“The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” – Frédéric Bastiat

‘The Law’ By Frederic Bastiat

Written at Mugron two years after the 3rd French Revolution and just a few months before his death of tuberculosis at age 49, Bastiat’s ‘The Law’ (‘La Loi’, in French) was originally published in 1850. Notes and quotes are gathered from the Foundation for Economic Education’s 1998 publication of Bastiat’s ‘The Law’, translated from the French by Dean Russell and featuring an introduction by Walter E. Williams and a foreword by Sheldon Ruchman. Let’s get to it!

“The law becomes the weapon of every kind of greed!”
“Life, faculties, production – in other words, individuality, liberty, property – this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it… it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”
“The law is the [collective] organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberty, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.”
“The nature of law is to maintain justice.”
“… the law organizes justice…”
“… law… could not organize labor, education, and religion without destroying justice… law is force[;] consequently, the proper functions of the law cannot lawfully extend beyond the proper functions of force.”
“When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige him only to abstain from harming others. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor his property. They safeguard all of these. They are defensive; they defend equally the rights of all.”
“… the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning.”
“Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle to injustice. In short, law is justice.”
“It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our wills, our education, our opinions, our work, our trade, our talents, or our pleasures. The function of law is to protect the free exercise of these rights, and to prevent any person from interfering with the free exercise of these same rights by any other person.”
“Since law necessarily requires the support of force, its lawful domain is only in the areas where the use of force is necessary. This is justice.”
“The mission of the law is… to protect persons and property.”
“The law is justice – simple and clear, precise and bounded. Every eye can see it, and every mind can grasp it; for justice is measurable, immutable, and unchangeable. Justice is neither more than this nor less than this.”
“Justice means equal rights.”

Thanks for reading!