men.\n\nBastiat admired America and pointed to the America of 1850 as being\nas close as any society in the world to his ideal of a government that\nprotected individual rights to life, liberty, and property. There\nwere two major exeptions, however: the twin evils of slavery and\nprotectionist tariffs.\n\nFr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat died on Christmas Eve, 1850, and did not live to\nobserve the convulsions that the America he admired so much would go\nthrough in the next fifteen years (and longer). It is unlikely that he\nwould have considered the U.S. government's military invasion of the\nSouthern states in 1861, the killing of some 300,000 citizens, and the\nbombing, burning, and plundering of the region's cities, towns, farms,\nand businesses as being consistent in any way with the protection of\nthe lives, liberties and properties of those citizens as promised by the\nDeclaration of Independence. Had he lived to see all of this, he most\nlikely would have added \"legal murder\" to \"legal plunder\" as one of the\ntwo great sins of government. He would likely have viewed the post-war\nRepublican Party, with its 50 percent average tariff rates, its massive\ncorporate welfare schemes, and its 25-year campaign of genocide against\nthe Plains Indians as first-rate plunderers and traitors to the American\nideal.\n\nIn the latter pages of \"The Law\" Bastiat offers the sage advice that\nwhat was really needed was \"a science of\n\n{ix}\n\neconomics\" that would explain the harmony (or lack thereof) of a free\nsociety (as opposed to socialism). He made a major contribution to this\nend himself with the publication of his book, _Economic Harmonies_,\nwhich can be construed as a precursor to the modern literature of\nthe Austrian School of economics. There is no substitute for a solid\nunderstanding of the market order (and of the realities of politics)\nwhen it comes to combating the kinds of destructive socialistic schemes\nthat plagued Bastiat's day as well as ours. Anyone who reads this great\nessay along with other free-market classics, such as Henry Hazlitt's\nEconomics in One Lesson and Murray Roth-bard's Power and Market, will\npossess enough intellectual ammunition to debunk the socialist fantasies\nof this or any other day.\n\nThomas J. DiLorenzo May 2007\n\nThomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland\nand a member of the senior faculty of the Mises Institute.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LAW [1]\n\n{1}\n\nThe law perverted! The law--and, in its wake, all the collective\nforces of the nation--the law, I say, not only diverted from its proper\ndirection, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law become\nthe tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law\nguilty of that very iniquity which it was its mission to punish! Truly,\nthis is a serious fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to\ncall the attention of my fellow citizens.\n\nWe hold from God the gift that, as far as we are concerned, contains all\nothers, Life--physical, intellectual, and moral life.\n\nBut life cannot support itself. He who has bestowed it, has entrusted us\nwith the care of supporting it, of developing it, and of perfecting\nit. To that end, He has provided us with a collection of wonderful\nfaculties; He has plunged us into the midst of a variety of elements. It\nis by\n\n{2}\n\nthe application of our faculties to these elements that the phenomena of\nassimilation and of appropriation, by which life pursues the circle that\nhas been assigned to it are realized.\n\nExistence, faculties, assimilation--in other words, personality,\nliberty, property--this is man.\n\nIt is of these three things that it may be said, apart from all\ndemagogic subtlety, that they are anterior and superior to all human\nlegislation.\n\nIt is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and\nproperty exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and\nproperty exist beforehand, that men make laws. What, then, is law? As I\nhave said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual\nright to lawful defense.\n\nNature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to\ndefend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the\nthree constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of\nwhich is rendered complete by the others, and that cannot be understood\nwithout them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our\npersonality? and what is property, but an extension of our faculties?\n\nIf every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his\nliberty, and his property, a number of men have the right to combine\ntogether to extend, to organize a common force to provide regularly for\nthis defense.\n\nCollective right, then, has its principle, its reason for existing, its\nlawfulness, in individual right; and the common force cannot rationally\nhave any other end, or any other mission, than that of the isolated\nforces for which it is substituted. Thus, as the force of an individual\ncannot lawfully touch the person, the liberty, or the property of\n\n{3}\n\nanother individual--for the same reason, the common force cannot\nlawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of\nindividuals or of classes.\n\nFor this perversion of force would be, in one case as in the other, in\ncontradiction to our premises. For who will dare to say that force has\nbeen given to us, not to defend our rights, but to annihilate the equal\nrights of our brethren? And if this be not true of every individual\nforce, acting independently, how can it be true of the collective force,\nwhich is only the organized union of isolated forces?\n\nNothing, therefore, can be more evident than this: The law is the\norganization of the natural right of lawful defense; it is the\nsubstitution of collective for individual forces, for the purpose of\nacting in the sphere in which they have a right to act, of doing what\nthey have a right to do, to secure persons, liberties, and properties,\nand to maintain each in its right, so as to cause justice to reign over\nall.\n\nAnd if a people established upon this basis were to exist, it seems to\nme that order would prevail among them in their acts as well as in their\nideas. It seems to me that such a people would have the most simple, the\nmost economical, the least oppressive, the least to be felt, the most\nrestrained, the most just, and, consequently, the most stable Government\nthat could be imagined, whatever its political form might be.\n\nFor under such an administration, everyone would feel that he possessed\nall the fullness, as well as all the responsibility of his existence. So\nlong as personal safety was ensured, so long as labor was free, and the\nfruits of labor secured against all unjust attacks, no one would have\nany difficulties to contend with in the State. When\n\n{4}\n\nprosperous, we should not, it is true, have to thank the State for our\nsuccess; but when unfortunate, we should no more think of taxing it with\nour disasters than our peasants think of attributing to it the arrival\nof hail or of frost. We should know it only by the inestimable blessing\nof Safety.\n\nIt may further be affirmed, that, thanks to the nonintervention of\nthe State in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions would\ndevelop themselves in their natural order. We should not see poor\nfamilies seeking for literary instruction before they were supplied\nwith bread. We should not see towns peopled at the expense of rural\ndistricts, nor rural districts at the expense of towns. We should not\nsee those great displacements of capital, of labor, and of population,\nthat legislative measures occasion; displacements that render so\nuncertain and precarious the very sources of existence, and thus enlarge\nto such an extent the responsibility of Governments.\n\nUnhappily, law is by no means confined to its own sphere. Nor is it\nmerely in some ambiguous and debatable views that it has left its proper\nsphere. It has done more than this. It has acted in direct opposition to\nits proper end; it has destroyed its own object; it has been employed\nin annihilating that justice which it ought to have established, in\neffacing amongst Rights, that limit which it was its true mission to\nrespect; it has placed the collective force in the service of those who\nwish to traffic, without risk and without scruple, in the persons, the\nliberty, and the property of others; it has converted plunder into a\nright, that it may protect it, and lawful defense into a crime, that it\nmay punish it.\n\nHow has this perversion of law been accomplished? And what has resulted\nfrom it?\n\n{5}\n\nThe law has been perverted through the influence of two very different\ncauses--naked greed and misconceived philanthropy.\n\nLet us speak of the former. Self-preservation and development is the\ncommon aspiration of all men, in such a way that if every one enjoyed\nthe free exercise of his faculties and the free disposition of their\nfruits, social progress would be incessant, uninterrupted, inevitable.\n\nBut there is also another disposition which is common to them. This is\nto live and to develop, when they can, at the expense of one another.\nThis is no rash imputation, emanating from a gloomy, uncharitable\nspirit. History bears witness to the truth of it, by the incessant wars,\nthe migrations of races, sectarian oppressions, the universality of\nslavery, the frauds in trade, and the monopolies with which its annals\nabound. This fatal disposition has its origin in the very constitution\nof man--in that primitive, and universal, and invincible sentiment that\nurges it towards its well-being, and makes it seek to escape pain.\n\nMan can only derive life and enjoyment from a perpetual search and\nappropriation; that is, from a perpetual application of his faculties to\nobjects, or from labor. This is the origin of property.\n\nBut also he may live and enjoy, by seizing and appropriating the\nproductions of the faculties of his fellow men. This is the origin of\nplunder.\n\nNow, labor being in itself a pain, and man being naturally inclined to\navoid pain, it follows, and history proves it, that wherever plunder\nis less burdensome than labor, it prevails; and neither religion nor\nmorality can, in this case, prevent it from prevailing.\n\nWhen does plunder cease, then? When it becomes more burdensome and more\ndangerous than labor. It is\n\n{6}\n\nvery evident that the proper aim of law is to oppose the fatal tendency\nto plunder with the powerful obstacle of collective force; that all its\nmeasures should be in favor of property, and against plunder.\n\nBut the law is made, generally, by one man, or by one class of men.\nAnd as law cannot exist without the sanction and the support of a\npreponderant force, it must finally place this force in the hands of\nthose who legislate.\n\nThis inevitable phenomenon, combined with the fatal tendency that, we\nhave said, exists in the heart of man, explains the almost universal\nperversion of law. It is easy to conceive that, instead of being a check\nupon injustice, it becomes its most invincible instrument.\n\nIt is easy to conceive that, according to the power of the legislator,\nit destroys for its own profit, and in different degrees amongst the\nrest of the community, personal independence by slavery, liberty by\noppression, and property by plunder.\n\nIt is in the nature of men to rise against the injustice of which they\nare the victims. When, therefore, plunder is organized by law, for\nthe profit of those who perpetrate it, all the plundered classes tend,\neither by peaceful or revolutionary means, to enter in some way into\nthe manufacturing of laws. These classes, according to the degree of\nenlightenment at which they have arrived, may propose to themselves\ntwo very different ends, when they thus attempt the attainment of their\npolitical rights; either they may wish to put an end to lawful plunder,\nor they may desire to take part in it.\n\nWoe to the nation where this latter thought prevails amongst the masses,\nat the moment when they, in their turn, seize upon the legislative\npower!\n\n{7}\n\nUp to that time, lawful plunder has been exercised by the few upon the\nmany, as is the case in countries where the right of legislating is\nconfined to a few hands. But now it has become universal, and the\nequilibrium is sought in universal plunder. The injustice that society\ncontains, instead of being rooted out of it, is generalized. As soon as\nthe injured classes have recovered their political rights, their first\nthought is not to abolish plunder (this would suppose them to possess\nenlightenment, which they cannot have), but to organize against the\nother classes, and to their own detriment, a system of reprisals--as if\nit was necessary, before the reign of justice arrives, that all should\nundergo a cruel retribution--some for their iniquity and some for their\nignorance.\n\nIt would be impossible, therefore, to introduce into society a greater\nchange and a greater evil than this--the conversion of the law into an\ninstrument of plunder.\n\nWhat would be the consequences of such a perversion? It would require\nvolumes to describe them all. We must content ourselves with pointing\nout the most striking.\n\nIn the first place, it would efface from everybody's conscience the\ndistinction between justice and injustice. No society can exist unless\nthe laws are respected to a certain degree, but the safest way to make\nthem respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are\nin contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel\nalternative of either losing his moral sense, or of losing his respect\nfor the law--two evils of equal magnitude, between which it would be\ndifficult to choose.\n\nIt is so much in the nature of law to support justice that in the minds\nof the masses they are one and the same. There is in all of us a strong\ndisposition to regard what is lawful as legitimate, so much so that many\nfalsely derive\n\n{8}\n\nall justice from law. It is sufficient, then, for the law to order\nand sanction plunder, that it may appear to many consciences just and\nsacred. Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only\nin those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them. If you\nsuggest a doubt as to the morality of these institutions, it is said\ndirectly--\"You are a dangerous experimenter, a utopian, a theorist,\na despiser of the laws; you would shake the basis upon which society\nrests.\"\n\nIf you lecture upon morality, or political economy, official bodies will\nbe found to make this request to the Government:\n\n     That henceforth science be taught not only with sole\n     reference to free exchange (to liberty, property, and\n     justice), as has been the case up to the present time, but\n     also, and especially, with reference to the facts and\n     legislation (contrary to liberty, property, and justice)\n     that regulate French industry.\n\n     That, in public lecterns salaried by the treasury, the\n     professor abstain rigorously from endangering in the\n     slightest degree the respect due to the laws now in\n     force.[2]\n\nSo that if a law exists that sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression\nor plunder, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned--for how\ncan it be mentioned without damaging the respect that it inspires? Still\nfurther, morality and political economy must be taught in connection\nwith this law--that is, under the supposition that it must be just, only\nbecause it is law.\n\n{9}\n\nAnother effect of this deplorable perversion of the law is that it\ngives to human passions and to political struggles, and, in general, to\npolitics, properly so called, an exaggerated importance.\n\nI could prove this assertion in a thousand ways. But I shall confine\nmyself, by way of an illustration, to bringing it to bear upon a subject\nwhich has of late occupied everybody's mind: universal suffrage.\n\nWhatever may be thought of it by the adepts of the school of Rousseau,\nwhich professes to be very far advanced, but which I consider 20\ncenturies behind, universal suffrage (taking the word in its strictest\nsense) is not one of those sacred dogmas with respect to which\nexamination and doubt are crimes.\n\nSerious objections may be made to it.\n\nIn the first place, the word universal conceals a gross sophism. There\nare, in France, 36,000,000 inhabitants. To make the right of suffrage\nuniversal, 36,000,000 electors should be reckoned. The most extended\nsystem reckons only 9,000,000. Three persons out of four, then, are\nexcluded; and more than this, they are excluded by the fourth. Upon what\nprinciple is this exclusion founded? Upon the principle of incapacity.\nUniversal suffrage, then, means: universal suffrage of those who are\ncapable. In point of fact, who are the capable? Are age, sex, and\njudicial condemnations the only conditions to which incapacity is to be\nattached?\n\nOn taking a nearer view of the subject, we may soon perceive the reason\nwhy the right of suffrage depends upon the presumption of incapacity;\nthe most extended system differing from the most restricted in the\nconditions on which this incapacity depends, and which constitutes not a\ndifference in principle, but in degree.\n\n{10}\n\nThis motive is, that the elector does not stipulate for himself, but for\neverybody.\n\nIf, as the republicans of the Greek and Roman tone pretend, the right of\nsuffrage had fallen to the lot of every one at his birth, it would be an\ninjustice to adults to prevent women and children from voting. Why are\nthey prevented? Because they are presumed to be incapable. And why is\nincapacity a reason for exclusion? Because the elector does not reap\nalone the responsibility of his vote; because every vote engages and\naffects the community at large; because the community has a right to\ndemand some assurances, as regards the acts upon which its well-being\nand its existence depend.\n\nI know what might be said in answer to this. I know what might be\nobjected. But this is not the place to settle a controversy of this\nkind. What I wish to observe is this, that this same controversy (in\ncommon with the greater part of political questions) that agitates,\nexcites, and unsettles the nations, would lose almost all its importance\nif the law had always been what it ought to be.\n\nIn fact, if law were confined to causing all persons, all liberties, and\nall properties to be respected--if it were merely the organization of\nindividual right and individual defense--if it were the obstacle, the\ncheck, the chastisement opposed to all oppression, to all plunder--is it\nlikely that we should dispute much, as citizens, on the subject of the\ngreater or lesser universality of suffrage? Is it likely that it would\ncompromise that greatest of advantages, the public peace? Is it likely\nthat the excluded classes would not quietly wait for their turn? Is\nit likely that the enfranchised classes would be very jealous of their\nprivilege? And is it not clear, that the interest of all being one and\nthe same, some would act without much inconvenience to the others?\n\n{11}\n\nBut if the fatal principle should come to be introduced, that, under\npretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the\nlaw may take from one party in order to give to another, help itself to\nthe wealth acquired by all the classes that it may increase that of one\nclass, whether that of the agriculturists, the manufacturers, the ship\nowners, or artists and comedians; then certainly, in this case, there is\nno class which may not try, and with reason, to place its hand upon\nthe law, that would not demand with fury its right of election and\neligibility, and that would overturn society rather than not obtain\nit. Even beggars and vagabonds will prove to you that they have an\nincontestable title to it. They will say:\n\n     We never buy wine, tobacco, or salt, without paying the\n     tax, and a part of this tax is given by law in perquisites\n     and gratuities to men who are richer than we are. Others\n     make use of the law to create an artificial rise in the\n     price of bread, meat, iron, or cloth.\n\n     Since everybody traffics in law for his own profit, we\n     should like to do the same. We should like to make it\n     produce the right to assistance, which is the poor man's\n     plunder. To effect this, we ought to be electors and\n     legislators, that we may organize, on a large scale, alms\n     for our own class, as you have organized, on a large scale,\n     protection for yours.\n\nDon't tell us that you will take our cause upon yourselves, and throw\nto us 600,000 francs to keep us quiet, like giving us a bone to pick. We\nhave other claims, and, at any rate, we wish to stipulate for ourselves,\nas other classes have stipulated for themselves!\n\nHow is this argument to be answered? Yes, as long as it is admitted\nthat the law may be diverted from its true mission, that it may violate\nproperty instead of securing it,\n\n{12}\n\neverybody will be wanting to manufacture law, either to defend himself\nagainst plunder, or to organize it for his own profit. The political\nquestion will always be prejudicial, predominant, and absorbing; in a\nword, there will be fighting around the door of the Legislative Palace.\nThe struggle will be no less furious within it. To be convinced of this,\nit is hardly necessary to look at what passes in the Chambers in France\nand in England; it is enough to know how the question stands.\n\nIs there any need to prove that this odious perversion of law is a\nperpetual source of hatred and discord, that it even tends to social\ndisorganization? Look at the United States. There is no country in the\nworld where the law is kept more within its proper domain--which is, to\nsecure to everyone his liberty and his property. Therefore, there is\nno country in the world where social order appears to rest upon a more\nsolid basis. Nevertheless, even in the United States, there are two\nquestions, and only two, that from the beginning have endangered\npolitical order. And what are these two questions? That of slavery and\nthat of tariffs; that is, precisely the only two questions in which,\ncontrary to the general spirit of this republic, law has taken the\ncharacter of a plunderer. Slavery is a violation, sanctioned by law, of\nthe rights of the person. Protection is a violation perpetrated by the\nlaw upon the rights of property; and certainly it is very remarkable\nthat, in the midst of so many other debates, this double legal scourge,\nthe sorrowful inheritance of the Old World, should be the only one which\ncan, and perhaps will, cause the rupture of the Union. Indeed, a more\nastounding fact, in the heart of society, cannot be conceived than this:\nThat law should have become an instrument of injustice. And if this fact\noccasions consequences so formidable to the United\n\n{13}\n\nStates, where there is but one exception, what must it be with us in\nEurope, where it is a principle--a system?\n\nMr. Montalembert, adopting the thought of a famous proclamation of Mr.\nCarlier, said, \"We must make war against socialism.\" And by socialism,\naccording to the definition of Mr. Charles Dupin, he meant plunder. But\nwhat plunder did he mean? For there are two sorts: extralegal and legal\nplunder.\n\nAs to extralegal plunder, such as theft, or swindling, which is defined,\nforeseen, and punished by the penal code, I do not think it can be\nadorned by the name of socialism. It is not this that systematically\nthreatens the foundations of society. Besides, the war against this\nkind of plunder has not waited for the signal of Mr. Montalembert or\nMr. Carlier. It has gone on since the beginning of the world; France was\ncarrying it on long before the revolution of February--long before the\nappearance of socialism--with all the ceremonies of magistracy, police,\ngendarmerie, prisons, dungeons, and scaffolds. It is the law itself that\nis conducting this war, and it is to be wished, in my opinion, that the\nlaw should always maintain this attitude with respect to plunder.\n\nBut this is not the case. The law sometimes takes its own part.\nSometimes it accomplishes it with its own hands, in order to save the\nparties benefited the shame, the danger, and the scruple. Sometimes\nit places all this ceremony of magistracy, police, gendarmerie, and\nprisons, at the service of the plunderer, and treats the plundered\nparty, when he defends himself, as the criminal. In a word, there is\na legal plunder, and it is, no doubt, this that is meant by Mr.\nMontalembert.\n\nThis plunder may be only an exceptional blemish in the legislation of a\npeople, and in this case, the best thing\n\n{14}\n\nthat can be done is, without so many speeches and lamentations, to\ndo away with it as soon as possible, notwithstanding the clamors of\ninterested parties. But how is it to be distinguished? Very easily. See\nwhether the law takes from some persons that which belongs to them,\nto give to others what does not belong to them. See whether the law\nperforms, for the profit of one citizen, and, to the injury of others,\nan act that this citizen cannot perform without committing a crime.\nAbolish this law without delay; it is not merely an iniquity--it is a\nfertile source of iniquities, for it invites reprisals; and if you do\nnot take care, the exceptional case will extend, multiply, and become\nsystematic. No doubt the party benefited will exclaim loudly; he will\nassert his acquired rights. He will say that the State is bound to\nprotect and encourage his industry; he will plead that it is a good\nthing for the State to be enriched, that it may spend the more, and thus\nshower down salaries upon the poor workmen. Take care not to listen to\nthis sophistry, for it is just by the systematizing of these arguments\nthat legal plunder becomes systematized.\n\nAnd this is what has taken place. The delusion of the day is to enrich\nall classes at the expense of each other; it is to generalize plunder\nunder pretense of organizing it. Now, legal plunder may be exercised in\nan infinite multitude of ways. Hence come an infinite multitude of\nplans for organization; tariffs, protection, perquisites, gratuities,\nencouragements, progressive taxation, free public education, right to\nwork, right to profit, right to wages, right to assistance, right to\ninstruments of labor, gratuity of credit, etc., etc. And it is all these\nplans, taken as a whole, with what they have in common, legal plunder,\nthat takes the name of socialism.\n\nNow socialism, thus defined, and forming a doctrinal body, what other\nwar would you make against it than a\n\n{15}\n\nwar of doctrine? You find this doctrine false, absurd, abominable.\nRefute it. This will be all the easier, the more false, absurd, and\nabominable it is. Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting\nout of your legislation every particle of socialism which may have crept\ninto it--and this will be no light work.\n\nMr. Montalembert has been reproached with wishing to turn brute force\nagainst socialism. He ought to be exonerated from this reproach, for he\nhas plainly said: \"The war that we must make against socialism must be\none that is compatible with the law, honor, and justice.\"\n\nBut how is it that Mr. Montalembert does not see that he is placing\nhimself in a vicious circle? You would oppose law to socialism. But it\nis the law that socialism invokes. It aspires to legal, not extralegal\nplunder. It is of the law itself, like monopolists of all kinds, that it\nwants to make an instrument; and when once it has the law on its side,\nhow will you be able to turn the law against it? How will you place it\nunder the power of your tribunals, your gendarmes, and of your prisons?\nWhat will you do then? You wish to prevent it from taking any part in\nthe making of laws. You would keep it outside the Legislative Palace.\nIn this you will not succeed, I venture to prophesy, so long as legal\nplunder is the basis of the legislation within.\n\nIt is absolutely necessary that this question of legal plunder should be\ndetermined, and there are only three solutions of it:\n\n1. When the few plunder the many.\n\n2. When everybody plunders everybody else.\n\n3. When nobody plunders anybody.\n\nPartial plunder, universal plunder, absence of plunder, amongst these we\nhave to make our choice. The law can only produce one of these results.\n\n{16}\n\nPartial plunder. This is the system that prevailed so long as the\nelective privilege was partial; a system that is resorted to, to avoid\nthe invasion of socialism.\n\nUniversal plunder. We have been threatened by this system when the\nelective privilege has become universal; the masses having conceived\nthe idea of making law, on the principle of legislators who had preceded\nthem.\n\nAbsence of plunder. This is the principle of justice, peace, order,\nstability, conciliation, and of good sense, which I shall proclaim with\nall the force of my lungs (which is very inadequate, alas!) till the day\nof my death.\n\nAnd, in all sincerity, can anything more be required at the hands of\nthe law? Can the law, whose necessary sanction is force, be reasonably\nemployed upon anything beyond securing to every one his right? I\ndefy anyone to remove it from this circle without perverting it, and\nconsequently turning force against right. And as this is the most fatal,\nthe most illogical social perversion that can possibly be imagined, it\nmust be admitted that the true solution, so much sought after, of the\nsocial problem, is contained in these simple words--LAW IS ORGANIZED\nJUSTICE.\n\nNow it is important to remark, that to organize justice by law, that is\nto say by force, excludes the idea of organizing by law, or by force any\nmanifestation whatever of human activity--labor, charity, agriculture,\ncommerce, industry, instruction, the fine arts, or religion; for any\none of these organizings would inevitably destroy the essential\norganization. How, in fact, can we imagine force encroaching upon the\nliberty of citizens without infringing upon justice, and so acting\nagainst its proper aim?\n\nHere I am taking on the most popular prejudice of our time. It is not\nconsidered enough that law should be just,\n\n{17}\n\nit must be philanthropic. It is not sufficient that it should guarantee\nto every citizen the free and inoffensive exercise of his faculties,\napplied to his physical, intellectual, and moral development; it is\nrequired to extend well-being, instruction, and morality, directly over\nthe nation. This is the fascinating side of socialism.\n\nBut, I repeat it, these two missions of the law contradict each other.\nWe have to choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be\nfree and not free. Mr. de Lamartine wrote to me one day thus: \"Your\ndoctrine is only the half of my program; you have stopped at liberty, I\ngo on to fraternity.\" I answered him: \"The second part of your program\nwill destroy the first.\" And in fact it is impossible for me to separate\nthe word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly conceive\nfraternity legally enforced, without liberty being legally destroyed,\nand justice legally trampled under foot. Legal plunder has two roots:\none of them, as we have already seen, is in human greed; the other is in\nmisconceived philanthropy.\n\nBefore I proceed, I think I ought to explain myself upon the word\nplunder.\n\nI do not take it, as it often is taken, in a vague, undefined, relative,\nor metaphorical sense. I use it in its scientific acceptation, and\nas expressing the opposite idea to property. When a portion of wealth\npasses out of the hands of him who has acquired it, without his consent,\nand without compensation, to him who has not created it, whether by\nforce or by artifice, I say that property is violated, that plunder is\nperpetrated. I say that this is exactly what the law ought to repress\nalways and everywhere. If the law itself performs the action it ought to\nrepress, I say that plunder is still perpetrated, and even, in a social\npoint of view, under aggravated circumstances. In this case,\n\n{18}\n\nhowever, he who profits from the plunder is not responsible for it;\nit is the law, the lawgiver, society itself, and this is where the\npolitical danger lies.\n\nIt is to be regretted that there is something offensive in the word. I\nhave sought in vain for another, for I would not wish at any time, and\nespecially just now, to add an irritating word to our disagreements;\ntherefore, whether I am believed or not, I declare that I do not mean\nto impugn the intentions nor the morality of anybody. I am attacking\nan idea that I believe to be false--a system that appears to me to\nbe unjust; and this is so independent of intentions, that each of us\nprofits by it without wishing it, and suffers from it without being\naware of the cause.\n\nAny person must write under the influence of party spirit or of\nfear, who would call into question the sincerity of protectionism, of\nsocialism, and even of communism, which are one and the same plant, in\nthree different periods of its growth. All that can be said is, that\nplunder is more visible by its partiality in protectionism, [3] and\nby its universality in communism; whence it follows that, of the three\nsystems, socialism is still the most vague, the most undefined, and\nconsequently the most sincere.\n\nBe that as it may, to conclude that legal plunder has one of its roots\nin misconceived philanthropy, is evidently to put intentions out of the\nquestion.\n\n{19}\n\nWith this understanding, let us examine the value, the origin, and\nthe tendency of this popular aspiration, which pretends to realize the\ngeneral good by general plunder.\n\nThe Socialists say, since the law organizes justice, why should it not\norganize labor, instruction, and religion?\n\nWhy? Because it could not organize labor, instruction, and religion,\nwithout disorganizing justice.\n\nFor remember, that law is force, and that consequently the domain of the\nlaw cannot properly extend beyond the domain of force.\n\nWhen law and force keep a man within the bounds of justice, they impose\nnothing upon him but a mere negation. They only oblige him to abstain\nfrom doing harm. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor\nhis property. They only guard the personality, the liberty, the property\nof others. They hold themselves on the defensive; they defend the equal\nright of all. They fulfill a mission whose harmlessness is evident,\nwhose utility is palpable, and whose legitimacy is not to be disputed.\nThis is so true that, as a friend of mine once remarked to me, to say\nthat the aim of the law is to cause justice to reign, is to use an\nexpression that is not rigorously exact. It ought to be said, the aim\nof the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is not\njustice that has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The one\nresults from the absence of the other.\n\nBut when the law, through the medium of its necessary\nagent--force--imposes a form of labor, a method or a subject of\ninstruction, a creed, or a worship, it is no longer negative; it acts\npositively upon men. It substitutes the will of the legislator for their\nown will, the initiative of the legislator for their own initiative.\nThey have no need to consult, to compare, or to foresee; the law does\nall that for them. The intellect is for them a useless\n\n{20}\n\nencumbrance; they cease to be men; they lose their personality, their\nliberty, their property.\n\nTry to imagine a form of labor imposed by force, that is not a violation\nof liberty; a transmission of wealth imposed by force, that is not a\nviolation of property. If you cannot succeed in reconciling this, you\nare bound to conclude that the law cannot organize labor and industry\nwithout organizing injustice.\n\nWhen, from the seclusion of his office, a politician takes a view of\nsociety, he is struck with the spectacle of inequality that presents\nitself. He mourns over the sufferings that are the lot of so many of our\nbrethren, sufferings whose aspect is rendered yet more sorrowful by the\ncontrast of luxury and wealth.\n\nHe ought, perhaps, to ask himself whether such a social state has not\nbeen caused by the plunder of ancient times, exercised in the way of\nconquests; and by plunder of more recent times, effected through the\nmedium of the laws? He ought to ask himself whether, granting the\naspiration of all men to well-being and improvement, the reign of\njustice would not suffice to realize the greatest activity of progress,\nand the greatest amount of equality compatible with that individual\nresponsibility that God has awarded as a just retribution of virtue and\nvice?\n\nHe never gives this a thought. His mind turns towards combinations,\narrangements, legal or factitious organizations. He seeks the remedy in\nperpetuating and exaggerating what has produced the evil.\n\nFor, justice apart, which we have seen is only a negation, is there any\none of these legal arrangements that does not contain the principle of\nplunder?\n\nYou say, \"There are men who have no money,\" and you apply to the law.\nBut the law is not a self-supplied\n\n{21}\n\nfountain, whence every stream may obtain supplies independently of\nsociety. Nothing can enter the public treasury, in favor of one citizen\nor one class, but what other citizens and other classes have been forced\nto send to it. If everyone draws from it only the equivalent of what\nhe has contributed to it, your law, it is true, is no plunderer, but it\ndoes nothing for men who want money--it does not promote equality. It\ncan only be an instrument of equalization as far as it takes from one\nparty to give to another, and then it is an instrument of plunder.\nExamine, in this light, the protection of tariffs, subsidies, right\nto profit, right to labor, right to assistance, free public education,\nprogressive taxation, gratuitousness of credit, social workshops, and\nyou will always find at the bottom legal plunder, organized injustice.\n\nYou say, \"There are men who want knowledge,\" and you apply to the law.\nBut the law is not a torch that sheds light that originates within\nitself. It extends over a society where there are men who have\nknowledge, and others who have not; citizens who want to learn, and\nothers who are disposed to teach. It can only do one of two things:\neither allow a free operation to this kind of transaction, i.e., let\nthis kind of want satisfy itself freely; or else preempt the will of\nthe people in the matter, and take from some of them sufficient to pay\nprofessors commissioned to instruct others for free. But, in this second\ncase there cannot fail to be a violation of liberty and property--legal\nplunder.\n\nYou say, \"Here are men who are wanting in morality or religion,\" and\nyou apply to the law; but law is force, and need I say how far it is a\nviolent and absurd enterprise to introduce force in these matters?\n\n{22}\n\nAs the result of its systems and of its efforts, it would seem that\nsocialism, notwithstanding all its self-complacency, can scarcely\nhelp perceiving the monster of legal plunder. But what does it do?\nIt disguises it cleverly from others, and even from itself, under the\nseductive names of fraternity, solidarity, organization, association.\nAnd because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because\nwe only ask it for justice, it alleges that we reject fraternity,\nsolidarity, organization, and association; and they brand us with the\nname of individualists.\n\nWe can assure them that what we repudiate is not natural organization,\nbut forced organization.\n\nIt is not free association, but the forms of association that they would\nimpose upon us.\n\nIt is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity.\n\nIt is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is\nonly an unjust displacement of responsibility.\n\nSocialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds\nGovernment and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being\ndone by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done\nat all. We disapprove of education by the State--then we are against\neducation altogether. We object to a State religion--then we would have\nno religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by\nthe State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as\nwell accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the\ncultivation of corn by the State.\n\nHow is it that the strange idea of making the law produce what it\ndoes not contain--prosperity, in a positive sense, wealth, science,\nreligion--should ever have gained ground in the political world? The\nmodern politicians, particularly those of the Socialist school, found\ntheir different\n\n{23}\n\ntheories upon one common hypothesis; and surely a more strange, a more\npresumptuous notion, could never have entered a human brain.\n\nThey divide mankind into two parts. Men in general, except one, form the\nfirst; the politician himself forms the second, which is by far the most\nimportant.\n\nIn fact, they begin by supposing that men are devoid of any principle of\naction, and of any means of discernment in themselves; that they have no\ninitiative; that they are inert matter, passive particles, atoms without\nimpulse; at best a vegetation indifferent to its own mode of existence,\nsusceptible of assuming, from an exterior will and hand an infinite\nnumber of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic, and perfected.\n\nMoreover, every one of these politicians does not hesitate to\nassume that he himself is, under the names of organizer, discoverer,\nlegislator, institutor or founder, this will and hand, this universal\ninitiative, this creative power, whose sublime mission it is to gather\ntogether these scattered materials, that is, men, into society.\n\nStarting from these data, as a gardener according to his caprice shapes\nhis trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, cones, vases, espaliers,\ndistaffs, or fans; so the Socialist, following his chimera, shapes poor\nhumanity into groups, series, circles, subcircles, honeycombs, or social\nworkshops, with all kinds of variations. And as the gardener, to bring\nhis trees into shape, needs hatchets, pruning hooks, saws, and shears,\nso the politician, to bring society into shape, needs the forces which\nhe can only find in the laws; the law of tariffs, the law of taxation,\nthe law of assistance, and the law of education.\n\nIt is so true, that the Socialists look upon mankind as a subject for\nsocial experiments, that if, by chance, they\n\n{24}\n\nare not quite certain of the success of these experiments, they will\nrequest a portion of mankind, as a subject to experiment upon. It is\nwell known how popular the idea of trying all systems is, and one of\ntheir chiefs has been known seriously to demand of the Constituent\nAssembly a parish, with all its inhabitants, upon which to make his\nexperiments.\n\nIt is thus that an inventor will make a small machine before he makes\none of the regular size. Thus the chemist sacrifices some substances,\nthe agriculturist some seed and a corner of his field, to make trial of\nan idea.\n\nBut think of the difference between the gardener and his trees, between\nthe inventor and his machine, between the chemist and his substances,\nbetween the agriculturist and his seed! The Socialist thinks, in\nall sincerity, that there is the same difference between himself and\nmankind.\n\nNo wonder the politicians of the nineteenth century look upon society\nas an artificial production of the legislator's genius. This idea,\nthe result of a classical education, has taken possession of all the\nthinkers and great writers of our country.\n\nTo all these persons, the relations between mankind and the legislator\nappear to be the same as those that exist between the clay and the\npotter.\n\nMoreover, if they have consented to recognize in the heart of man a\ncapability of action, and in his intellect a faculty of discernment,\nthey have looked upon this gift of God as a fatal one, and thought that\nmankind, under these two impulses, tended fatally towards ruin. They\nhave taken it for granted that if abandoned to their own inclinations,\nmen would only occupy themselves with religion to arrive at atheism,\nwith instruction to come to ignorance, and with labor and exchange to be\nextinguished in misery.\n\n{25}\n\nHappily, according to these writers, there are some men, termed\ngovernors and legislators, upon whom Heaven has bestowed opposite\ntendencies, not for their own sake only, but for the sake of the rest of\nthe world.\n\nWhilst mankind tends to evil, they incline to good; whilst mankind is\nadvancing towards darkness, they are aspiring to enlightenment; whilst\nmankind is drawn towards vice, they are attracted by virtue. And, this\ngranted, they demand the assistance of force, by means of which they are\nto substitute their own tendencies for those of the human race.\n\nIt is only needful to open, almost at random, a book on philosophy,\npolitics, or history, to see how strongly this idea--the child of\nclassical studies and the mother of socialism--is rooted in our country;\nthat mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization,\nmorality, and wealth from power; or, rather, and still worse--that\nmankind itself tends towards degradation, and is only arrested in\nits tendency by the mysterious hand of the legislator. Classical\nconventionalism shows us everywhere, behind passive society, a\nhidden power, under the names of Law, or Legislator (or, by a mode of\nexpression which refers to some person or persons of undisputed weight\nand authority, but not named), which moves, animates, enriches, and\nregenerates mankind.\n\nWe will give a quotation from Bossuet:\n\n     One of the things which was the most strongly impressed\n     (by whom?) upon the mind of the Egyptians, was the love of\n     their country.... Nobody was allowed to be useless to the\n     State; the law assigned to every one his employment, which\n     descended from father to son. No one was permitted to have\n     two professions, nor to adopt another.\n\n... But there was one occupation which was\n\n{26}\n\nobliged to be common to all, this was the study of the laws and of\nwisdom; ignorance of religion and the political regulations of the\ncountry was excused in no condition of life. Moreover, every profession\nhad a district assigned to it (by whom?).... Amongst good laws, one\nof the best things was, that everybody was taught to observe them\n(by whom?). Egypt abounded with wonderful inventions, and nothing was\nneglected which could render life comfortable and tranquil.\n\nThus men, according to Bossuet, derive nothing from themselves;\npatriotism, wealth, inventions, husbandry, science--all come to them\nby the operation of the laws, or by kings. All they have to do is to be\npassive. It is on this ground that Bossuet takes exception when Diodorus\naccuses the Egyptians of rejecting wrestling and music. \"How is that\npossible,\" says he, \"since these arts were invented by Trismegistus?\"\n\nIt is the same with the Persians:\n\n     One of the first cares of the prince was to encourage\n     agriculture.... As there were posts established for the\n     regulation of the armies, so there were offices for the\n     superintending of rural works....\n\nThe respect with which the Persians were inspired for royal authority\nwas excessive.\n\nThe Greeks, although full of mind, were no less strangers to their own\nresponsibilities; so much so, that of themselves, like dogs and horses,\nthey would not have ventured upon the most simple games. In a classical\nsense, it is an undisputed thing that everything comes to the people\nfrom without.\n\n     The Greeks, naturally full of spirit and courage, had\n     been early cultivated by kings and colonies who had come\n     from Egypt. From them they had\n\n\n{27}\n\nlearned the exercises of the body, foot races, and horse and chariot\nraces.... The best thing that the Egyptians had taught them was to\nbecome docile, and to allow themselves to be formed by the laws for the\npublic good.\n\nFENELON--Reared in the study and admiration of antiquity and a witness\nof the power of Louis XIV, Fenelon naturally adopted the idea\nthat mankind should be passive, and that its misfortunes and its\nprosperities, its virtues and its vices, are caused by the external\ninfluence that is exercised upon it by the law, or by the makers of\nthe law. Thus, in his Utopia of Salentum, he brings the men, with their\ninterests, their faculties, their desires, and their possessions, under\nthe absolute direction of the legislator. Whatever the subject may be,\nthey themselves have no voice in it--the prince judges for them. The\nnation is just a shapeless mass, of which the prince is the soul. In him\nresides the thought, the foresight, the principle of all organization,\nof all progress; on him, therefore, rests all the responsibility.\n\nIn proof of this assertion, I might transcribe the whole of the tenth\nbook of _Telemachus_. I refer the reader to it, and shall content myself\nwith quoting some passages taken at random from this celebrated work, to\nwhich, in every other respect, I am the first to render justice.\n\nWith the astonishing credulity that characterizes the classics, F\u00e9nelon,\nagainst the authority of reason and of facts, admits the general\nfelicity of the Egyptians, and attributes it, not to their own wisdom,\nbut to that of their kings:\n\n     We could not turn our eyes to the two shores, without\n     perceiving rich towns and country seats, agreeably situated;\n     fields that were covered every year,\n\n{28}\n\n     without intermission, with golden crops; meadows full of\n     flocks; laborers bending under the weight of fruits that the\n     earth lavished on its cultivators; and shepherds who made\n     the echoes around repeat the soft sounds of their pipes and\n     flutes. \"Happy,\" said Mentor, \"is that people who is\n     governed by a wise king.\"... Mentor afterwards desired me to\n     remark the happiness and abundance that was spread over all\n     the country of Egypt, where twenty-two thousand cities might\n     be counted. He admired the excellent police regulations of\n     the cities; the justice administered in favor of the poor\n     against the rich; the good education of the children, who\n     were accustomed to obedience, labor, and the love of arts\n     and letters; the exactness with which all the ceremonies of\n     religion were performed; the disinterestedness, the desire\n     of honor, the fidelity to men, and the fear of the gods,\n     with which every father inspired his children. He could not\n     sufficiently admire the prosperous state of the country.\n     \"Happy\" said he, \"is the people whom a wise king rules in\n     such a manner.\"\n\nF\u00e9nelon's idyll on Crete is still more fascinating. Mentor is made to\nsay:\n\n     All that you will see in this wonderful island is the\n     result of the laws of Minos. The education that the children\n     receive renders the body healthy and robust. They are\n     accustomed, from the first, to a frugal and laborious life;\n     it is supposed that all the pleasures of sense enervate the\n     body and the mind; no other pleasure is presented to them\n     but that of being invincible by virtue, that of acquiring\n     much glory... there they punish three vices that go\n     unpunished amongst other people--ingratitude, dissimulation,\n     and avarice. As to pomp and dissipation, there is no need to\n     punish these, for they are unknown in Crete.... No costly\n     furniture, no magnificent clothing, no delicious feasts, no\n     gilded palaces are allowed.\n\n{29}\n\nIt is thus that Mentor prepares his scholar to mould and manipulate,\ndoubtless with the most philanthropic intentions, the people of\nIthaca, and, to confirm him in these ideas, he gives him the example of\nSalentum.\n\nSo we receive our first political notions. We are taught to treat men\nvery much as Oliver de Serres teaches farmers to manage and to mix the\nsoil.\n\nMONTESQUIEU--\n\n     To sustain the spirit of commerce, it is necessary that\n     all the laws should favor it; that these same laws, by their\n     regulations in dividing the fortunes in proportion as\n     commerce enlarges them, should place every poor citizen in\n     sufficiently easy circumstances to enable him to work like\n     the others, and every rich citizen in such mediocrity that\n     he must work, in order to retain or to acquire.\n\nThus the laws are to dispose of all fortunes.\n\n     Although in a democracy, real equality be the soul of the\n     State, yet it is so difficult to establish that an extreme\n     exactness in this matter would not always be desirable. It\n     is sufficient that a census be established to reduce or fix\n     the differences to a certain point, after which, it is for\n     particular laws to equalize, as it were, the inequality by\n     burdens imposed upon the rich and reliefs granted to the\n     poor.\n\nHere, again, we see the equalization of fortunes by law, that is, by\nforce.\n\n     There were, in Greece, two kinds of republics. One was\n     military, as Sparta; the other commercial, as Athens. In the\n     one it was wished (by whom?) that the citizens should be\n     idle: in the other, the love of labor was encouraged.\n\n     It is worth our while to pay a little attention to the\n     extent of genius required by these legislators, that\n\n{30}\n\n     we may see how, by confounding all the virtues, they showed\n     their wisdom to the world. Lycurgus, blending theft with the\n     spirit of justice, the hardest slavery with extreme liberty,\n     the most atrocious sentiments with the greatest moderation,\n     gave stability to his city. He seemed to deprive it of all\n     its resources, arts, commerce, money, and walls; there was\n     ambition without the hope of rising; there were natural\n     sentiments where the individual was neither child, nor\n     husband, nor father. Chastity even was deprived of modesty.\n     By this road Sparta was led on to grandeur and to glory.\n\n     The phenomenon that we observe in the institutions of\n     Greece has been seen in the midst of the degeneracy and\n     corruption of our modern times. An honest legislator has\n     formed a people where probity has appeared as natural as\n     bravery among the Spartans. Mr. Penn is a true Lycurgus, and\n     although the former had peace for his object, and the latter\n     war, they resemble each other in the singular path along\n     which they have led their people, in their influence over\n     free men, in the prejudices which they have overcome, the\n     passions they have subdued.\n\n     Paraguay furnishes us with another example. Society has\n     been accused of the crime of regarding the pleasure of\n     commanding as the only good of life; but it will always be a\n     noble thing to govern men by making them happy.\n\n     Those who desire to form similar institutions will\n     establish community of property, as in the republic of\n     Plato, the same reverence as he enjoined for the gods,\n     separation from strangers for the preservation of morality,\n     and make the city and not the citizens create commerce: they\n     should give our arts without our luxury, our wants without\n     our desires.\n\n{31}\n\nVulgar infatuation may exclaim, if it likes, \"It is Montesquieu!\nmagnificent! sublime!\" I am not afraid to express my opinion, and to\nsay:\n\n     What! You have the gall to call that fine? It is\n     frightful! It is abominable! And these extracts, which I\n     might multiply, show that according to Montesquieu, the\n     persons, the liberties, the property, mankind itself, are\n     nothing but grist for the mill of the sagacity of lawgivers.\n\nROUSSEAU--Although this politician, the paramount authority of the\nDemocrats, makes the social edifice rest upon the general will, no one\nhas so completely admitted the hypothesis of the entire passiveness of\nhuman nature in the presence of the lawgiver:\n\n     If it is true that a great prince is a rare thing, how\n     much more so must a great lawgiver be? The former has only\n     to follow the pattern proposed to him by the latter. This\n     latter is the engineer who invents the machine; the former\n     is merely the workman who sets it in motion.\n\nAnd what part have men to act in all this? That of the machine, which\nis set in motion; or rather, are they not the brute matter of which the\nmachine is made? Thus, between the legislator and the prince, between\nthe prince and his subjects, there are the same relations as those\nthat exist between the agricultural writer and the agriculturist,\nthe agriculturist and the clod. At what a vast height, then, is the\npolitician placed, who rules over legislators themselves and teaches\nthem their trade in such imperative terms as the following:\n\n     Would you give consistency to the State? Bring the\n     extremes together as much as possible. Suffer neither\n     wealthy persons nor beggars.\n\n{32}\n\n     If the soil is poor and barren, or the country too much\n     confined for the inhabitants, turn to industry and the arts,\n     whose productions you will exchange for the provisions which\n     you require.... On a good soil, if you are short of\n     inhabitants, give all your attention to agriculture, which\n     multiplies men, and banish the arts, which only serve to\n     depopulate the country.... Pay attention to extensive and\n     convenient coasts. Cover the sea with vessels, and you will\n     have a brilliant and short existence. If your seas wash only\n     inaccessible rocks, let the people be barbarous, and eat\n     fish; they will live more quietly, perhaps better, and most\n     certainly more happily. In short, besides those maxims which\n     are common to all, every people has its own particular\n     circumstances, which demand a legislation peculiar to\n     itself.\n\n     It was thus that the Hebrews formerly, and the Arabs more\n     recently, had religion for their principal object; that of\n     the Athenians was literature; that of Carthage and Tyre,\n     commerce; of Rhodes, naval affairs; of Sparta, war; and of\n     Rome, virtue.\n\nThe author of the \"Spirit of Laws\" has shown the art by which the\nlegislator should frame his institutions towards each of these\nobjects.... But if the legislator, mistaking his object, should take up\na principle different from that which arises from the nature of things;\nif one should tend to slavery, and the other to liberty; if one to\nwealth, and the other to population; one to peace, and the other to\nconquests; the laws will insensibly become enfeebled, the Constitution\nwill be impaired, and the State will be subject to incessant agitations\nuntil it is destroyed, or becomes changed, and invincible Nature regains\nher empire.\n\nBut if Nature is sufficiently invincible to regain its empire, why does\nnot Rousseau admit that it had no need of the legislator to gain its\nempire from the beginning?\n\n{33}\n\nWhy does he not allow that by obeying their own impulse, men would of\nthemselves apply agriculture to a fertile district, and commerce to\nextensive and commodious coasts without the interference of a Lycurgus,\na Solon, or a Rousseau, who would undertake it at the risk of deceiving\nthemselves?\n\nBe that as it may, we see with what a terrible responsibility Rousseau\ninvests inventors, institutors, conductors, and manipulators of\nsocieties. He is, therefore, very exacting with regard to them.\n\n     He who dares to undertake the institutions of a people,\n     ought to feel that he can, as it were, transform every\n     individual, who is by himself a perfect and solitary whole,\n     receiving his life and being from a larger whole of which he\n     forms a part; he must feel that he can change the\n     constitution of man, to fortify it, and substitute a social\n     and moral existence for the physical and independent one\n     that we have all received from nature. In a word, he must\n     deprive man of his own powers, to give him others that are\n     foreign to him.\n\nPoor human nature! What would become of its dignity if it were entrusted\nto the disciples of Rousseau?\n\nRAYNAL--\n\n     The climate, that is, the air and the soil, is the first\n     element for the legislator. His resources prescribe to him\n     his duties. First, he must consult his local position. A\n     population dwelling upon maritime shores must have laws\n     fitted for navigation.... If the colony is located in an\n     inland region, a legislator must provide for the nature of\n     the soil, and for its degree of fertility....\n\n     It is more especially in the distribution of property\n     that the wisdom of legislation will appear. As a\n\n{34}\n\n     general rule, and in every country, when a new colony is\n     founded, land should be given to each man, sufficient for\n     the support of his family....\n\n     In an uncultivated island, which you are colonizing with\n     children, it will only be needful to let the germs of truth\n     expand in the developments of reason!... But when you\n     establish old people in a new country, the skill consists in\n     only allowing it those injurious opinions and customs which\n     it is impossible to cure and correct. If you wish to prevent\n     them from being perpetuated, you will act upon the rising\n     generation by a general and public education of the\n     children. A prince or legislator ought never to found a\n     colony without previously sending wise men there to instruct\n     the youth.... In a new colony, every facility is open to the\n     precautions of the legislator who desires to purify the tone\n     and the manners of the people. If he has genius and virtue,\n     the lands and the men that are at his disposal will inspire\n     his soul with a plan of society that a writer can only\n     vaguely trace, and in a way that would be subject to the\n     instability of all hypotheses, which are varied and\n     complicated by an infinity of circumstances too difficult to\n     foresee and to combine.\n\nOne would think it was a professor of agriculture who was saying to his\npupils\n\n     The climate is the only rule for the agriculturist.\n\nHis resources dictate to him his duties. The first thing he has to\nconsider is his local position. If he is on a clayey soil, he must do so\nand so. If he has to contend with sand, this is the way in which he must\nset about it. Every facility is open to the agriculturist who wishes to\nclear and improve his soil.\n\nIf he only has the skill, the manure which he has at his disposal will\nsuggest to him a plan of operation, which a professor can only vaguely\ntrace, and in a way that would be subject to the uncertainty of all\nhypotheses, which vary and are complicated by an\n\n{35}\n\ninfinity of circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine.\n\nBut, oh! sublime writers, deign to remember sometimes that this clay,\nthis sand, this manure, of which you are disposing in so arbitrary\na manner, are men, your equals, intelligent and free beings like\nyourselves, who have received from God, as you have, the faculty of\nseeing, of foreseeing, of thinking, and of judging for themselves!\n\nMABLY--(He is supposing the laws to be worn out by time and by the\nneglect of security, and continues thus):\n\n     Under these circumstances, we must be convinced that the\n     bonds of Government are slack. Give them a new tension (it\n     is the reader who is addressed), and the evil will be\n     remedied.... Think less of punishing the faults than of\n     encouraging the virtues that you want. By this method you\n     will bestow upon your republic the vigor of youth. Through\n     ignorance of this, a free people has lost its liberty! But\n     if the evil has made so much way that the ordinary\n     magistrates are unable to remedy it effectually, have\n     recourse to an extraordinary magistracy, whose time should\n     be short, and its power considerable. The imagination of the\n     citizens requires to be impressed.\n\nIn this style he goes on through twenty volumes.\n\nThere was a time when, under the influence of teaching like this, which\nis the foundation of classical education, everyone was for placing\nhimself beyond and above mankind, for the sake of arranging, organizing,\nand instituting it in his own way.\n\nCONDILLAC--\n\n     Take upon yourself, my lord, the character of Lycurgus or\n     of Solon. Before you finish reading\n\n{36}\n\n     this essay, amuse yourself with giving laws to some wild\n     people in America or in Africa. Establish these roving men\n     in fixed dwellings; teach them to keep flocks.... Endeavor\n     to develop the social qualities that nature has implanted in\n     them.... Make them begin to practice the duties of\n     humanity.... Cause the pleasures of the passions to become\n     distasteful to them by punishments, and you will see these\n     barbarians, with every plan of your legislation, lose a vice\n     and gain a virtue.\n\n     All these people have had laws. But few among them have\n     been happy. Why is this? Because legislators have almost\n     always been ignorant of the object of society, which is to\n     unite families by a common interest.\n\n     Impartiality in law consists in two things, in\n     establishing equality in the fortunes and in the dignity of\n     the citizens.... In proportion to the degree of equality\n     established by the laws, the dearer will they become to\n     every citizen. How can avarice, ambition, dissipation,\n     idleness, sloth, envy, hatred, or jealousy agitate men who\n     are equal in fortune and dignity, and to whom the laws leave\n     no hope of disturbing their equality?\n\n     What has been told you of the republic of Sparta ought to\n     enlighten you on this question. No other State has had laws\n     more in accordance with the order of nature or of equality.\n\nIt is not to be wondered at that the seventeenth and eighteenth\ncenturies should have looked upon the human race as inert matter, ready\nto receive everything--form, figure, impulse, movement, and life, from a\ngreat prince, or a great legislator, or a great genius. These ages were\nreared in the study of antiquity; and antiquity presents everywhere--in\nEgypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome, the\n\n{37}\n\nspectacle of a few men molding mankind according to their fancy, and\nmankind to this end enslaved by force or by imposture. And what\ndoes this prove? That because men and society are improvable, error,\nignorance, despotism, slavery, and superstition must be more prevalent\nin early times. The mistake of the writers quoted above is not that they\nhave asserted this fact, but that they have proposed it as a rule for\nthe admiration and imitation of future generations. Their mistake has\nbeen, with an inconceivable absence of discernment, and upon the\nfaith of a puerile conventionalism, that they have admitted what is\ninadmissible, viz., the grandeur, dignity, morality, and well-being of\nthe artificial societies of the ancient world; they have not understood\nthat time produces and spreads enlightenment; and that in proportion to\nthe increase of enlightenment, right ceases to be upheld by force, and\nsociety regains possession of herself.\n\nAnd, in fact, what is the political work that we are endeavoring to\npromote? It is no other than the instinctive effort of every people\ntowards liberty. And what is liberty, whose name can make every heart\nbeat, and which can agitate the world, but the union of all liberties,\nthe liberty of conscience, of education, of association, of the press,\nof movement, of labor, and of exchange; in other words, the free\nexercise, for all, of all the inoffensive faculties; and again, in other\nwords, the destruction of all despotisms, even of legal despotism, and\nthe reduction of law to its only rational sphere, which is to regulate\nthe individual right of legitimate defense, or to repress injustice?\n\nThis tendency of the human race, it must be admitted, is greatly\nthwarted, particularly in our country, by the fatal disposition,\nresulting from classical teaching and common to all politicians, of\nplacing themselves beyond\n\n{38}\n\nmankind, to arrange, organize, and regulate it, according to their\nfancy.\n\nFor whilst society is struggling to realize liberty, the great men\nwho place themselves at its head, imbued with the principles of the\nseventeenth and eighteenth centuries, think only of subjecting it to the\nphilanthropic despotism of their social inventions, and making it bear\nwith docility, according to the expression of Rousseau, the yoke of\npublic felicity as pictured in their own imaginations.\n\nThis was particularly the case in 1789. No sooner was the old system\ndestroyed than society was to be submitted to other artificial\narrangements, always with the same starting point--the omnipotence of\nthe law.\n\nSAINT-JUST--\n\n     The legislator commands the future. It is for him to will\n     for the good of mankind. It is for him to make men what he\n     wishes them to be.\n\nROBESPIERRE--\n\n     The function of Government is to direct the physical and\n     moral powers of the nation towards the object of its\n     institution.\n\nBILLAUD VARENNES--\n\n     A people who are to be restored to liberty must be formed\n     anew. Ancient prejudices must be destroyed, antiquated\n     customs changed, depraved affections corrected, inveterate\n     vices eradicated.\n\nFor this, a strong force and a vehement impulse will be necessary....\nCitizens, the inflexible austerity of Lycurgus created the firm basis\nof the Spartan republic. The feeble and trusting disposition of Solon\nplunged Athens into slavery. This parallel contains the whole science of\nGovernment.\n\n{39}\n\nLEPELLETIER--\n\n     Considering the extent of human degradation, I am\n     convinced--of the necessity of effecting an entire\n     regeneration of the race, and, if I may so express myself,\n     of creating a new people.\n\nMen, therefore, are nothing but raw material. It is not for them to\nwill their own improvement. They are not capable of it; according to\nSaint-Just, it is only the legislator who is. Men are merely to be\nwhat he wills that they should be. According to Robespierre, who copies\nRousseau literally, the legislator is to begin by assigning the aim of\nthe institutions of the nation. After this, the Government has only to\ndirect all its physical and moral forces towards this end. All this time\nthe nation itself is to remain perfectly passive; and Billaud Varennes\nwould teach us that it ought to have no prejudices, affections, nor\nwants, but such as are authorized by the legislator. He even goes so\nfar as to say that the inflexible austerity of a man is the basis of a\nrepublic.\n\nWe have seen that, in cases where the evil is so great that the ordinary\nmagistrates are unable to remedy it, Mably recommends a dictatorship,\nto promote virtue. \"Have recourse,\" says he, \"to an extraordinary\nmagistracy, whose time shall be short, and his power considerable. The\nimagination of the people requires to be impressed.\" This doctrine has\nnot been neglected. Listen to Robespierre:\n\n     The principle of the Republican Government is virtue, and\n     the means to be adopted, during its establishment, is\n     terror. We want to substitute, in our country, morality for\n     self-indulgence, probity for honor, principles for customs,\n     duties for decorum, the empire of reason for the tyranny of\n\n{40}\n\n     fashion, contempt of vice for contempt of misfortune, pride\n     for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity, love of glory\n     for love of money, good people for good company, merit for\n     intrigue, genius for wit, truth for glitter, the charm of\n     happiness for the weariness of pleasure, the greatness of\n     man for the littleness of the great, a magnanimous,\n     powerful, happy people, for one that is easy, frivolous,\n     degraded; that is to say, we would substitute all the\n     virtues and miracles of a republic for all the vices and\n     absurdities of monarchy.\n\nAt what a vast height above the rest of mankind does Robespierre place\nhimself here! And observe the arrogance with which he speaks. He is not\ncontent with expressing a desire for a great renovation of the human\nheart, he does not even expect such a result from a regular Government.\nNo; he intends to effect it himself, and by means of terror. The\nobject of the discourse from which this puerile and laborious mass of\nantithesis is extracted, was to exhibit the principles of morality that\nought to direct a revolutionary Government. Moreover, when Robespierre\nasks for a dictatorship, it is not merely for the purpose of repelling a\nforeign enemy, or of putting down factions; it is that he may establish,\nby means of terror and as a preliminary to the operation of the\nConstitution, his own principles of morality. He pretends to nothing\nshort of extirpating from the country by means of terror, self-interest,\nhonor, customs, decorum, fashion, vanity, the love of money, good\ncompany, intrigue, wit, luxury, and misery. It is not until after he,\nRobespierre, shall have accomplished these miracles, as he rightly calls\nthem, that he will allow the law to regain her empire. Truly it would be\nwell if these visionaries, who think so much of themselves and so little\nof mankind, who want to\n\n{41}\n\nrenew everything, would only be content with trying to reform\nthemselves, the task would be arduous enough for them. In general,\nhowever, these gentlemen, the reformers, legislators, and politicians,\ndo not desire to exercise an immediate despotism over mankind. No, they\nare too moderate and too philanthropic for that. They only contend for\nthe despotism, the absolutism, the omnipotence of the law. They aspire\nonly to make the law.\n\nTo show how universal this strange disposition has been in France, I had\nneed not only to have copied the whole of the works of Mably, Raynal,\nRousseau, Fenelon, and to have made long extracts from Bossuet and\nMontesquieu, but to have given the entire transactions of the sittings\nof the Convention. I shall do no such thing, however, but merely refer\nthe reader to them.\n\nNo wonder this idea suited Bonaparte so well. He embraced it with ardor,\nand put it in practice with energy. Playing the part of a chemist,\nEurope was to him the material for his experiments. But this material\nreacted against him. More than half undeceived, Bonaparte, at St.\nHelena, seemed to admit that there is an initiative in every people,\nand he became less hostile to liberty. Yet this did not prevent him\nfrom giving this lesson to his son in his will--\"To govern is to diffuse\nmorality, education, and well-being.\"\n\nAfter all this, I hardly need show, by fastidious quotations, the\nopinions of Morelly, Babeuf, Owen, Saint Simon, and Fourier. I shall\nconfine myself to a few extracts from Louis Blanc's book on the\norganization of labor.\n\n\"In our project, society receives the impulse of power.\"\n\nIn what does the impulse that power gives to society consist? In\nimposing upon it the project of Mr. Louis Blanc.\n\n{42}\n\nOn the other hand, society is the human race. The human race, then, is\nto receive its impulse from Mr. Louis Blanc.\n\nIt is at liberty to do so or not, it will be said. Of course the human\nrace is at liberty to take advice from anybody, whoever it may be. But\nthis is not the way in which Mr. Louis Blanc understands the thing. He\nmeans that his project should be converted into law, and consequently\nforcibly imposed by power.\n\n     In our project, the State has only to give a legislation\n     to labor, by means of which the industrial movement may and\n     ought to be accomplished in all liberty. It (the State)\n     merely places society on an incline (that is all) that it\n     may descend, when once it is placed there, by the mere force\n     of things, and by the natural course of the established\n     mechanism.\n\nBut what is this incline? One indicated by Mr. Louis Blanc. Does it not\nlead to an abyss? No, it leads to happiness. Why, then, does not society\ngo there of itself? Because it does not know what it wants, and it\nrequires an impulse. What is to give it this impulse? Power. And who\nis to give the impulse to power? The inventor of the machine, Mr. Louis\nBlanc.\n\nWe shall never get out of this circle--mankind passive, and a great man\nmoving it by the intervention of the law. Once on this incline, will\nsociety enjoy something like liberty? Without a doubt. And what is\nliberty?\n\n     Once for all: liberty consists not only in the right\n     granted, but in the power given to man to exercise, to\n     develop his faculties under the empire of justice, and under\n     the protection of the law.\n\n     And this is no vain distinction; there is a deep meaning\n     in it, and its consequences are imponderable. For\n\n{43}\n\n     when once it is admitted that man, to be truly free, must\n     have the power to exercise and develop his faculties, it\n     follows that every member of society has a claim upon it for\n     such education as shall enable his faculties to display\n     themselves, and for the tools of labor, without which human\n     activity can find no scope. Now, by whose intervention is\n     society to give to each of its members the requisite\n     education and the necessary tools of labor, unless by that\n     of the State?\n\nThus, liberty is power. In what does this power consist? In possessing\neducation and tools of labor. Who is to give education and tools of\nlabor? Society, who owes them. By whose intervention is society to give\ntools of labor to those who do not possess them? By the intervention of\nthe State. From whom is the State to obtain them?\n\nIt is for the reader to answer this question, and to notice whither all\nthis tends.\n\nOne of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one that will probably\nbe a matter of astonishment to our descendants, is the doctrine which\nis founded upon this triple hypothesis: the radical passiveness\nof mankind,--the omnipotence of the law,--the infallibility of the\nlegislator: this is the sacred symbol of the party that proclaims itself\nexclusively democratic.\n\nIt is true that it professes also to be social.\n\nSo far as it is democratic, it has an unlimited faith in mankind.\n\nSo far as it is social, it places mankind beneath the mud.\n\nAre political rights under discussion? Is a legislator to be chosen?\nOh, then the people possess science by instinct: they are gifted with\nan admirable discernment; their will is always right; the general will\ncannot err. Suffrage cannot\n\n{44}\n\nbe too universal. Nobody is under any responsibility to society. The\nwill and the capacity to choose well are taken for granted. Can the\npeople be mistaken? Are we not living in an age of enlightenment?\nWhat! Are the people to be forever led about by the nose? Have they not\nacquired their rights at the cost of effort and sacrifice? Have they not\ngiven sufficient proof of intelligence and wisdom? Are they not arrived\nat maturity? Are they not in a state to judge for themselves? Do they\nnot know their own interest? Is there a man or a class who would dare\nto claim the right of putting himself in the place of the people, of\ndeciding and of acting for them? No, no; the people would be free, and\nthey shall be so. They wish to conduct their own affairs, and they shall\ndo so.\n\nBut when once the legislator is duly elected, then indeed the style of\nhis speech alters. The nation is sent back into passiveness, inertness,\nnothingness, and the legislator takes possession of omnipotence. It\nis for him to invent, for him to direct, for him to impel, for him to\norganize. Mankind has nothing to do but to submit; the hour of despotism\nhas struck. And we must observe that this is decisive; for the people,\njust before so enlightened, so moral, so perfect, have no inclinations\nat all, or, if they have any, these all lead them downwards towards\ndegradation. And yet they ought to have a little liberty! But are we not\nassured by Mr. Considerant that liberty leads fatally to monopoly? Are\nwe not told that liberty is competition? and that competition, according\nto Mr. Louis Blanc, is a system of extermination for the people, and of\nruination for trade? For that reason people are exterminated and ruined\nin proportion as they are free--take, for example, Switzerland, Holland,\nEngland, and the United States? Does not Mr. Louis Blanc tell us again\nthat competition\n\n{45}\n\nleads to monopoly, and that, for the same reason, cheapness leads\nto exorbitant prices? That competition tends to drain the sources of\nconsumption, and diverts production to a destructive activity?\nThat competition forces production to increase, and consumption to\ndecrease--whence it follows that free people produce for the sake of not\nconsuming; that there is nothing but oppression and madness among them;\nand that it is absolutely necessary for Mr. Louis Blanc to see to it?\n\nWhat sort of liberty should be allowed to men? Liberty of\nconscience?--But we should see them all profiting by the permission\nto become atheists. Liberty of education?--But parents would be paying\nprofessors to teach their sons immorality and error; besides, if we are\nto believe Mr. Thiers, education, if left to the national liberty, would\ncease to be national, and we should be educating our children in the\nideas of the Turks or Hindus, instead of which, thanks to the legal\ndespotism of the universities, they have the good fortune to be educated\nin the noble ideas of the Romans. Liberty of labor? But this is only\ncompetition, whose effect is to leave all products unconsumed, to\nexterminate the people, and to ruin the tradesmen. The liberty of\nexchange? But it is well known that the protectionists have shown, over\nand over again, that a man will inevitably be ruined when he exchanges\nfreely, and that to become rich it is necessary to exchange without\nliberty. Liberty of association? But according to the socialist\ndoctrine, liberty and association exclude each other, for the liberty of\nmen is attacked just to force them to associate.\n\nYou must see, then, that the socialist democrats cannot in conscience\nallow men any liberty, because, by their own\n\n{46}\n\nnature, they tend in every instance to all kinds of degradation and\ndemoralization.\n\nWe are therefore left to conjecture, in this case, upon what foundation\nuniversal suffrage is claimed for them with so much importunity.\n\nThe pretensions of organizers suggest another question, which I have\noften asked them, and to which I am not aware that I ever received an\nanswer: Since the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is\nnot safe to allow them liberty, how comes it to pass that the tendencies\nof organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their agents\nform a part of the human race? Do they consider that they are composed\nof different materials from the rest of mankind? They say that society,\nwhen left to itself, rushes to inevitable destruction, because its\ninstincts are perverse. They presume to stop it in its downward course,\nand to give it a better direction. They have, therefore, received\nfrom heaven, intelligence and virtues that place them beyond and above\nmankind: let them show their title to this superiority. They would\nbe our shepherds, and we are to be their flock. This arrangement\npresupposes in them a natural superiority, the right to which we are\nfully justified in calling upon them to prove.\n\nYou must observe that I am not contending against their right to invent\nsocial combinations, to propagate them, to recommend them, and to try\nthem upon themselves, at their own expense and risk; but I do dispute\ntheir right to impose them upon us through the medium of the law, that\nis, by force and by public taxes.\n\nI would not insist upon the Cabetists, the Fourierists, the\nProudhonians, the Academics, and the Protectionists renouncing their\nown particular ideas; I would only have them renounce the idea that is\ncommon to them all--viz.,\n\n{47}\n\nthat of subjecting us by force to their own categories and rankings\nto their social laboratories, to their ever-inflating bank, to their\nGreco-Roman morality, and to their commercial restrictions. I would\nask them to allow us the faculty of judging of their plans, and not to\noblige us to adopt them if we find that they hurt our interests or are\nrepugnant to our consciences.\n\nTo presume to have recourse to power and taxation, besides being\noppressive and unjust, implies further, the pernicious assumption that\nthe organized is infallible, and mankind incompetent.\n\nAnd if mankind is not competent to judge for itself, why do they talk so\nmuch about universal suffrage?\n\nThis contradiction in ideas is unhappily to be found also in facts;\nand whilst the French nation has preceded all others in obtaining its\nrights, or rather its political claims, this has by no means prevented\nit from being more governed, and directed, and imposed upon, and\nfettered, and cheated, than any other nation. It is also the one, of\nall others, where revolutions are constantly to be dreaded, and it is\nperfectly natural that it should be so.\n\nSo long as this idea is retained, which is admitted by all our\npoliticians, and so energetically expressed by Mr. Louis Blanc in\nthese words--\"Society receives its impulse from power,\" so long as men\nconsider themselves as capable of feeling, yet passive--incapable of\nraising themselves by their own discernment and by their own energy to\nany morality, or well-being, and while they expect everything from the\nlaw; in a word, while they admit that their relations with the State are\nthe same as those of the flock with the shepherd, it is clear that the\nresponsibility of power is immense. Fortune and misfortune, wealth and\ndestitution, equality and inequality all proceed from it. It is charged\n\n{48}\n\nwith everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything; therefore\nit has to answer for everything. If we are happy, it has a right to\nclaim our gratitude; but if we are miserable, it alone must bear the\nblame. Are not our persons and property in fact, at its disposal? Is\nnot the law omnipotent? In creating the educational monopoly, it has\nundertaken to answer the expectations of fathers of families who have\nbeen deprived of liberty; and if these expectations are disappointed,\nwhose fault is it?\n\nIn regulating industry, it has undertaken to make it prosper, otherwise\nit would have been absurd to deprive it of its liberty; and if it\nsuffers, whose fault is it? In pretending to adjust the balance of\ncommerce by the game of tariffs, it undertakes to make commerce prosper;\nand if, so far from prospering, it is destroyed, whose fault is it?\nIn granting its protection to maritime armaments in exchange for their\nliberty, it has undertaken to render them self-sufficient; if they\nbecome burdensome, whose fault is it?\n\nThus, there is not a grievance in the nation for which the Government\ndoes not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it any wonder that\nevery failure threatens to cause a revolution? And what is the remedy\nproposed? To extend indefinitely the dominion of the law, i.e., the\nresponsibility of Government. But if the Government undertakes to raise\nand to regulate wages, and is not able to do it; if it undertakes\nto assist all those who are in want, and is not able to do it; if it\nundertakes to provide work for every laborer, and is not able to do it;\nif it undertakes to offer to all who wish to borrow, easy credit, and is\nnot able to do it; if, in words that we regret should have escaped the\npen of Mr. de Lamartine, \"the State considers that its mission is to\nenlighten, to\n\n{49}\n\ndevelop, to enlarge, to strengthen, to spiritualize, and to sanctify the\nsoul of the people\"--if it fails in this, is it not obvious that after\nevery disappointment, which, alas! is more than probable, there will be\na no less inevitable revolution?\n\nI shall now resume the subject by remarking, that immediately after the\neconomical part [4] of the question, and before the political part, a\nleading question presents itself. It is the following:\n\nWhat is law? What ought it to be? What is its domain? What are its\nlimits? Where, in fact, does the prerogative of the legislator stop?\n\nI have no hesitation in answering, Law is common force organized to\nprevent injustice;--in short, Law is Justice.\n\nIt is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons\nand property, since they pre-exist, and his work is only to secure them\nfrom injury.\n\nIt is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our\nconsciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our\nworks, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to\nprevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any\none of these things.\n\nLaw, because it has force for its necessary sanction, can only have the\ndomain of force, which is justice.\n\nAnd as every individual has a right to have recourse to force only in\ncases of lawful defense, so collective force, so which is only the union\n\n{50}\n\nof individual forces, cannot be rationally used for any other end.\n\nThe law, then, is solely the organization of individual rights that\nexisted before law.\n\nLaw is justice.\n\nSo far from being able to oppress the people, or to plunder their\nproperty, even for a philanthropic end, its mission is to protect the\npeople, and to secure to them the possession of their property.\n\nIt must not be said, either, that it may be philanthropic, so long as\nit abstains from all oppression; for this is a contradiction. The law\ncannot avoid acting upon our persons and property; if it does not secure\nthem, then it violates them if it touches them.\n\nThe law is justice.\n\nNothing can be more clear and simple, more perfectly defined and\nbounded, or more visible to every eye; for justice is a given quantity,\nimmutable and unchangeable, and which admits of neither increase or\ndiminution.\n\nDepart from this point, make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing,\nindustrial, literary, or artistic, and you will be lost in vagueness and\nuncertainty; you will be upon unknown ground, in a forced Utopia, or,\nwhat is worse, in the midst of a multitude of contending Utopias, each\nstriving to gain possession of the law, and to impose it upon you; for\nfraternity and philanthropy have no fixed limits, as justice has. Where\nwill you stop? Where is the law to stop? One person, Mr. de Saint Cricq,\nwill only extend his philanthropy to some of the industrial classes, and\nwill require the law to slight the consumers in favor of the producers.\nAnother, like Mr. Consid\u00e9rant, will take up the cause of the working\nclasses, and claim for them by means of the law, at a fixed rate,\nclothing, lodging, food, and\n\n{51}\n\neverything necessary for the support of life. A third, Mr. Louis Blanc,\nwill say, and with reason, that this would be an incomplete fraternity,\nand that the law ought to provide them with tools of labor and\neducation. A fourth will observe that such an arrangement still leaves\nroom for inequality, and that the law ought to introduce into the most\nremote hamlets luxury, literature, and the arts. This is the high road\nto communism; in other words, legislation will be--as it now is--the\nbattlefield for everybody's dreams and everybody's covetousness.\n\nLaw is justice.\n\nIn this proposition we represent to ourselves a simple, immovable\nGovernment. And I defy anyone to tell me whence the thought of a\nrevolution, an insurrection, or a simple disturbance could arise against\na public force confined to the repression of injustice. Under such a\nsystem, there would be more well-being, and this well-being would be\nmore equally distributed; and as to the sufferings inseparable from\nhumanity, no one would think of accusing the Government of them, for\nit would be as innocent of them as it is of the variations of the\ntemperature. Have the people ever been known to rise against the\ncourt of appeals, or assail the justices of the peace, for the sake of\nclaiming the rate of wages, free credit, tools of labor, the advantages\nof the tariff, or the social workshop? They know perfectly well that\nthese matters are beyond the jurisdiction of the justices of the peace,\nand they would soon learn that they are not within the jurisdiction of\nthe law quite as much.\n\nBut if the law were to be made upon the principle of fraternity, if\nit were to be proclaimed that from it proceed all benefits and all\nevils--that it is responsible for every individual grievance and for\nevery social inequality--then\n\n{52}\n\nyou open the door to an endless succession of complaints, irritations,\ntroubles, and revolutions.\n\n_Law is justice_.\n\nAnd it would be very strange if it could properly be anything else! Is\nnot justice right? Are not rights equal? With what show of right can the\nlaw interfere to subject me to the social plans of Messrs. Mimerel, de\nMelun, Thiers, or Louis Blanc, rather than to subject these gentlemen\nto my plans? Is it to be supposed that Nature has not bestowed upon me\nsufficient imagination to invent a Utopia too? Is it for the law to make\nchoice of one amongst so many fancies, and to make use of the public\nforce in its service?\n\n_Law is justice_.\n\nAnd let it not be said, as it continually is, that the law, in this\nsense, would be atheistic, individual, and heartless, and that it would\nmold mankind in its own image. This is an absurd conclusion, quite\nworthy of the governmental infatuation which sees mankind in the law.\n\nWhat then? Does it follow that if we are free, we shall cease to act?\nDoes it follow that if we do not receive an impulse from the law, we\nshall receive no impulse at all? Does it follow that if the law confines\nitself to securing to us the free exercise of our faculties, our\nfaculties will be paralyzed? Does it follow, that if the law does not\nimpose upon us forms of religion, modes of association, methods of\neducation, rules for labor, directions for exchange, and plans for\ncharity, we shall plunge headlong into atheism, isolation, ignorance,\nmisery, and greed? Does it follow, that we shall no longer recognize the\npower and goodness of God; that we shall cease to associate together, to\nhelp each other, to love and assist our unfortunate brethren, to\n\n{53}\n\nstudy the secrets of nature, and to aspire after perfection in our\nexistence?\n\n_Law is justice_.\n\nAnd it is under the law of justice, under the reign of right, under\nthe influence of liberty, security, stability, and responsibility, that\nevery man will attain to the fullness of his worth, to all the dignity\nof his being, and that mankind will accomplish with order and with\ncalmness--slowly, it is true, but with certainty--the progress ordained\nfor it.\n\nI believe that my theory is correct; for whatever be the question upon\nwhich I am arguing, whether it be religious, philosophical, political,\nor economical; whether it affects well-being, morality, equality, right,\njustice, progress, responsibility, property, labor, exchange, capital,\nwages, taxes, population, credit, or Government; at whatever point\nof the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same\nthing--the solution of the social problem is in liberty.\n\nAnd have I not experience on my side? Cast your eye over the globe.\nWhich are the happiest, the most moral, and the most peaceable nations?\nThose where the law interferes the least with private activity; where\nthe Government is the least felt; where individuality has the most\nscope, and public opinion the most influence; where the machinery of the\nadministration is the least important and the least complicated; where\ntaxation is lightest and least unequal, popular discontent the\nleast excited and the least justifiable; where the responsibility of\nindividuals and classes is the most active, and where, consequently, if\nmorals are not in a perfect state, at any rate they tend incessantly to\ncorrect themselves; where transactions, meetings, and associations are\nthe least fettered; where labor, capital, and production suffer the\nleast from artificial\n\n{54}\n\ndisplacements; where mankind follows most completely its own natural\ncourse; where the thought of God prevails the most over the inventions\nof men; those, in short, who realize the most nearly this idea that\nwithin the limits of right, all should flow from the free, perfectible,\nand voluntary action of man; nothing be attempted by the law or by\nforce, except the administration of universal justice.\n\nI cannot avoid coming to this conclusion--that there are too many\ngreat men in the world; there are too many legislators, organizers,\ninstitutors of society, conductors of the people, fathers of nations,\netc., etc. Too many persons place themselves above mankind, to rule and\npatronize it; too many persons make a trade of looking after it. It will\nbe answered--\"You yourself are occupied upon it all this time.\" Very\ntrue. But it must be admitted that it is in another sense entirely that\nI am speaking; and if I join the reformers it is solely for the purpose\nof inducing them to relax their hold.\n\nI am not doing as Vaucauson did with his automaton, but as a\nphysiologist does with the human frame; I would study and admire it.\n\nI am acting with regard to it in the spirit that animated a celebrated\ntraveler. He found himself in the midst of a savage tribe. A child had\njust been born, and a crowd of soothsayers, magicians, and quacks were\naround it, armed with rings, hooks, and bandages. One said--\"This\nchild will never smell the perfume of a calumet, unless I stretch his\nnostrils.\" Another said--\"He will be without the sense of hearing,\nunless I draw his ears down to his shoulders.\" A third said--\"He will\nnever see the light of the sun, unless I give his eyes an oblique\ndirection.\" A fourth said--\"He will never be upright, unless I bend his\nlegs.\" A fifth said--\"He will not be able to think, unless I press his\n\n{55}\n\nbrain.\" \"Stop!\" said the traveler. \"Whatever God does, is well done;\ndo not pretend to know more than He; and as He has given organs to this\nfrail creature, allow those organs to develop themselves, to strengthen\nthemselves by exercise, use, experience, and liberty.\"\n\nGod has implanted in mankind also all that is necessary to enable it to\naccomplish its destinies. There is a providential social physiology,\nas well as a providential human physiology. The social organs are\nconstituted so as to enable them to develop harmoniously in the grand\nair of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organizers! Away with their\nrings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with\ntheir artificial methods! Away with their social laboratories,\ntheir governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their\nuniversities, their State religions, their inflationary or monopolizing\nbanks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralizations, and\ntheir equalization by taxation! And now, after having vainly inflicted\nupon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to\nhave begun--reject all systems, and try liberty--liberty, which is an\nact of faith in God and in His work.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n\n[Footnote 1: First published in 1850.]\n\n[Footnote 2: General Council of Manufactures, Agriculture, and Commerce,\n6th of May, 1850.]\n\n[Footnote 3: If protection were only granted in France to a single\nclass, to the engineers, for instance, it would be so absurdly\nplundering, as to be unable to maintain itself. Thus we see all the\nprotected trades combine, make common cause, and even recruit themselves\nin such a way as to appear to embrace the mass of the national labor.\nThey feel instinctively that plunder is slurred over by being\ngeneralized.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Political economy precedes politics: the former has to\ndiscover whether human interests are harmonious or antagonistic, a fact\nwhich must be settled before the latter can determine the prerogatives\nof Government.]\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n   Action, human. See Individualism;\n\n   Mankind\n\n   Agriculture analogy to society, 35\n   Persian, 26\n   Antiquity. See Greece; Rome\n   Authority. See Government\n\n   Beggars, 11\n   Billaud-Varennes, Jean Nicolas, 38\n   Blanc, Louis competition, 45\n   doctrine, 42, 43\n   force of society, 47, 48\n   labor, 42\n   law, 50, 52\n   Bonaparte, Napoleon, 41\n   Bossuet, Jacques B\u00e9nigne, 25, 26\n\n   Cabetists, 46, 47\n   Capital displacement, 2\n   Carlier, Pierre, 13\n   Carthage, 32\n   Charity, vii, 5, 17\n       See also Wealth, equality of; Welfare\n   Classical studies, 25, 26, 36, 37, 38\n   Collectivism, 2, 3\n        See also Government\n   Communism, 18\n   Competition\n        meaning, 45\n        results, 45\n   Condillac, \u00c9tienne Bonnot de, 35, 38\n   Constituent Assembly, 24\n   Conventionality, 37\n   Crete, 28\n\n   Defense right of, 2, 3, 37, 49, 50\n   Democracy, vi, 43, 44\n   Democrats, 43\n   Dictatorship, vii, 39, 40\n   Disposition, fatal, 5, 37, 38\n   Distribution, 33, 34\n   Dole, 10, 11\n        See also Welfare\n   Dupin, Charles, 13\n\n   Education classical, 26, 38\n        controlled, 33\n        Greek, 26\n\n   {57}\n\n   {58}\n\n        liberty in, 44\n        free, 21, 22\n        government provided, 22, 48\n   Egypt, 25, 26, 27\n   Elections, 43, 44\n        See also Voting\n   Employment\n        assigned, 26\n        See also Labor\n   Equality of wealth, 11, 20, 29, 36\n\n   F\u00e9nelon, Fran\u00e7ois de Salignac de La\n   Mothe antiquity, 27, 29\n   Telemachus, 27\n   Force common or collective, 2, 3\n        individual, 2, 3\n        motive, of society, 40, 43\n        See also Government; Law\n   Forced conformity, viii\n   Fourier, Fran\u00e7ois Marie Charles, 41\n   Fourierists, 46\n   France revolutions, 47\n   Fraternity legally enforced, 16, 17, 21, 22\n   Fraud, 13, 14\n   Freedom. See Liberty\n   French Revolution, 38\n        public services, 10, 11\n        purpose of, v relaxed, 35\n        republican, 30, 39\n        responsibility and, 3, 47, 48, 51\n        results, 28\n        stability, 31\n        virtue, 39\n        See also Communism, Socialism\n\n   Greece education, 26\n        law, 26, 27\n        republic, 29, 30\n        Sparta, 32, 36, 38\n   Greed, 5\n\n   Happiness of the governed, 28\n   History, 5\n   Humanity lost, 19, 20\n\n   Imports. See Trade\n   Individualism, 3\n   Industry, protected. See Protectionism\n\n   Jobs. See Employment\n   Justice and injustice, distinction\n        between, 7\n        generalized, 7\n        immutable, 49, 50\n        intentions and, 17, 18\n        law and, 3, 6, 49\n        reigning, 19\n        General welfare, 19\n        Government\n        American ideal of, v\n        corrupting education by, vi\n        democratic, 29, 43, 44\n        education, 23, 48\n        force, 2, 3\n        function, 38\n        monopoly, 45\n        morality, 39\n        motive force, 40, 43\n        power, v, 47\n\n   Labor displaced, 4\n   Land. See Property\n   Law\n        Cretan, 28\n        defined, 2, 16\n\n   {59}\n\n        Egyptian, 25, 26, 27, 28\n        fraternity and, 17\n        functions, 16, 31, 33, 49, 50\n        Greek, 26, 28, 29\n        justice and, 3, 4, 16, 51\n        morality and, 7, 21\n        motive force, 25\n        object of, 19\n        omnipotence, 44, 49\n        Persian, 26\n        perverted, v, 1, 5\n        philanthropic, 17\n        plunder and, 5, 13\n        posterior and inferior, 2, 3\n        respect for, 7, 9\n        Rousseau's views, 31, 33, 38\n        spirit of, 32\n        study of, 25\n        United States, 12\n        See also Legislation\n        Lamartine, Alphonse Marie Louis de,\n        fraternity, 17\n        government power, 48, 49\n        Lawgiver, 38, 43\n        Legislation conflict in, 32\n        monopoly on, 5\n        struggle for control of, 11, 12\n        universal right of, 7\n        See also Law\n        Legislator. See Lawgiver; Politicians\n        Lep\u00e9letier, Louis Michel de Saint Fargeau, 39\n        Liberty competition and, 44, 45\n        defined, 42\n        denied, 44, 45\n        described, 53\n        education and, 44, 45\n        individual, 3\n        as power, 43\n        returned to, 55\n        seeking, 38\n\n   Life, faculties of, 1\n   Louis XIV 27\n   Lycurgus government, 30, 35, 36\n        influence, 33, 40\n\n   Mably, Abb\u00e9 Gabriel Bonnot de, 35, 39\n   Mankind assimilation, 2\n        concern for, 54\n        degraded, 25\n        divided, 23\n        inert, 23, 25, 26, 28, 31, 35, 36, 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, 47\n        inertia, 44\n        as machine, 31\n        nature of, 33\n        violation of, 52\n\n   Melun, Armand de, 52\n   Mentor, 28, 29\n   Mimerel de Roubaix, Pierre Auguste\n   Remi, 52\n   Monopoly, 5, 45\n   Montalembert, Charles, Comte de, 13, 15\n   Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Second\u00e2t, Baron de, 29, 31\n   Morality law and, 21, 22\n   Morelly, 41\n\n   Napoleon, 41\n   Natural rights, v\n   Nature, gifts of, 1\n\n   Oliver de Serres, Guillaume Antoine, 29\n   Order, 3\n   Owen, Robert, 41\n   Ownership. See Property\n\n   Paraguay, 30\n   Persia, 26\n\n   {60}\n\n   Personality, 2\n   Phalansteries, 55\n   Philanthropy. See Charity\n   Plato republic, 30\n   Plunder absence of, 16\n        burdens of, 5, 6\n        defined, 17\n        general welfare and, 19\n        extralegal, 13\n        kinds, 13\n        legal, v, ix, 6, 13, 22\n        organized, 14\n        origin of, 6\n        partial, 15, 16\n        socialistic, 13\n        universal, 15, 16\n        Politicians dreams of, 36\n        genius of, 30\n        goodness of, 25\n        importance of, 22, 23\n        responsibility of, 27\n        social engineers, 22, 24, 32, 34, 37, 38, 40, 42, 44, 45\n        superior, 46, 54\n   Politics exaggerated importance of, 8\n        and favors, vi\n        plunder through, vi\n   Poor relief. See Charity; Welfare\n   Power. See Government\n   Property man and, 2\n        origin of, 5\n   Protectionism, 18\n        United States, 12\n   Proudhonians, 46\n   Providence, 55\n   Public relief, 10, 20, 29\n\n   Raynal, Abb\u00e9 Guillaume, 33, 35\n   Religion, State, 22\n   Rent seeking, vi, vii\n   Republic kinds of, 29\n        virtues of, 39\n   Revolt, 6\n   Revolution, 47\n        French, 38\n        Rhodes, 32\n   Rights individual, v, 2, 3\n   Roberspierre, Jean Jacques\n        government, 38\n        lawgiver, 40\n   Rome virtue, 32\n   Rousseau, Jean Jacques\n        disciples, 8, 9\n        on the lawgiver, 31, 33\n\n   Saint-Cricq, Barth\u00e9l\u00e9my, Pierre Laurent, Comte de, 50\n   Saint-Just, Louis Antoine L\u00e9on de, 38\n   Saint-Simon, Claude Henri, Comte de doctrine, 41\n   Salentum, 27, 29\n   Security consequences, 3\n   Self-defense, 2, 37, 49, 50\n   Selfishness, 5\n   Serres, Oliver de, 29\n   Slavery,\n        United States, viii, 12\n        universality, 5\n   Socialism confused, ix, 22\n        defined, 14, 15\n        disguised, 22\n        experiments, 23, 24\n        legal plunder, 13\n        sincerely believed, 18\n        social engineers, 22, 24\n        refutation of, 15\n   Socialists, vii\n   Society enlightened, 37\n\n   {61}\n\n        experiments, 23\n        motive force, 40, 43\n        object of, 36, 37\n        parable of the traveler, 54, 55\n\n   Solon, 33, 35\n   Sparta, 32, 36\n   Spoliation. See Plunder\n   State. See Government\n   Suffrage. See Universal suffrage\n\n   Tariffs, vi, viii\n   Telemachus, 27\n   Terror as means of republican government, 39, 40\n   Theirs, Louis Adolphe\n        doctrine, 52\n        education, 45\n   Tyre, 32\n\n   United States, viii, 12\n        Declaration of Independence, v\n   Universal suffrage demand for, 9, 43, 44, 46, 47\n        importance of, 10\n        incapacity and, 9\n        objections, 9\n\n   Vaucanson, Jacques de, 54\n   Vested interests, 13, 14\n   Virtue and vice, 28, 30, 35, 36, 40\n   Voting responsibility and, 9, 10\n        right of, 10\n        See also Universal suffrage\n\n   Want satisfaction, 4\n   Wealth equality of, 11, 21, 29, 36\n        transfer of, vii\n   Welfare, 10, 20, 28\n\n\n\n   The law perverted! The law--and, in its wake, all the\n   collective forces of the nation. The law, I say, not\n   only diverted from its proper direction, but made\n   to pursue one entirely contrary! The law becomes\n   the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being\n   its check! The law guilty of that very inequity which\n   it was its mission to punish! Truly, this is a serious\n   fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to\n   call the attention of my fellow-citizens.\n\n   --Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat","title":"The Law","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":18686}