Quotes from Frederic Bastiat

There is no doubt that two nations, the same as two men, unconnected with each other, may, by working more, and working better, prosper at the same time, without injuring each other.

What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. Each of us has a natural right--from God--to defend his person, his liberty, and his property

quando se tenta fazer a lei religiosa, fraternal, igualitária, filantrópica, industrial, literária, artística, logo se atinge o infinito, o incerto, o desconhecido, a utopia imposta ou, o que é pior, uma infinidade de utopias em luta para apossar-se da lei e se impor. Pois a fraternidade e a filantropia, ao contrário da justiça, não têm limites fixos. Onde pararão? Onde parará a lei?

The Law by Frédéric Bastiat

Money serves only to facilitate the transmission of these useful things from one to another

The law has been perverted by the influence of two entirely different causes: stupid greed and false philanthropy. Let us speak of the first.

On a wrong road, inconsistency is inevitable; if it were not so, mankind would be sacrificed. A false principle never has been, and never will be, carried out to the end.

When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.

If, then, it is politic to protect national Labor against the competition of foreign Labor, it is not less so to protect human Labor against the rivalry of mechanical Labor.

And what is this liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world?

As classes espoliadas acabarão por entender como entrar no jogo político e espoliar seus semelhantes. A legislação jamais será guiada por quaisquer princípios de justiça, mas apenas pela força política bruta.

When two workmen run after one master, wages fall; they rise when two masters run after one workman.

You shall not succeed, I predict, so long as legal plunder continues to be the main business of the legislature. It is illogical -- in fact, absurd -- to assume otherwise.

What needs explanation is not poverty, which is the natural state of mankind, but wealth.

We demand from the law the right to relief, which is the poor man's plunder. To obtain this right, we also should be voters and legislators in order that we may organize Beggary on a grand scale for our own class, as you have organized Protection on a grand scale for your class.

It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.

Uma "ditadura" não precisa envolver um ditador efetivo. Tudo o que era necessário, dizia Bastiat, eram "as leis", promulgadas por um Congresso ou um Parlamento, que produzissem o mesmo efeito: conformidade forçada.

Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain -- and since labor is pain in itself -- it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work.

Here are, however, a few extracts from Louis Blanc's book on the organization of labor: "In our plan, society receives its momentum from power." Now consider this: The impulse behind this momentum is to be supplied by the plan of Louis Blanc; his plan is to be forced upon society; the society referred to is the human race. Thus the human race is to receive its momentum from Louis Blanc.

according to Montesquieu, the persons, the liberties, the property, mankind itself, are nothing but materials to exercise the sagacity of lawgivers." Rousseau.

Men, therefore, are nothing but raw material. It is not for them to will their own improvement. They are not capable of it; according to Saint Just, it is only the legislator who is.

The State is also subject to the law of Malthus. It is continually living beyond its means, it increases in proportion to its means, and draws its support solely from the substance of the people. Woe to the people who are incapable of limiting the sphere of action of the State.

Rousseau.—Although this politician, the paramount authority of the Democrats, makes the social edifice rest upon the general will, no one has so completely admitted the hypothesis of the entire passiveness of human nature in the presence of the lawgiver:— "If

the radical passiveness of mankind,—the omnipotence of the law,—the infallibility of the legislator:—this is the sacred symbol of the party which proclaims itself exclusively democratic.