Editor's Introduction↩

(To come)

The Text↩

[3]

The Law perverted! [1] The Law, and along with it all the coercive powers [2] of the nation—The Law, I say, not only diverted from its purpose but applied to pursuing an aim directly opposed to it! The Law, becoming the tool of all forms of greed instead of being their restraint! The Law itself perpetrating the very injustice it was meant to punish! Certainly, this is a grave matter—if it is true—one that I must be allowed to bring to the attention of my fellow citizens.

 

We hold from God [3] the gift that encompasses all others for us: Life—physical, intellectual, and moral life.

But life does not sustain itself. He who gave it to us [4] left us with the task of maintaining it, developing it, perfecting it.

[4]

For this purpose, He endowed us with a set of marvelous faculties and placed us in an environment of diverse elements. It is through the application of our faculties to these elements that the phenomenon of assimilation, [5] of appropriation, takes place—by which life follows the course assigned to it.

Existence, our faculties, and assimilation—in other words, personhood, [6] liberty, and property—this is what man is.

One can say of these three things, [7] without any demagogic subtlety, that they are prior to and superior to all human legislation. 7. It is not because men have enacted Laws that personhood, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personhood, liberty, and property preexist that men create Laws.

What, then, is the Law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to legitimate (self) defense.

Each of us certainly holds from nature, from God, [8] the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three elements that constitute or preserve life—elements that complement one another and [5] cannot be understood separately. For what are our faculties if not an extension of our personhood, and what is property if not an extension of our faculties? [9]

If every man has the right to defend, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, then several men have the right to come together, to reach an agreement, and to organize a common (use of coercive) force to provide for this defensein a regular manner.

Thus, this collective right (to use force) has its principle, its justification, and its legitimacy in the individual's right (to do this), and the common (use of) force can rationally have no other purpose, no other task, than the (use of) force by isolated individuals which it replaces.

Therefore, just as the (use of) force by an individual cannot legitimately violate the person, the liberty, or the property of another individual, by the same reasoning, the common (use of) force cannot be legitimately used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individuals or classes.

For this perversion of (the use of) force would, in one case as in the other, contradict our premises. Who would dare to say that (the use of) force was given to us not to defend our rights but to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? And if this is not true for each individual to use force acting in isolation, how could it be true of [6] the collective (use of) force, which is merely the organized combination of the (use of) force by isolated individuals?

Thus, if anything is evident, it is this: the Law is the organization of the natural right of legitimate (self) defense; it is the substitution of the collective use offorce for for that of individuals, in order to enable (people) to act within the limits where these forces have the right to act, to do what they have the right to do—to protect persons, Liberties, and property, to preserve each person's' rights, and in order to ensure the reign ofJUSTICE over us all.

 

And if a nation [10] were constituted on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail in both deeds and ideas. It seems to me that such a people would have the simplest, most economical, least burdensome, least intrusive, least harmful, and the most just, and therefore most stable government imaginable, regardless of its political form.

For under such a regime, each person would fully understand that he would enjoy all the benefits as well as have all the responsibility for his ownexistence. As long as his person was respected, his labor free (of restrictions), and the fruits of his labor protected from unjust violation, no one would have any reason to take issue with the state. If we were content with our lot, we would not, it is true, have to thank it for [7] our successes; but if we were not content, we would no more blame the state for our misfortunes than our farmers blame it for hail or frost. We would only know that it was the invaluable blessing of SECURITY.

One may further argue that, thanks to the non-intervention of the state in private affairs, our needs and the satisfaction of those needs [11] would develop in their natural order. One would not see poor families seeking a literary education before having bread. One would not see cities swelling in size at the expense of the countryside, or the countryside at the expense of cities. One would not see these great displacements of capital, labor, and population, causedby the passing of laws [12] —displacements that render the very sources of existence so uncertain and precarious, and thereby greatly increase the demand placed on governments to be be responsible for it.

Unfortunately, the Law has not remained confined to its proper role. Worse still, it has not merely strayed into unimportant or debatable matters. It has done worse: it has acted contrary to its own end; it has destroyed its own purpose; it has worked to destroy the very justice it was meant to uphold, to erase the limit it was meant to enforce between rights; it [8] has put the collective use of force at the service of those who seek to exploit, without risk (to themselves) and without scruple, the person, the liberty, or the property of others; it has converted plunder into a right in order to protect it, and (converted) legitimate (self) defense into a crime in order to punish it.

 

How has this perversion of the Law come about? What have been its consequences?

The Law has been perverted under the influence of two very different causes: thoughtless egoism [13] and false philanthropy. [14]

Let me speak about the first one:

To preserve and develop oneself—this is the common aspiration of all men, so much so that if each person enjoyed the free exercise of his faculties and the free disposal of the things they produced, social progress would be constant, uninterrupted, and unerring.

However, there is another tendency which is just as common, namely to live and grow at the expense of others whenever possible. This is not a reckless accusation born of a bitter or pessimistic mind. History bears witness to it through endless wars, migrations of people, oppression by priests, [15] the universal practice of slavery, industrial fraud, [9] and the monopolies with which the annals of history are filled. [16]

This disastrous tendency originates from the very constitution of man, from that primitive, universal, and overwhelming impetus that drives him toward well-being and makes him flee from pain.

Man can only live and enjoy life by means of constant (process) of assimilation and appropriation (of the things around him)—that is, by the constant application of his faculties to (other) things, or through labor. From this comes (the need for) property.

But in reality, he can also live and enjoy by assimilating or appropriating the product of his fellow man's faculties. From this comes plunder.

Now, since labor itself is painful, and man is naturally inclined to avoid pain, it follows—as history proves—that wherever plunder is less burdensome than labor, it prevails. It prevails despite religion, despite morality, which, in such a case, are powerless to prevent it. [17]

When, then, does plunder cease? When it becomes more burdensome, more dangerous than labor.

It is quite evident that the purpose of the Law should be to use the collective use of force as a powerful obstacle against this disastrous tendency (of men)—that it should take the side of property against plunder.

[10]

But the Law is most often made by one man or by a class of men. And since the Law cannot exist without the sanction, without the support of an overwhelming (coercive) force, it inevitably places this force in the hands of those who make the laws. [18]

This inevitable phenomenon, combined with the harmful tendency we have just observed in the human heart, explains the nearly universal perversion of the Law. We can understand how, instead of restraining injustice, it becomes a tool—and the most invincible tool—of injustice. We can understand how, according to the power of the legislator, it destroys, for his benefit and to varying degrees among the rest of mankind, (the right to) personhood be means of slavery, liberty by means of oppression, and property by means of plunder.

It is in the nature of man to react against the injustice he suffers. Therefore, when plunder is organized by the Law for the benefit of the classes that make it, all the plundered classes [19] seek, by peaceful or revolutionary means, to have a say in the making of the Laws. These classes, depending on their level of enlightenment, may pursue two very different objectives when they strive to conquer their political rights: [20] either they wish to put an end to legal plunder, [21] [11] or they aspire to take part in it.

Woe, three times woe, to the nations where this latter thought dominates the masses at the moment they seize legislative power!

Up until now, legal plunder has been exercised by the few upon the many, as seen in nations where the right to pass laws is concentrated in the hands of a few. [22] But now it has become universal, and an equilibrium is being sought in universal plunder. [23] Instead of eliminating injustice from society, it is being generalized. As soon as the (politically) disinherited classes regain their political rights, their first thought is not to free themselves from plunder (that would presuppose a level of enlightenment they cannot yet have), but to organize a system of retaliation against the other classes and, ultimately, against themselves—as if, before the reign of justice can arrive, a cruel retribution must strike them all, some for their injustice, others for their ignorance. [24]

No greater transformation and no greater misfortune [12] could be introduced into society than this: the Law turned into a tool of plunder.

What are the consequences of such a disturbance? [25] It would take volumes to describe them all. [26] Let us be content with pointing out the most striking.

 

The first is that it erases from people's consciences the notion of justice and injustice.

No society can exist if respect for the Law does not prevail to some degree. But the surest way for the Law to be respected is for it to be respectable. When the Law and Morality contradict each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel dilemma of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the Law—two equally great misfortunes, between which it is difficult to choose.

It is so natural for the Law to ensure that justice prevails that, in the minds of the masses, Law and justice are one and the same thing. We all have a strong tendency to regard what is legal as (also) legitimate—to such an extent that many people mistakenly derive all their notions of justice from the Law itself. Thus, as soon as the Law decrees and enshrines plunder, plunder appears just and sacred in the eyes of many consciences. Slavery, [13] (trade) restrictions, monopoly—all find defenders not only among those who benefit from them but also among those who suffer from them. [27] Try to raise doubts about the morality of these institutions. "You are," they will say, "a dangerous innovator, a utopian, [28] a theorist, someone who has a contempt for the law; you are shaking the very foundation upon which society rests." If you teach a course in morality or political economy, there will be official bodies ready to petition the government with the wish:

"Let science henceforth be taught, no longer from the sole perspective of Free Trade (of liberty, property, and justice), as has been the case until now, but also, and above all, from the perspective of the facts and legislation (contrary to liberty, property, and justice) that governs French industry."

"Let the professors, with chairs which are funded by the Treasury, [29] rigorously abstain from the slightest attack on the respect due to existing laws, etc." [30]

Thus, if there exists a law that sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression, or [14] plunder in any form whatsoever, it must not even be mentioned, for how can one speak of it without undermining the respect it inspires? Even more, morality and political economy must be taught from the perspective of this Law—that is to say, on the assumption that it is just merely because it is the Law.

 

Another effect of this deplorable perversion of the Law is that it grants an exaggerated importance to political passions and struggles, and, in general, to politics itself.

I could prove this proposition in a thousand ways. I will limit myself, by way of example, to connecting it to the topic that has recently occupied all minds: universal suffrage. [31]

Regardless of what the adherents of Rousseau’s school may think—a school that claims to be very advanced but which I believe has regressed twenty centuries—universal suffrage (taking the term in its strictest sense) is not one of those sacred dogmas about which examination and even doubt are considered crimes.

It is open to serious objections.

First of all, the word "universal" hides a gross sophism. [32] France has thirty-six million inhabitants. For suffrage to be truly universal, it would have to be recognized for thirty-six million [15] voters. Even under the broadest system of voting, it is recognized only for nine million. Three out of four people are therefore excluded—and, what is more, they are excluded by that fourth person. On what principle is this exclusion based? On the principle of incapacity. Thus, universal suffrage means: universal suffrage of those who are capable. This leaves the factual question: who are the capable? Are age, sex, and criminal record the only signs by which incapacity can be recognized?

If one examines this closely, one quickly perceives the reason why the right to vote is based on the presumption of capability. The broadest system differs from the most restrictive only in its assessment of the signs by which this capability is recognized—this is not a difference of principle, but of degree.

This reason is that the voter does not legislate only for himself but for everyone.

If, as the republicans of the Greek and Roman persuasion claim, the right to vote were as inherent to us as life itself, it would be unjust for adults to prevent women and children from voting. Why are they prevented? Because they are presumed to be incapable. And why is incapacity a reason for exclusion? Because the voter does not bear alone the responsibility for his vote; [16] because each vote binds and affects the entire community; because the community has the right to require certain guarantees regarding the acts upon which its well-being and existence depend.

I know what could be said in response. I also know what could be replied in turn. This is not the place to go into such a controversy in detail. What I wish to point out is that this very controversy (as well as most political questions), which agitates, inflames, and unsettles nations, would lose almost all its importance if the Law had always been what it ought to be.

Indeed, if the Law confined itself to ensuring respect for (the rights of) all persons, all Liberties, and all Properties—if it were nothing more than the organization of the individual right of legitimate (self-)defense, the obstacle, the restraint, the punishment set against all kinds of oppressions and all kinds of plunder—do we think that we would argue so fiercely, as citizens, about the question of whether suffrage should be more or less universal? Do we think it would threaten the greatest of all good, public peace? Do we think that the (politically) excluded classes would not patiently wait their turn? Do we think that the (politically) included classes would be very jealous of their privilege? And is it not [17] clear, since their (self-)interest would be identical and common (to all), that one group could act without significant inconvenience on behalfthe others?

But let this disastrous principle be introduced—let it be admitted that, under the pretext of (providing) organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the Law may take from some to give to others, take wealth acquired by all classes to increase that of a single class—sometimes that of the farmers, sometimes that of the manufacturers, merchants, shipowners, artists, or actors—oh! then, certainly, there is no class that will not claim, with good reason, (the right) to lay its hands on the Law; that will not fiercely demand its right to vote and to be elected; that will not overthrow society rather than be denied these privileges. Even beggars and vagrants will prove to you that they have undeniable claims. They will say to you:

"We never buy wine, tobacco, or salt without paying taxes, [33] and part of that tax is allocated by legislation in bonuses and subsidies to men richer than us. Others use the Law to artificially raise the prices of bread, meat, iron, and cloth. Since everyone exploits the Law for their benefit, we too want to exploit it. We want to extract from it the right to public assistance, [18] which is the poor man's share of plunder. To do this, we must be voters and legislators so that we can organize charity on a large scale for our class, just as you have organized protection on a large scale for yours. Do not tell us that you will provide our share for us, that you will throw us, as Mr. Mimerel suggests, [34] a sum of 600,000 francs as if it were a bone to gnaw on. We have other demands, and in any case, we want to vote on it for ourselves just as the other classes have voted on it for themselves!"

What response can be made to this argument? Yes, as long as it is admitted in principle that the Law may be diverted from its true mission—that it may violate property instead of protecting it—every class will seek to make the Law, either to defend itself against plunder or to organize it for its own benefit. The political question will always be prejudicial, predominant, and all absorbing; in short, men will fight at the doors of the Legislative Palace. [35] The struggle will be no less fierce within. To be convinced of this, it is hardly necessary to look at what happens in the Chambers of France and England; it is enough to understand how the question is framed.

Is it necessary to prove that this odious [19] perversion of the Law is a constant source of hatred and discord, [36] even capable of leading to social disorganisation? [37] Look at the United states. It is the (one) country in the world where the Law remains most true to its role—guaranteeing each person their liberty and property. Thus, it is the (one) country in the world where social order appears to rest on the most stable foundations. Yet even in the United states, there are two issues—and only two—that, since the nation’s founding, have repeatedly threatened political stability. And what are these two issues? Slavery and tariffs [38] —precisely the only two issues where, contrary to the general spirit of the republic, the Law has taken on the character of a plunderer. Slavery is a legally sanctioned violation of the rights of the person. protectionism is a violation of the right to propertyperpetrated by the Law. And certainly, it is remarkable that, among so many other debates, this dual legal scourge—this sad inheritance from the Old World—is the only one capable of bringing about, and perhaps ultimately causing, the rupture of the Union. Indeed, one cannot imagine a more significant fact within a society than this: the Law has become a tool of injustice. And if this fact generates such momentous consequences in the United states, where it is merely an [20] exception, what must it be like in Europe, where it is a principle, a system (of government)?

M. de Montalembert, [39] echoing the idea behind a famous proclamation by M. Carlier, declared: "We must wage war on socialism." [40] And by socialism, we must believe, according to the definition of M. Charles Dupin,[41] that he meant plunder.

But which kind of plunder was he referring to? For there are two kinds. There is extra-legal plunder [42] and legal plunder. [43]

As for extra-legal plunder—the kind commonly called theft or fraud, which is defined, anticipated, and punished by the Penal Code—I truly do not think it can be dignified with the name of socialism. This is not the type of plunder that systematically threatens the foundations of society. Besides, the war against this kind of plunder did not wait for the signal from M. de Montalembert or M. Carlier. It has been waged since the beginning of time; France had already addressed it long before the February Revolution, long before the rise of socialism, through an entire apparatus [44] of magistrates, police, gendarmes, prisons, penal colonies, and scaffolds. It is the Law itself that conducts this war, and what I would wish is [21] for the Law to always maintain this stance against plunder.

But such is not the case. The Law sometimes takes the side of plunder. Sometimes it even carries it out with its own hands, sparing the beneficiary [45] the shame, the danger, and the guilt (of doing it themselves). Sometimes it places the entire apparatus of the magistrates, police, gendarmes, and prisons at the service of the plunderer, treating as a criminal the plundered person who defends himself. In a word, there is legal plunder, and it is undoubtedly this kind that M. de Montalembert speaks of.

Such plunder may be only an exceptional stain on a nation’s legislation, and in that case, the best course of action—without excessive declamations and lamentations—is to erase it as soon as possible, despite the outcry of those with vested interests. How can it be recognized? It is quite simple. One must examine whether the Law takes from some individuals what belongs to them in order to give to others what does not belong to them. One must examine whether the Law commits, for the benefit of one citizen and to the detriment of others, an act that this citizen could not perform himself without committing a crime. Hasten to repeal such a Law; it is not only an injustice—it is a fertile source of (additional) injustices, for it invites retaliation. And if you do not take care, the exceptional case will spread, multiply, [22] and become systematic. No doubt, the beneficiaries will cry out in protest; they will invoke the rights they have already acquired. They will say that the state owes them protection and support for their industry. They will argue that it is good for the state to enrich them because, being wealthier, they will spend more and thus distribute wages like rain upon the poor workers. [46] Beware of listening to such sophists, for it is precisely by systematizing such arguments that legal plunder itself becomes systematic.

This is what has happened. The illusion of the day is to enrich every class at the expense of all the others—to generalize plunder under the pretext of organizing it.Now, legal plunder can be carried out in an infinite number of ways. Hence the infinite number of organizational schemes: tariffs, protectionism, subsidies, grants, bounties, progressive taxation, free education, the right to work, [47] the right to profit, the right to wages, the right to public assistance, the right to (be given) tools, interest-free credit, [48] etc., etc. And it is the sum of all these schemes, in what they have in common—legal plunder—that takes the name of socialism. [49]

Now, what kind of war do you want to wage against socialism, defined thus as a body of ideas? Surely, it (has tobe) a war of ideas? [50] If you find [23] these ideas are false, absurd, revolting—refute them. That will be all the easier for you, the more false, absurd, and revolting they are. Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by removing from your own legislation all traces of socialism that may have crept into it—and that task is not a small one. [51]

M. de Montalembert has been accused of wanting to use brute force against socialism. [52] This is an accusation from which he should be absolved, for he explicitly stated: "We must wage war on socialism in a manner that is compatible with law, honor, and justice." [53]

But how does M. de Montalembert not see that he is caught in a vicious circle? You wish to oppose socialism with the Law? But socialism itself invokes the Law! It does not aspire to extra-legal plunder—it seeks legal plunder. It aims, like all monopolists, to make the Law its tool. And once it has the Law on its side, how do you expect to use the Law against it? How do you intend to bring it under the jurisdiction of your courts, your gendarmes, your prisons?

So what do you do? You want to prevent socialism from getting its hands on the making of laws. [54] You [24] want to keep it outside the Legislative Palace. But you will not succeed, I dare predict, as long as inside the Assembly laws are being passed based on the principle of legal plunder. This is too unjust; it is too absurd.

This question of legal plunder must absolutely be resolved, and there are only three possible solutions:

• That the few plunder the many.
• That everyone plunders everyone.
• That no one plunders anyone.

Partial plunder, universal plunder, or the absence of plunder—one must choose.[55] The law can only pursue one of these three outcomes.

Partial plunder was the prevailing system as long as suffrage was partial [56] —a system to which some now wish to return in order to prevent the rise of socialism.

Universal plunder is the system we were threatened with when suffrage became universal, [57] as the masses conceived the idea of making laws along the same principlesas the legislators who preceded them.

The absence of plunder is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, conciliation, and common sense, which I will proclaim with all the strength—alas, far too insufficient—of my lungs, until my last breath. [58]

And, sincerely, can anything else be asked [25] of the Law? The Law, having force as its necessary sanction, can it be reasonably employed for anything other than guaranteeing each person their rights? I challenge anyone to take it outside this circle without turning it—and consequently, without turning the use of force—against (their) rights. And since this is the most disastrous, the most illogical social disturbance imaginable, [59] it must be recognized that the long-sought solution to the social problem is contained in these simple words: THE LAW IS ORGANIZED JUSTICE.

Now, let us be clear: organizing justice by means of the Law, that is to say, by means of (the public use of) force, excludes the idea of organizing, by Law or by force, any kind of human activity (such as) labor, charity, agriculture, commerce, industry, education, fine arts, religion; for it is impossible for any of these secondary organizations (organised in this way) not to destroy the (primary and) essential organization (not based upon the use of force). Indeed, how can we imagine force being used against the liberty of the citizens without infringing upon justice, without acting against its own purpose?

Here, I come up against the most popular prejudice of our time. It is not enough that the Law be just; it must also be philanthropic. It is not enough that it guarantees each citizen the free and harmless exercise [26] of their faculties, in pursuit of their physical, intellectual, and moral development; it is required that it directly spread well-being, education, and morality across the nation. This is the seductive aspect of socialism.

But, I repeat, these two tasks of the Law contradict each other. A choice must be made. A citizen cannot be both free and not free at the same time. M. de Lamartine [60] once wrote to me: "Your doctrine is only half of my program; you have stopped at liberty, while I go on as far as fraternity." [61] I replied: "The second half of your program will destroy the first." And, indeed, I find it utterly impossible to separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I find it utterly impossible to conceive of legally enforced fraternity without legally destroying liberty and legally trampling justice underfoot. [62]

Legal plunder has two roots: one, as we have just seen, lies in Human egoism; the other in false Philanthropy.

Before going further, I believe I must clarify my use of the word plunder.

I do not take it, as is too often done, in a vague, indeterminate, approximate, or metaphorical sense. I use it in a strictly scientific sense, as expressing [27] the idea opposed to that of (the right to) property. When a portion of wealth passes from the person who has acquired it, without their consent and without compensation, to someone who has not created it—whether by force or by fraud—I say that the right to property has been violated, that there (has been an act of) plunder. I say that this is precisely what the Law should repress everywhere and always. And if the Law itself commits the act it ought to repress, I say that there is still plunder, and even, socially speaking, with aggravated circumstances. Only in this case, it is not the one who benefits from the plunder who is responsible; it is the Law, it is the legislator, it is society itself, and this is what makes it politically dangerous.

It is unfortunate that this word carries a suggestion of something offensive. [63] I have searched in vain for another, for at no time, and less today than ever, would I wish to introduce an inflammatory term into our disputes. So, whether one believes it or not, I declare that I do not intend to question the intentions or morality of anyone. I am attacking an idea that I believe to be false, a system that seems unjust to me, and so far removed from personal motives that each of us benefits from it unwittingly and suffers from it unknowingly. One must write under the influence of party spirit or fear to [28] question the sincerity of (those who defend) protectionism, socialism, and even communism, which are merely one and the same plant at three different stages of its development. [64] All that can be said is that plunder is more visible, by its partiality, in protectionism; [65] by its universality, in communism; from which it follows that of the three systems, socialism is still the most vague, the most indecisive, and consequently the most sincere.

Be that as it may, to acknowledge that legal plunder has one of its roots in false philanthropy is evidently to put (the) intentions (of its advocates) beyond reproach.

With this understood, let us examine the value, origin, and consequences of this popular aspiration that seeks to achieve the general good through general plunder.

Socialists tell us: Since the Law [29] organizes justice, why should it not organize labor, education, and religion?

Why? Because it cannot organize labor, education, and religion without disorganizing justice.

Consider that the Law is (the use of) force, and that consequently, the domain of the Law cannot legitimately extend beyond the legitimate domain of (the uses of) force.

When the Law and (the uses of) force confine a man within (the circle of) justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They impose only the abstention from harming others. They do not infringe upon his personhood, his liberty, or his property. They merely safeguard the personhood, liberty, and property of others. They remain defensive; they defend the equal rights of all. They fulfill a task whose harmlessness is evident, whose utility is palpable, and whose legitimacy is indisputable.

This is so true that, as one of my friends pointed out to me, to say that the purpose of the Law is to make justice reign is to use an expression that is not strictly accurate. It should be said: The purpose of the Law is to prevent Injustice from reigning. Indeed, it is not justice that has an independent existence; it is Injustice. The former results from the absence of the latter.

[30]

But when the Law—through its necessary agent, (the use of) force—imposes a way of working, a method or subject of education, a (particular) faith or a form of worship, it no longer acts negatively; it acts positively upon men. It substitutes the legislator’s will for their own, the legislator’s initiative for their own initiative. They no longer need to confer with others, to make choices, or to plan for the future; the Law does all of this for them. Their minds become a useless piece of furniture; they cease to be men; they lose their personhood, their liberty, and their property.

Try to imagine a form of labor imposed by force that is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed by force that is not a violation of liberty property. If you cannot, then acknowledge that the Law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing Injustice.

When a writer surveys society from the depths of his study, he is struck by the spectacle of inequality before him. He laments the suffering endured by so many of our brethren, suffering made all the more distressing by the stark contrast between luxury and opulence.

Perhaps he should ask himself whether such a social condition [31] is not the result of past (acts of) plunder carried out through conquest and new (acts of) plunder carried out by means of the Law. [66] He should ask himself whether, given that all men aspire to well-being and improvement, the rule of justice alone is not sufficient to bring about the greatest possible progress and the greatest degree of equality—compatible, of course, with the individual responsibility that God has put aside as the fair reward for virtue and vice.

But he does not even consider this. His thoughts turn instead to schemes, arrangements, and organizations which are artificial and imposed by law. [67] He seeks the remedy in the perpetuation and exaggeration of the very cause of the problem.

For, apart from justice—which, as we have seen, is a true negation—is there a single one of these "legal arrangements" that does not contain the principle of plunder?

You say: “There are men who lack wealth,” and you turn to the Law. But the Law is not a breast that fills itself, nor are its milk-bearing ducts able to draw nourishment from anywhere but society. Nothing enters the public treasury for the benefit of a particular citizen or a class except what other citizens and other classes have been forced to put there.If each one [32] withdraws only the equivalent of what he has contributed, then indeed your Law is not plunderous—but it also does nothing for those who lack wealth, nor does it promote equality. The Law can only be a tool of equalization if it takes from some to give to others, and in that case, it is a tool of plunder.[68] Consider from this perspective tariff protection, incentive bonuses, the right to a profit, the right to a job, the right to public assistance, the right to state-funded education, progressive taxation, free credit, and state-sponsored workshops [69] —you will always find, at their core, legal plunder, organized Injustice.

You say: “There are men who lack education,” and you turn to the Law. But the Law is not a torch that radiates its own light. It hovers over a society in which there are men who know things and men who do not, citizens who need to learn and others who are willing to teach. The Law can only do one of two things: either to allow this type of transaction to occur freely, to allow this kind of need to be satisfied freely, or to force the wills of some by taking from them the means to pay teachers who will then educate others free of charge. But in this second case, it cannot avoid [33] infringing upon (the rights of) liberty and property—that is to say Legal plunder.

You say: “There are men who lack morality or religion,” and you turn to the Law. But the Law is force, and is it necessary for me to say how violent and absurd it is to attempt to introduce force into such matters?

After all this effort and all this system building, it seems that socialism, however indulgent it is toward itself, cannot help but recognize the monster which is legal plunder. But what does it do? It cleverly disguises it from all eyes—including its own—under seductive names like fraternity, solidarity, organization, and association. [70] And because we demand nothing more from the Law than justice, because we insist upon nothing but justice, it assumes that we reject fraternity, solidarity, organization, and association, and hurls at us the epithet of individualists.

Let it be known, then, that what we reject is not natural organization but forced organization. [71]

It is not free association, but the forms of association that it seeks to impose upon us.

It is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity.

[34]

It is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is merely an unjust displacement of responsibility. [72]

Socialism, like the old politics from which it springs, confuses government with society. That is why, every time we refuse to allow something to be done by the government, it concludes that we do not want that thing to be done at all. We reject state-controlled education; therefore, we are against education. We reject a state religion; therefore, we are against religion. We reject state-enforced equality; therefore, we are against equality, and so on. It is as if it accused us of wanting people to starve simply because we refuse to have the state grow wheat.

 

How could such a bizarre idea have taken hold in the political world—the idea of getting things from the Law which are not there: "the good" (in the broad sense of the term), wealth, science, religion?

Modern writers, particularly those of the socialist school, base their various theories on a common assumption—one that is undoubtedly the strangest, the most arrogant, ever conceived in the human mind.

[35]

They divide humanity into two parts. The entirety of mankind, minus one, forms the first; the writer himself, alone, forms the second—and is by far the most important.

Indeed, they begin by assuming that men do not carry within themselves any principle of action [73] or means of making judgements; that they lack initiative; that they are inert matter, passive molecules, atoms without spontaneity—at best, a form of vegetation indifferent to its own mode of existence, [74] susceptible to being shaped into an infinite number of more or less symmetrical, artistic, and perfected forms by an external will and hand. [75]

Then, without hesitation, each of them assumes that he himself—under the titles of organizer, prophet, legislator, instructor, founder—is that very will and hand, that universal motive force, [76] that creative power whose sublime mission is to gather together into society these scattered materials that are men.

Starting from this premise, just as a gardener, according to his whim, prunes his trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, cones, vases, espaliers, distaffs, or fans, so too does each socialist, following his own fantasy, shape poor humanity into groups, series, centers, [36] sub-centers, cells, social workshops, harmonic or contrasting collectives, etc., etc. [77]

And just as the gardener needs axes, saws, pruning knives, and shears to shape his trees, so too does the writer need forces that he can find only in the Law: customs laws, tax laws, welfare laws, education laws.

It is so true that socialists view humanity as mere material for making various social combinations that, ifby chance they are not entirely sure of the success of these combinations, they at least demand a small segment of humanity as material for experimentation. We know how popular the idea of testing every system has become among them, and we have even seen one of their leaders seriously request that the Constituent Assembly grant him a commune, [78] along with all its inhabitants, to conduct his experiment. [79]

This is how every inventor first builds a small prototype before creating the full-sized machine. This is how the chemist sacrifices a few reagents, how the farmer sacrifices a few seeds and a corner of his field to test a new idea. [80]

But what an immeasurable distance separates the gardener from his trees, the inventor from his machine, the chemist from his reagents, the farmer from his seeds! … Yet the socialist, [37] in all sincerity, believes that the same distance separates him from humanity.

It is no wonder that the writers of the nineteenth century regard society as an artificial creation, the product of the genius of the legislator.

This idea, a product of classical education, has dominated the minds of all the great thinkers and writers of our country. [81]

All have perceived the same relationship between humanity and the legislator as that which exists between clay and the potter.

Furthermore, if they have conceded that man possesses within himself a principle of action and a principle of judgement, they have also thought that, in this, God has given him a disastrous giftin that humanity, under the influence of these two driving forces, tends inexorably toward its own degradation. They have assumed as a fact that, left to its own devices, humanity would concern itself with religion only to descend into atheism, with education only to sink into ignorance, with labor and trade only to perish in poverty.

Fortunately, according to these same writers, there exist a few men—called rulers and legislators—who have received from heaven not only [38] for themselves, but for all others, entirely opposite tendencies.

While humanity tends toward Evil, they tend toward Good; while humanity marches into darkness, they aspire to the light; while humanity is drawn toward vice, they are drawn toward virtue. And, having established this, they demand the use of force so that they may substitute their own tendencies for those of the entire human race. [82]

It takes nothing more than opening a random book on philosophy, politics, or history to see how deeply rooted this idea is in our country—this idea, the offspring of classical studies and the progenitor of socialism—that humanity is inert matter receiving from government its life, its organization, its morality, and its wealth; or worse still, that humanity, if left to itself, tends toward its own ruin and is stopped only by the mysterious hand of the legislator. Everywhere, classically inspiredconventional thinking shows us that, standing behind passive society, is an occult power that, under the names of Law, legislator, or, more conveniently and vaguely, “one,”[83] moves humanity, animates it, enriches it, and adds a moral sense to it.

BOSSUET. [84]

"One of the things that THEY (who?) [85] most strongly impressed upon the minds of the Egyptians was love of country... It was not permitted to be useless to the state; the Law assigned each person their profession, which continued from father to son. One could neither have two professions nor change from one to another... But there was one occupation that had to be common to all: the study of laws and wisdom. Ignorance of religion and the governance of the country was excused in no condition. Moreover, each profession had its designated district (assigned by whom?)... Among all the good laws, the best was that everyone was nurtured (by whom?) with the spirit of observing them... Their Mercuries filled Egypt with marvelous inventions and left it with hardly anything unknown that could make life comfortable and peaceful." [86]

Thus, according to Bossuet, men derive nothing from themselves: patriotism, wealth, activity, wisdom, inventions, agriculture, sciences—all came to them through the operation of laws or kings. It was only a matter of them (the people)letting them (the rulers) do their job. [87]. This reaches the point where, when Diodorus accused the Egyptians of rejecting combat and music, Bossuet refuted him. How could that be possible, he asked, since these arts had been invented by Trismegistus? [88]

The same was true for the Persians:

[40]

"One of the first duties of the prince was to make agriculture flourish... Just as there were officials responsible for leading armies, there were also those appointed to oversee rural labor... The respect inspired among the Persians for royal authority reached the level of excess." [89]

Even the Greeks, though full of intelligence, were no more the masters of their own destiny than dogs or horses—so much so that, left to themselves, they would not have risen to even the simplest games. In the classical tradition, it was an accepted belief that everything came to the people from outside sources.

"The Greeks, naturally full of wit and courage, had been cultivated early on by Kings and colonies from Egypt. From them, they had learned physical exercises, running on foot, on horseback, and in chariots... The best thing the Egyptians had taught them was to make themselves docile, to allow themselves to be shaped by laws for the public good." [90]

FÉNELON. [91]

Raised in the study and admiration of antiquity and a witness to the power of Louis XIV, Fénelon could hardly escape the idea that humanity is passive, and that its misfortunes as well as its prosperity, its virtues as well as its [41] vices, result from external action exerted upon it by the Law or by the one who enacts it. Thus, in his utopian Salente,[92] he places men—their interests, faculties, desires, and property—entirely at the discretion of the legislator. In any matter, they never judge for themselves; it is always the Prince who decides. The nation is nothing but formless material, and the Prince is its soul. It is within him that thought, foresight, the principle of all organization, all progress, and therefore all responsibility reside.

To prove this assertion, I would have to transcribe the entire tenth book of Télémaque. I refer the reader to it and will content myself with citing a few passages, taken at random, from this famous poem—one that, in all other respects, I am the first to acknowledge as remarkable.

With that astonishing credulity characteristic of classical thinkers, Fénelon, despite all reasoning and factual evidence, accepts as truth the universal happiness of the Egyptians—and attributes it, not to their own wisdom, but to that of their Kings.

"We could not cast our eyes upon either riverbank without seeing opulent cities, country homes pleasantly situated, fields [42] that, year after year, yielded golden harvests without ever lying fallow; meadows full of livestock; laborers burdened by the weight of the fruits that the earth poured forth from her bosom; shepherds whose flutes and reed pipes echoed sweet sounds throughout the valleys. ‘Happy,’ said Mentor, ‘is the people governed by a wise King!’" [93]

"Then Mentor pointed out to me the joy and abundance spread throughout the Egyptian countryside, where there were said to be as many as twenty-two thousand towns. He admired the good governance of the towns; justice exercised in favor of the poor against the rich; the excellent education of children, who were raised in obedience, hard work, sobriety, and love for the arts and letters; the strict adherence to all religious ceremonies; the selflessness, ambition for honor, fidelity toward men, and fear of the gods that every father instilled in his children. He never tired of admiring this beautiful order. ‘Happy,’ he said to me, ‘is the people governed in this way by a wise King!’" [94]

Fénelon paints an even more idyllic picture of Crete. Then, through the voice of Mentor, he adds:

"Everything you see on this marvelous island is the fruit of Minos’s laws. The education he [43] provided to children made their bodies strong and robust. From an early age, they were accustomed to a simple, frugal, and laborious life; it was assumed that any pleasure weakened both body and mind. They were never offered any other satisfaction than that of becoming invincible through virtue and acquiring great glory... Here, three vices that go unpunished among other people are strictly punished: ingratitude, deceit, and greed. As for ostentation and luxury, they never need to be suppressed, for they are unknown in Crete... There are neither precious furnishings nor magnificent garments, neither lavish feasts nor gilded palaces." [95]

Thus, Mentor prepares his pupil to mold and manipulate the people of Ithaca at his will—and, for greater assurance, provides him with an example in Salente.

This is how we receive our first political lessons. We are taught to treat men much like Olivier de Serres [96] teaches farmers to treat and mix soils.

MONTESQUIEU. [97]

"To maintain the spirit of commerce, all laws must favor it; these same Laws, through their provisions, must divide fortunes as commerce increases them, ensuring that every poor citizen reaches a level of sufficient [44] comfort to be able to work like the others, and that every wealthy citizen remains in such mediocrity that he must work to maintain or acquire wealth..." [98]

Thus, the Laws regulate all fortunes.

"Although real equality is the soul of a democracy, it is so difficult to establish that an extreme precision in this regard would not always be appropriate. It is sufficient to establish a property qualification that reduces or fixes differences at a certain level. After that, it is up to specific laws to, so to speak, equalize inequalities through the burdens they impose on the rich and the relief they grant to the poor..." [99]

This is, yet again, the equalization of wealth by law—by (the use of) force.

"There were two types of republics in Greece. Some were military, like Sparta; others were commercial, like Athens. In some, THEY wanted citizens to be idle; in others, THEY sought to cultivate a love for labor."

"I ask that people pay close attention to the extent of the genius required of these legislators, who, by defying all established customs and blending together all virtues, demonstrated their wisdom to the world. [45] Lycurgus, mixing theft with the spirit of justice, the harshest slavery with extreme liberty, the most atrocious sentiments with the greatest moderation, brought stability to his city. He seemed to strip it of all resources—arts, commerce, money, fortifications. There, ambition existed without hope of personal gain; natural human sentiments were present, yet one was neither child, husband, nor father; even modesty was taken away from chastity. It was through this path that Sparta was led to greatness and glory..."

"This extraordinary phenomenon that was seen in the institutions of Greece has also appeared in the dregs and corruption of our modern times. An honest legislator has formed a people where probity seems as natural as bravery among the Spartans. Mr. Penn [100] is a true Lycurgus, and although the former pursued peace while the latter pursued war, they are similar in the unique path they have set for their people, in the authority they have exerted over free men, in the prejudices they have overcome, in the passions they have subdued."

"The example of Paraguay [101] can provide another case. Some have criticized the Society that sees the pleasure of ruling as the sole good in life; but it will always be admirable to govern men by making them happier..."

"Those who wish to establish similar institutions [46] will adopt the communal ownership of property from Plato’s Republic, the reverence he demanded for the gods, the separation from foreigners to preserve morals, and a system where trade is conducted by the city rather than by individual citizens; they will provide for our arts without our luxury and satisfy our needs without fostering desires." [102]

No matter how much the crowd may exclaim, *"It is Montesquieu, therefore it is magnificent! It is sublime!", I will have the courage of my convictions and say:

What! You have the nerve to find this beautiful? [103]

But it is horrifying! revolting! These excerpts, which I could multiply, show that in Montesquieu’s view, individuals, liberties, properties, and all of humanity itself are nothing more than raw materials for the legislator’s ingenuity.

ROUSSEAU. [104]

Although this writer, the supreme authority of democrats, bases the social structure on the general will, no one has more completely embraced the hypothesis of humanity’s complete passivity in the presence of the legislator.

"If it is true that a great prince is a rare man, how much rarer must a great legislator be? The first need only follow the model that the latter must create. [47] The legislator is the mechanic who invents the machine; the prince is merely the worker who assembles and operates it." [105]

And what are men in all this? The machine that is assembled and set in motion—or rather, the raw material from which the machine is made!

Thus, between the legislator and the Prince, and between the Prince and his subjects, there exist the same relationships as between an agronomist and a farmer, and between the farmer and the soil. How high above humanity must the writer be placed if he dares to govern even the legislators themselves, dictating their craft to them in these imperative terms:

"Do you want to give consistency to the state? Reduce the gap between the extremes as much as possible. Tolerate neither the very wealthy nor the destitute.

"If the land is barren or infertile, or the country too crowded for its inhabitants, turn to industry and the arts, exchanging their products for the goods you lack... If you have fertile land but lack people, devote all your efforts to agriculture, which increases population, and banish the arts, which would only further depopulate the country... If you have extensive, convenient coasts, cover the sea with ships; you will have a brilliant but short-lived existence. If the sea washes only against inaccessible cliffs on your shores, remain barbarous and live off fishing; [48] you will be more peaceful, perhaps better, and certainly happier. In short, besides the general maxims common to all, each people carries within itself a unique cause that dictates its own laws. Thus, in ancient times, the Hebrews and more recently the Arabs had religion as their principal concern; the Athenians, literature; Carthage and Tyre, commerce; Rhodes, maritime affairs; Sparta, war; and Rome, virtue. The author of The Spirit of Laws [106] has demonstrated how the legislator directs institutions toward each of these ends... But if the legislator, mistaken in his goal, chooses a principle that contradicts the natural order—one leading to servitude while the other aims at liberty, one toward wealth while the other fosters increased population, one toward peace while the other seeks conquest—then the laws will gradually weaken, the constitution will erode, and the state will be in perpetual turmoil until it is either destroyed or transformed, and the invincible force of nature regains its dominion." [107]

But if nature is invincible enough to reclaim its dominion, why does Rousseau not acknowledge that it did not need the legislator to assume that dominion in the first place? Why does he not admit that, following their own initiative, men would naturally turn to agriculture in fertile lands, to commerce [49] on vast and accessible coasts, without requiring a Lycurgus, a Solon, or a Rousseau to intervene—at the risk of being mistaken?

No matter what, one cannot ignore the immense responsibility that Rousseau places on the inventors, educators, leaders, legislators, and manipulators of societies. Consequently, he is extremely demanding of them.

"He who dares to undertake the foundation of a nation must feel capable of changing, so to speak, human nature—of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a greater whole, from which he derives, in whole or in part, his life and being; of altering the constitution of man to strengthen it; of substituting a partial and moral existence for the physical and independent existence that we all received from nature. In short, he must take away from man his own forces to give him others that are foreign to him..." [108]

Poor human race—what would become of dignity under Rousseau’s followers?

RAYNAL. [109]

"Climate—that is, the sky and the soil—is the first rule of the legislator. His resources dictate his duties. He must first consult his local position. A people settled on a maritime coast will have laws related to navigation... [50] If the colony is inland, a legislator must anticipate both the type and the degree of its fertility..."

"It is above all in the distribution of property that the wisdom of legislation will shine. In general, and in all parts of the world, when founding a colony, land must be given to all men—that is, each must receive enough land to sustain a family..."*

"If ONE were to populate a wild island with children, one would only need to let the seeds of truth develop naturally through reason... But when a pre-existing people is established in a new land, the skill lies in only letting it have those opinions and habits that cannot be cured or corrected. If one wishes to prevent their transmission, care must be taken to oversee the second generation through a common and public education of children. A prince, a legislator, should never found a colony without first sending wise men ahead for the education of the youth... In a nascent colony, all the conditions are in place for the legislator who seeks to purify the blood and morals of a people. If he possesses both genius and virtue, the lands and men at his disposal will inspire in him a plan of society that a mere writer can only outline vaguely, always subject to the instability of hypotheses, [51] which vary and become entangled with countless unforeseen and complex circumstances..." [110]

Does this not sound like an agriculture professor instructing his students? "Climate is the first rule for the farmer. His resources dictate his duties. He must first consult his local position. If he is on clay soil, he must proceed in a certain way. If he has sandy land, here is how he must manage it. All the means are available to the farmer who seeks to water and improve his soil. If he has skill, the land and fertilizers at his disposal will inspire him with a plan of cultivation, which a professor can only outline vaguely, subject to the instability of hypotheses, which vary and become entangled with countless unforeseen and complex circumstances."

But, oh, sublime writers, please remember now and then that this clay, this sand, this manure that you so arbitrarily manipulate—these are human beings! Your equals! Intelligent and free beings, like you, who have received from God, like you, the ability to see, to anticipate, to think, and to judge for themselves!

[52]

MABLY. [111]

(He assumes that laws have been corroded by the rust of time, the negligence of security, and he continues in this manner:)

"In such circumstances, one must be convinced that the mechanisms of government have become slack. Tighten them anew (this is addressed to the reader), and the problem will be solved... Focus less on punishing faults than on encouraging the virtues you need. By this method, you will restore the vigor of youth to your republic. It is because this principle was unknown to free peoples that they lost their liberty! But if the progress of decay is such that ordinary magistrates can no longer effectively address it, resort to an extraordinary magistracy, one of short duration but considerable power. At such times, the imagination of the citizens must be struck..." [112]

And everything continues in this tone for twenty volumes.

There was a time when, under the influence of such teachings—which form the foundation of classical education—everyone sought to place themselves outside and above humanity, to arrange, organize, and shape it at will.

CONDILLAC. [113]

“Rise, my lord, as a Lycurgus or a Solon. Before continuing to read this work, amuse yourself by giving laws to some [53] savage people in America or Africa: Establish these wandering men in fixed dwellings; teach them to raise livestock...; work to develop the social qualities that nature has placed within them... Order them to begin practicing the duties of humanity... Poison the pleasures promised by passions through punishments, and you will see these barbarians, with each article of your legislation, lose a vice and adopt a virtue.” [114]

"All people have had laws. But few of them have been happy. What is the cause? It is that legislators have almost always ignored the fact that the purpose of society is to unite families through a common interest."*

"The impartiality of laws consists of two things: establishing equality in the wealth and dignity of citizens... As your laws establish greater equality, they will become dearer to every citizen... How could avarice, ambition, indulgence, laziness, idleness, envy, hatred, and jealousy agitate men who are equal in wealth and dignity, and for whom the laws leave no hope of breaking that equality?" (Then follows the idyll.)

"What has been told to you about the republic of Sparta should provide you with great insight into this question. No other state has ever had laws more in conformity with the order of nature or with equality." [115]

[54]

It is not surprising that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries regarded the human race as inert matter, waiting to receive everything—form, shape, impetus, movement, and life—from a great Prince, a great legislator, or a great genius. These centuries were nourished by the study of antiquity, and antiquity everywhere—in Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome—presents the spectacle of a few men manipulating humanity at will, enslaved by force or deception. What does this prove? That, because man and society are perfectible, error, ignorance, despotism, slavery, and superstition must have accumulated all the more at the beginning of history. The fault of the writers I have cited is not that they observed this fact, but that they proposed it as a model for admiration and imitation by future generations. Their fault is that, with an inconceivable lack of critical thinking and through blind acceptance of a childish conventional thinking, they embraced what is utterly inadmissible—namely, the grandeur, dignity, morality, and well-being of these artificial societies of the ancient world. They failed to understand that time produces and spreads enlightenment, that as light increases, (the use of) force shifts to the side of (what is right) right, and society reclaims possession over itself.

[55]

And indeed, what is the political movement we are witnessing (today)? It is nothing other than the instinctive effort of all people (to move) toward liberty. And what is liberty—that word that has the power to stir all hearts and shake the world—if not the sum of all freedoms: freedom of conscience, of education, of association, of the press, of movement, of labor, of trade? In other words, the unrestricted exercise, for all, of all harmless faculties. [116] In yet other words, the destruction of all forms of despotisms, even legal despotism, and the reduction of the Law to its only rational function: regulating the individual right to legitimate (self) defense and repressing injustice.

This tendency of the human race, however, must be acknowledged as being greatly hindered, particularly in our own country, by the unfortunate disposition—born of classical education—that is common to all writers: the habit of placing themselves outside of humanity to arrange, organize, and shape it at will.

For while society struggles to realize liberty, the great men who position themselves at its head—steeped in the principles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—think only of bending it beneath the philanthropic despotism of their [56] social inventions, making it docilely bear, according to Rousseau’s expression, the yoke of public happiness as they have imagined it. [117]

This was clearly evident in 1789. Scarcely had the old legal regime been destroyed when efforts were made to subject the new society to other artificial arrangements, always starting from this unquestioned premise: the omnipotence of the Law.

SAINT-JUST. [118]

“The legislator commands the future. It is up to him to will the good. It is up to him to make men into what he wants them to be.” [119]

ROBESPIERRE. [120]

“The function of government is to direct the physical and moral forces of the nation toward the purpose of its institution.” [121]

BILLAUD-VARENNES. [122]

“The people must be recreated to be restored to liberty. Since it is necessary to destroy old prejudices, change ancient habits, perfect depraved affections, curb superfluous needs, and eradicate deep-seated vices, a strong action is required, a vehement impulse... Citizens, the inflexible austerity of Lycurgus became the unshakable foundation of the republic in Sparta; the weak and trusting nature of Solon plunged Athens back into slavery. This parallel contains the entire science of government.” [123]

[57]

LEPELLETIER. [124]

“Considering to what extent the human race is degraded, I have become convinced of the necessity of carrying out a complete regeneration and, if I may put it this way, of creating a new people.” [125]

As we can see, men are nothing more than cheap raw material. It is not for them to will the good—they are incapable of it, — it is for the legislator, according to Saint-Just. Men are only what he wants them to be.

According to Robespierre, who literally copies Rousseau, the legislator begins by assigning the purpose of the nation's founding. Then, governments have only to direct all physical and moral forces toward this purpose. The nation itself remains entirely passive in all of this, and Billaud-Varennes teaches us that it should have only the prejudices, habits, affections, and needs that the legislator authorizes. He even goes so far as to say that the inflexible austerity of one man is the foundation of the republic.

We have seen that in cases where the evil is so great that ordinary magistrates cannot remedy it, Mably recommended dictatorship to make virtue flourish.

"Have recourse," he says, "to an extraordinary magistracy, whose duration is short but whose power is considerable. The imagination of the citizens [58] must be struck."*

This doctrine has not been lost. Let us listen to Robespierre:

"The principle of republican government is virtue, and its means, while it is being established, is terror. We want to substitute, in our country, morality for selfishness, honesty for honor, principles for customs, duties for decorum, the rule of reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt for vice for contempt for misfortune, pride for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity, love of glory for love of money, good people for good company, merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for brilliance, the charm of happiness for the tedium of pleasure, the greatness of man for the littleness of the great, a magnanimous, powerful, happy people for a pleasant, frivolous, miserable one—in other words, all the virtues and miracles of the Republic instead of all the vices and absurdities of the monarchy." [126]

To what heights above the rest of humanity does Robespierre place himself here! And note the circumstances under which he speaks. He does not merely express a wish for a great renewal of the human heart; he does not even expect it to result from a regular government. No, he wants to bring it about himself—and through terror. The [59] speech from which this childish and laborious heap of contradictions is extracted was intended to set forth the moral principles that should guide a revolutionary government. Observe that when Robespierre calls for dictatorship, it is not merely to repel the foreigner and combat factions; it is, above all, to impose his own moral principles through terror, even before the constitution takes effect. His aim is nothing less than to eradicate from the country, by terror, selfishness, honor, customs, decorum, fashion, vanity, love of money, good company, intrigue, wit, pleasure, and poverty. Only after he, Robespierre, has accomplished these miracles—as he rightly calls them—will he allow the laws to resume their rule. Oh, miserable men who believe yourselves so great, who judge humanity to be so small, who want to reform everything—reform yourselves! That task alone should suffice for you.

However, in general, gentlemen reformers, legislators, and writers do not seek to exercise direct despotism over humanity. No, they are too moderate and too philanthropic for that. They seek only despotism, absolutism, the omnipotence of the Law. They merely aspire to make the Law.

[60]

To show how universal this strange frame of mind has been in France, just as I would have had to copy all of Mably, all of Raynal, all of Rousseau, all of Fénelon, and long excerpts from Bossuet and Montesquieu, I would also have to reproduce the entire record of the sessions of the Convention. [127] I will refrain from doing so and refer the reader to them instead.

It is easy to see that this idea must have appealed to Bonaparte.[128] He embraced it fervently and applied it energetically. Seeing himself as a chemist, he viewed Europe as mere material for experimentation. But soon this material revealed itself to be a powerful reagent. Three-quarters disillusioned, Bonaparte, at Saint Helena, seemed to acknowledge that there is some initiative in people, and he became less hostile to liberty. That did not, however, prevent him from leaving this lesson to his son in his will: "To govern is to spread morality, education, and well-being."

Is it necessary now to cite tedious passages to show where Morelly, Babeuf, Owen, Saint-Simon, and Fourier got their ideas?[129] I will content myself with submitting a few excerpts from Louis Blanc's [130] book On the Organization of Labor. [131]

[61]

"In our project, society receives its impetus from power." (Page 126.) [132]

And what does this impetus that power gives to society consist of? The imposition of Louis Blanc’s plan.

On the other hand, society means humanity.

Thus, ultimately, humanity receives its impetus from Louis Blanc.

He is free to do so, one might say. Indeed, humanity is free to follow the advice of whomever it wishes. But this is not how Mr. L. Blanc understands the matter. He insists that his project be turned into Law and consequently imposed by force through the power of the state.

"In our project, the state merely provides labor with a legal framework (excuse the modesty) by virtue of which industrial activity can and must proceed in complete freedom. The state does nothing more than place society on a slope (nothing more than that) which it then descends, once placed there, by the sheer force of circumstances and as a natural consequence of the established mechanism." [133]

But what is this slope?—The one indicated by Mr. L. Blanc.—Does it not lead to an abyss?—No, it leads to happiness.—Then why does society not place itself there of its own accord?—Because it does not know what it wants and [62] needs an impetus.—Who will provide this impetus?—The government. And who will give the government its impetus?—The inventor of the mechanism, Mr. L. Blanc.

We never escape this cycle: a passive humanity and a great man who moves it through the intervention of the Law.

Once on this slope, will society at least enjoy some freedom?—Certainly.—And what is freedom?

"Let us say it once and for all: freedom consists not only in the right granted but in the Power given to man to exercise and develop his faculties, under the rule of justice and the safeguard of the law."

"And this is not an empty distinction: its meaning is profound, and its consequences are immense. For as soon as one admits that man must have, in order to be truly free, the power to exercise and develop his faculties, it follows that society owes each of its members the appropriate education without which the human mind cannot unfold, and the tools of labor without which human activity cannot take flight. Now, through whose intervention will society provide each of its members with the necessary education and tools of labor, if not through the intervention of the state?" [134]

[63]

Thus, freedom is power.—And what does this POWER consist of? The possession of education and tools of labor.—Who will provide the education and tools of labor? society, which owes them to its members.—Through whose intervention will society provide tools of labor to those who lack them?—Through the intervention of the state.—From whom will the state take them?

It is up to the reader to answer this question and see where all of this leads.

One of the strangest phenomena of our time, which will probably astonish our descendants, is that the doctrine based on this triple hypothesis—the radical inertia of humanity, the omnipotence of the Law, the infallibility of the legislator—should be the sacred symbol of the party that proclaims itself exclusively democratic.

It is true that this party also calls itself social. [135]

In so far as it is democratic, it has boundless faith in humanity.

In so far as it is social, it places humanity above the mud.

When it comes to political rights—when it is a question of drawing the legislator from the bosom of the people—oh! then, according to this party, the people possess innate wisdom; they are endowed with admirable tact; their will is always just, the general will cannot err. Suffrage cannot be universal enough. No one owes society [64] any guarantees. The ability and will to choose wisely are always assumed. Can the people be mistaken? Are we not living in the age of enlightenment? What! Shall the people remain in tutelage forever? Have they not won their rights through enough effort and sacrifice? Have they not given sufficient proof of their intelligence and wisdom? Have they not reached maturity? Are they not capable of judging for themselves? Do they not know their own interests? Is there a man or a class that dares to claim the right to substitute itself for the people, to decide and act on their behalf? No, no, the people want to be free, and they will be. They want to manage their own affairs, and they will manage them.

But once the legislator has been released from making speeches and attending meetings, once he is elected, oh! then the language changes. The nation returns to passivity, to inertia, to nothingness, and the legislator takes possession of omnipotent powers. He takes charge of invention, direction, impetus, and organization. Humanity has only to submit; the hour of despotism has struck. And note that this is inevitable; for this people, just now so enlightened, so moral, so perfect, suddenly has no tendencies, or if it does, they all lead to degradation. And people want to leave them a little bit of liberty! But [65] do you not know that, according to Mr. Considérant, [136] liberty inevitably leads to monopoly? [137] Do you not know that liberty means competition? And that competition, according to Mr. L. Blanc, is for the people a system of extermination, and for the bourgeoisie a cause of ruin? [138] That is why the more free the people are, the more they are exterminated and ruined—witness Switzerland, Holland, England, and the United states. Do you not know, again according to Mr. L. Blanc, that competition leads to monopoly, and that for the same reason, cheap prices lead to exorbitant prices? That competition tends to dry up the sources of consumption and drives production into a frenzied activity? That competition forces production to increase while consumption decreases—hence it follows that free peoples produce without consuming; that competition is at once oppression and madness, and that it is absolutely necessary for Mr. L. Blanc to intervene? [139]

What freedom, then, could be left to men? Would it be the freedom of conscience? But they would all take advantage of this permission (granted by the state) to become atheists. The freedom of education? But fathers would hasten to pay professors to teach their sons immorality and error. Moreover, according to Mr. Thiers, [140] if education [66] was freed up nationally, [141] it would cease to be national, and we would raise our children with the ideas of the Turks or the Hindus. Instead, thanks to the legal despotism of the university, [142] they have the happiness of being raised with the noble ideas of the Romans. The freedom of labor? But that is competition, which results in leaving all products unconsumed, exterminating the people, and ruining the bourgeoisie. The freedom to trade? But, as the protectionists have tirelessly demonstrated, a man ruins himself when he trades freely, and to enrich oneself, one must trade without freedom. The freedom of association? But according to socialist doctrine, freedom and association are mutually exclusive, since the very goal is to strip men of their freedom in order to force them to associate with each other..

Thus, you can clearly see that socialist democrats cannot, in good conscience, allow men any freedom at all, since, by their very nature, and unless these gentlemen intervene, men tend in every direction toward degradation and demoralization.

This leaves us to wonder, in that case, on what basis they so insistently demand universal suffrage for them.

The pretensions of these organizers raise [67] another question, which I have often addressed to them [143] and to which, as far as I know, they have never responded. If the natural tendencies of humanity are so bad that its freedom must be taken away, how is it that the tendencies of the organizers are good? Do the legislators and their agents not belong to the human race? [144] Do they believe themselves to be made of a different clay than other men? They claim that society, left to itself, inevitably plunges into the abyss because its instincts are perverse. They claim to be able to halt this decline and give it a better direction. Have they, then, received from heaven an intelligence and virtues that place them outside and above humanity? Let them show us their credentials. They wish to be shepherds, and they wish for us to be their flock [145] This arrangement presupposes in them a superiority of nature, the proof of which we have every right to demand.

Note that what I contest is not their right to invent social models, to promote them, to advocate for them, to experiment with them on themselves at their own expense and risk; rather, I contest their right to impose them upon us through the Law, that is, through the use of public force and taxation.

[68]

I ask that the Cabetists, the Fourierists, the Proudhonians, the Universitarians, the protectionists renounce—not their specific ideas—but this idea that they all share: the idea of forcing us into their groups and series, their social workshops, their free banks, their Greco-Roman morality, their commercial restrictions. What I ask of them is simply to leave us the freedom to judge their plans and to refrain from associating with them, directly or indirectly, if we find them contrary to our interests or repugnant to our conscience.

For the claim to bring in government power and taxation, beyond being oppressive and plunderous, also implies a fundamental assumption: the infallibility of the organizer and the incompetence of humanity.

And if humanity is incompetent to judge for itself, then why speak to us of universal suffrage?

This contradiction in ideas has unfortunately translated into reality. While the French people have been the first to claim their rights—or rather, their political demands—they have nonetheless remained the most governed, regulated, administered, taxed, restricted, and exploited of all people.

[69]

It is also the people for whom revolutions are most imminent, and so it should be.

As soon as one adopts this idea—shared by all our writers and so forcefully expressed by Mr. L. Blanc in these words: “Society receives its impetus from the government”—as soon as men consider themselves as sentient but passive beings, incapable of elevating themselves to morality or well-being through their own judgement and energy, and reduced to expecting everything from the Law; in short, when they accept that their relationship with the state is that of a flock to its shepherd, it is clear that the responsibility of the government becomes immense. All blessings and all sufferings, all virtues and all vices, equality and inequality, wealth and poverty—everything flows from the government. It is responsible for everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything; therefore, it is accountable for everything. If we are happy, we owe it gratitude; but if we are miserable, we can only blame it. Does it not, in principle, dispose of our persons and our property? Is the Law not omnipotent? By creating the university monopoly, it undertook to fulfill the expectations of parents who were deprived of freedom; and if these expectations are disappointed, whose fault is it? By regulating industry, it [70] promised to make it flourish—otherwise, it would have been absurd to take away its freedom; and if industry suffers, whose fault is it? By meddling in the regulation of the balance of trade by playing with tariffs, it promised to make commerce prosper; and if, instead of flourishing, it collapses, whose fault is it? By granting its protection to ship-builders in exchange for their freedom, it promised to make them profitable; and if they are unprofitable, whose fault is it?

Thus, there is no suffering in the nation for which the government has not voluntarily made itself responsible. Should we then be surprised that every instance of suffering becomes a cause of revolution? [146]

And what remedy is proposed? It is to indefinitely expand the domain of the Law—that is, to expand the responsibility of the government.

But if the government takes it upon itself to raise and regulate wages and fails; if it takes on the task of assisting all misfortunes and fails; if it assumes the duty of securing pensions for all workers and fails; if it undertakes to provide all laborers with tools and fails; if it commits to offering free credit to all those in need of loans and fails; if, as we regrettably saw in the words of Mr. de Lamartine, [147] "the state assumes the task [71] of enlightening, developing, expanding, strengthening, spiritualizing, and sanctifying the souls of the people," [148] and it fails—do we not see that at the end of each disappointment, alas, more than likely, there awaits an equally inevitable revolution?

 

I return to my thesis and state: after having studied economic science and as we begin the study of political science, an essential question immediately arises.[149]It is this:

What is the Law? What should it be? What is its domain? What are its limits? And consequently, where do the functions of the legislator end?

I do not hesitate to answer: The Law is the public use of force organized to prevent Injustice—and to be concise, THE LAW IS JUSTICE.

It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and our property, for they existed before the Law, and its role is merely to surround them with safeguards.

It is not true that the Law has the task of [72] governing our consciences, our ideas, our wills, our education, our sentiments, our labor, our exchanges, our gifts, or our pleasures.

Its task is solely to prevent the right of one person usurping the right of another person in any of these matters.

 

The Law, because it has the necessary sanction of the use offorce, can have as its legitimate domain only the legitimate domain which the use of force has, namely (that of) justice..

And since no individual has the right to resort to the use of force except in the case of legitimate self-defense, the collective use of force—which is merely the combination of the individual use of force—cannot be rationally used for any other purpose.

Thus, the Law is solely the organization of the preexisting individual right to legitimate self-defense.

 

The Law is justice.

It is entirely wrong for it to be able to oppress persons or plunder their property, even for a philanthropic reason, since its task is to protect them.

And let no one say that the Law can at least be philanthropic, provided that it refrains from any act oppression and plunder; this is contradictory. The Law cannot help but act upon our persons or our property; if it does not safeguard them, [73] it violates them by the very fact that it acts, and by the very fact that it exists.

 

The Law is justice.

This is clear, simple, perfectly defined and delimited, accessible to all minds, visible to every eye, for justice is a fixed quantity—unchanging, inalterable, admitting no ifs or buts.

Once you stray from this, once you make the Law religious, fraternal, egalitarian, philanthropic, industrial, literary, or artistic, you immediately fall into the realm of the infinite, the uncertain, the unknown, into an utopia which has been imposed upon you—or worse, into a multitude of competing utopias, each fighting to seize control of the Law and impose itself. For fraternity and philanthropy, unlike justice, have no fixed limits. Where will you stop? Where will the Law stop? One person, like Mr. de Saint-Cricq, [150] will extend his philanthropy only to certain classes of industrialists and will demand that the Law subordinate consumers to producers. Another, like Mr. Considérant, will take up the cause of workers and demand that the Law secure for them a guaranteed MINIMUM—of clothing, housing, food, and all the necessities of life. A third person, Mr. L. Blanc, will argue, not without reason, that this [74] is merely an rough sketch of fraternity and that the Law must provide all people with tools for labor and education. A fourth will point out that such an arrangement still allows for inequality and that the Law must ensure that even the most remote villages have access to luxury, literature, and the arts. You will be led thus all the way to communism—or rather, legislation will become … what it already is: a battlefield of all kinds of utopian dreams and all kinds of greed.

 

The Law is justice.

Within this framework, one can conceive of a simple and unshakable government. And I challenge anyone to explain how the idea of a revolution, an insurrection, or even a simple riot could arise against a government [151] limited to repressing injustice. Under such a system, there would be greater well-being, more evenly distributed well-being, and as for the sufferings which are endemic to the human race, no one would think of blaming the government for them, any more than they would blame it for changes in the weather. Has anyone ever seen the people rise up against the Court of Appeals or storm the courtroom of a Justice of the Peace[152] to demand a minimum wage, free credit, tools for labor, tariff benefits, or [75] a social workshop? They know very well that such matters are beyond the power of the judge, and they would likewise learn that they are beyond the power of the Law.

But if you make the Law based on the principle of fraternity, if you proclaim that it is the source of all blessings and sufferings, that it is responsible for all individual hardship and all social inequality, then you open the door to an endless series of grievances, resentments, turmoil, and revolutions.

 

The Law is justice.

And it would be very strange if it could rightfully be anything else! Is justice not a right? Are rights not equal? How, then, could the Law intervene to subject me to the social plans of Messrs. Mimerel, de Melun, [153] Thiers, Louis Blanc, rather than subject these gentlemen to my plans? Does anyone believe that nature has not given me enough imagination to invent my own utopia?[154] Is it really the role of the Law to choose among so many chimeras and to place the public use of force at the service of one of them?

 

The Law is justice.

And let no one say, as they constantly do, that a Law so conceived would be atheistic, individualistic, [76] and heartless, and would make humanity in its own image. That is an absurd conclusion, worthy only of this government infatuation that sees humanity embodied in the Law itself.

What then! Does the fact that we will be free mean that we will cease to act? Does the fact that we will not receive an impetus from the Law mean that we will be devoid of any impetus? Does the fact that the Law limits itself to guaranteeing us the free exercise of our faculties mean that our faculties will lapse into inertia? Does the fact that the Law will not impose particular forms of religious, modes of association, methods of education, procedures for working, guidelines for trade, or plans for charity mean that we will eagerly plunge into atheism, isolation, ignorance, poverty, and selfishness? Does it mean that we will no longer be able to recognize the power and goodness of God, to associate with others, to help one another, to love and aid our unfortunate brothers, to study the secrets of nature, and to aspire to the betterment of our being?

 

The Law is justice,

And it is under the Law of justice, under the regime of rights, under the influence of liberty, security, stability, and responsibility, that [77] each person will achieve their full potential, their full dignity as a human being, and that humanity, in an orderly and peaceful manner—slowly, no doubt, but surely—will accomplish the progress that is its destiny. [155]

It seems to me that I have theory on my side. For whatever question I subject to reason—whether it be religious, philosophical, political, or economic; whether it concerns well-being, morality, equality, rights, justice, progress, responsibility, solidarity, property, labor, trade, capital, wages, taxation, population, credit, or government—no matter where I place the starting point of my investigations along the scientific horizon, I invariably arrive at this: the solution to the social problem lies in liberty.

And do I not also have experience on my side? Look around the globe. Which are the happiest, most moral, and most peaceful people? Those where the Law interferes the least in private activity; where government is the least felt; where individual initiative has the most vitality and public opinion the most influence; where the wheels of bureaucracy are the fewest and least complicated; where taxes are the lightest and least unequal; where popular discontent [78] is the leaststirred up and the least justified; where individual and class responsibility is the most active; and where, as a result, even if morals are not perfect, they tend irresistibly to rectify themselves; where transactions, agreements, and associations are the least hindered; where labor, capital, and population suffer the least from artificial displacements; where humanity follows its natural inclination the most fully; where the thought of God prevails the most over the designs of men; [156] in short, those societies that come closest to this solution: Within the limits of (our) rights, everything should proceed from the free and perfectible spontaneity of man; nothing should be dictated by the Law or (the use of) force except universal justice.

It must be said: there are too many great men in the world; too many legislators, organizers, social engineers, leaders of peoples, fathers of nations, etc., etc. Too many people place themselves above humanity in order to control it, too many make it their job busying themselves with (doing that).

One might say to me: Even you are busying yourself doing that, you who talk about it.

That is true. But it will be agreed that it is in a very different sense and from a very different perspective, and if I involve myself with the reformers, it is solely to make them give it up.

[79]

I concern myself with it, not as Vaucanson [157] did with his automaton, but as a physiologist does with the human organism: to study and admire it.

I approach it in the spirit that animated a famous traveler.

He arrived among a tribe of savages. A child had just been born, and a crowd of soothsayers, sorcerers, and quacks surrounded it, armed with rings, hooks, and bindings. One said: "This child will never smell the fragrance of a pipe unless I lengthen his nostrils." Another: "He will be deprived of hearing unless I extend his ears down to his shoulders." A third: "He will never see the light of the sun unless I set his eyes at an oblique angle." A fourth: "He will never stand upright unless I bend his legs." A fifth: "He will not think unless I compress his brain." "Stand back!" said the traveler. "God does well in what He creates; do not presume to know more than He does. Since He has given this frail creature organs, let those organs develop and strengthen through exercise, trial and error, experience, and liberty."

God has also placed within humanity all that is needed for it to fulfill its destiny. Just as there is a providential human physiology, [158] there is also a providential social physiology. The [80] social organs, too, are designed to develop harmoniously in the open air of liberty. Away, then, with the quacks and the organizers! Away with their rings, their chains, their hooks, their pincers! Away with their artificial methods! Away with their social workshops, their phalansteries, [159] their government control, their centralization, their tariffs, their state universities, their state religions, their free banks or monopolized banks, their suppressions, their restrictions, their moralizing or their (forced) equalisation through taxation! And since so many systems have been vainly inflicted upon the social body, let us end where we should have begun: let us reject these systems and finally put liberty to the test—Liberty, which is an act of faith in God and in His work.

Notes↩

[1] Bastiat uses the word "pervertie" which could mean "perverted" or "corrupted." Further on in the text Bastiat uses a key word "la perturbation" which FEE translated as "perversion" which we believe misses the important role the concept of "la perturbation" (disturbance) plays in Bastiat's broader theory about the causes of "harmony" and "disharmony."

[2] Throughout the essay Bastiat uses terms such as "la force collective," "la force publique," or "la force commune" to refer to the coercive powers of the state. Here, we have translated it as "the collective or common or public use of force" according to the context.

[3] In the French version of "The Law" Bastiat uses the word "dieu" (god) 12 times. There are also references to "He" (2), "the gods" (2), and "providence" or "providential" (3). He refers to "nature" 16 times (not counting "natural" or "naturally.") The FEE translator inserted 5 references to "god" which were not in the original - 2 in the subtitles he inserted, and 3 in the text itself. He also translated one use of the word "providence" as "God" and one reference to "celui" (he who) as "The Creator." We indicate in the footnotes where these changes occur.

[4] Bastiat says "Celui qui nous l'a donnée" (He who has given it to us) which FEE translated as "The Creator."

[5] By "assimilation" Bastiat seems to mean the process by which the body has to absorb or "assimilate" directly the food, water, and air it needs in order to survive. He contrasts this with "appropriation" or the turning of other things into property which are also needed for survival. FEE translates "l'assimilation et l'appropriation" as "we convert them (natural resources) into products, and use them."

[6] Bastiat uses both the word "la personne" and "la personnalité" frequently throughout the essay. We have translated "la personne" as "person"; and "la personnalité" as "personality," "individuality," or "person" depending upon the context. FEE translated "la personnalité" as "individuality". Bastiat uses the trio of terms "Personnalité, Liberté, Propriété" throughout the pamphlet.

[7] Bastiat states "ces trois choses" which FEE translated as "these three gifts from God."

[8] Bastiat says "Chacun de nous tient certainement de la nature, de Dieu, le droit de défendre sa personne …" which FEE says "each of us has a natural right - from God". This changes the meaning from, "this right to self defence comes from nature (first) and then from God" to "this natural right to self defence comes from God (alone)."

[9] Shortly before this essay was written Louis Leclerc presented similar ideas about property being an extension of the self (or "le Moi" as he termed it). This essay had a big impact on Gustave de Molinari and fits in quite closely with what Bastiat is arguing here. See Louis Leclerc, "Simple observation sur le droit de propriété," (Some Simple Observations on the rights of property) JDE, vol. 21, no. 90, 15 October 1848, pp. 304-305.

[10] Bastiat uses the word "un peuple" which can be translated as "a people" or "a nation" depending upon the context.

[11] The relationship between "Besoins, Efforts, Satisfactions" (Needs, Efforts, and Satisfactions) is central to his economic theory and it is explained in chapter 2 in EH.

[12] To account for the fact that the free market was not always able to create a "harmonious" social order Bastiat developed a theory of "disturbing factors," which included things such as wars, the imposition of slavery, organised plunder by the state or the church, tariffs and other government interventions in the economy. Among the disturbing factors was "le déplacement" (displacement, dislocation) of capital and labor caused by government intervention such as a tariff which distorted the French economy by causing new factories to be build within the country which would otherwise not have been built if there had been free trade. See the unfinished chapter XVIII on "Disturbing Factors" in EH2 and my essay on "Disturbing and Restorative Factors".

[13] Bastiat makes a distinction between "l'égoisme" (egoism), which he regarded as harmful, and "l'intérêt" (self-interest) and "l'individualité" (individualism) which he regarded in a very positive light as the source of individual self-improvement and as the foundation of free market exchange.

[14] Bastiat planned to have a chapter on "la fausse philanthropie" in the complete version of EH. See the sketch of his plan at the end of his conclusion to the 1850 edition of EH which was inserted by his editor Prosper Paillottet in the second, expanded edition in July 1851.

[15] Bastiat uses the phrase "les oppressions sacerdotales" (oppression by priests) which FEE translates as "religious persecutions" which has a more general meaning. It is difficult to determine how religious Bastiat was. We know he had a "crisis of faith" when he was 19 and probably was not a practicing Catholic for most of his life. He reveals this in two letters to his friend Victor Calmètes in September and October 1820. See letters 4 and 5 in CW1, pp. 13-14. He refers to "God" many times in his writings, but also to "Providence" which suggests a deistic perspective. He is often very hostile to the plunderous and fraudulent behaviour of the Church as this expression "les oppressions sacerdotales" (oppression by priests) here demonstrates. It should be seen alongside his critique of "theocratic plunder" and "theocratic fraud" in ES (ES2 1. "The Physiology of plunder," CW2, pp. 114 ff.) and his idea of "theocratic sophisms" which used to delude the people (Conclusion to ES1, CW2, p. 110). In the conclusion to EH1 (written in late 1849 and published in January 1850) he talks about "l'exploitation des théocraties sacerdotales" (the exploitation by priestly theocracies), "spoliateurs de tous costumes et de toutes dénominations" (plunders (who wear) all kinds of robes and (who come from) all kinds of denominations), and who impose on people "l'esclavage mental" (mental slavery). However, as he approached his death he does seem to refer to God more frequently in his last writings and he did accept the last rites on his deathbed from his cousin who was a priest.

[16] Bastiat planned to write a History of plunder after he had finished writing Economic Harmonies. He sketched out the plan of the book in "The Physiology of plunder" and it would deal in chronological order with plunder, war, slavery, theocracy, monopoly, governmental exploitation, and false fraternity or communism. See Section 4 "The Unfinished Treatises: The Social and Economic Harmonies and The History of plunder (1850–51)" of the Readers Guide to the Works of Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850).

[17] As Bastiat noted in "The Two Moral Philosophies" (ES2 2, CW2, p134) "religious moral philosophy" which appealed to the plunderers' conscience was insufficient to end plundering. It also required "economic moral philosophy" which appealed to the victims and encouraged them to resist those who were plundering them.

[18] He even went so far as to describe the Chamber of Deputies which passed legislation benefiting one class at the expense of another as "la grande fabrique de lois" (the great law factory). See, VII. "Trade Restrictions" in WSWNS, CW3, p. 428.

[19] Bastiat here uses the phrase "les classes spoliées" (the plundered classes) which is central to his theory of plunder. He called those who do the plundering "la classe spoliatrice". See my essay on "Bastiat's theory of plunder."

[20] Bastiat uses some quite martial language to describe how people go about getting the "political rights" which will enable them to take part in plundering others "legally". He says here "elles poursuivent ainsi la conquête de leurs droits politiques" (so they hunt down or chase after the conquest of their political rights).

[21] Central to this essay is Bastiat's idea of "la spoliation légale" (legal plunder, or plunder sanctioned by the law) to which he contrasts "la spoliation extra-légale" (extra-legal plunder, or plunder which takes outside of the law). The latter term is translated by "illegal plunder." He first used this concept in his long introduction to his book on Cobden and the League (1845) before he moved to Paris with the slightly different phrase "la spoliation légalement exercée" (plunder carried out legally). His next use of a similar term was "une spoliation permanente et légale" (permanent and legal plunder) which appeared in "À monsieur le rédacteur du Courrier Français" (To the Editor of the Courrier français) Courrier français, 11 April 1846. His first use of the term "legal plunder" was in May 1847 in an essay he wrote for the free trade magazine he edited "Subsistances" (Subsistance Farming), Le Libre-Échange, 8 May 1847 and then regularly after the appearance of his article "Justice et fraternité" (Justice and fraternity), JDE, 15 June 1848.

[22] Bastiat coined the term "la classe électorale" (the electoral or voting class) to describe those who controlled the Chamber of Deputies. See, ES3 6 "The People and the Bourgeoisie," CW2, p. 286. Under the July Monarchy (1830-1848) the right to vote was limited to the wealthiest tax-payers who paid a certain amount in direct tax. Towards the end of the July Monarchy this group numbered about 240,000 individuals or about 5% of the population. Bastiat termed them "la classe électorale" (the electoral or voting class)). After the February 1848 Revolution universal manhood suffrage (men over the age of 21) was introduced for the April 1848 elections at which 7.8 million people participated (or 84% of registered voters). In the May 1849 election there were 9.9 million registered voters. By contrast, in England restrictions on voter eligibility were determined by the value of land one owned. The First Reform Bill of 1832 increased the size of the electorate from 435,000 to 652,000 out of a total population of 13 million.

[23] He first used the term "la spoliation universelle" (universal plunder) the previous month in his essay "Spoliation et loi" (Plunder and Law), JDE, 15 May 1850 (see CW2, p. 275.) In his essay "The State" (June, September 1848) he phrased this slightly differently as "le pillage réciproque" (reciprocal pillage) which he noted "il n'en est pas moins criminel parce qu'il s'exécute légalement et avec ordre" (that it is no less criminal because it is carried out legally and in an orderly manner). Also note his definition of the state: "c'est la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s'efforce de vivre aux dépens de tout le monde" (it is the great fiction by which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else), in CW2, p. 97.

[24] Bastiat states "les unes à cause de leur iniquité, les autres à cause de leur ignorance" which FEE translates as "some for their evilness, and some for their lack of understanding."

[25] Here for the first time in this essay he uses the term "la perturbation" (disturbance) which is part of his theory of disturbing factors (les causes perturbatrice) which he used to explain why "economic harmony" was not more widespread. It was because violence and plunder constantly intervened to disrupt the natural harmonizing process of the free market. See my essay on "Displacement". For some reason both Wells and FEE translated this as "perversion."

[26] Bastiat intended to write such as volume after he had finished Economic Harmonies.

[27] The purpose of his series of short essays called the "economic sophisms" was to expose the deceptive and false arguments ("les sophismes" or sophistical arguments) put forward by protectionists and others to justify government legislation in their favour. Unfortunately, too many people behaved like "les dupes" (dupes) and accepted these arguments at face value. See "Bastiat on Enlightening the 'Dupes' about the Nature of plunder," in the Introduction to CW3, pp. lv-lviii.

[28] See his economic sophism ES2 11 "The Utopian" in which Bastiat is temporarily put in charge of the government and is able to introduce all his proposed reforms. CW3, pp. 187-98.

[29] During the first few months of the revolution after February 1848, Bastiat's friend and colleague Michel Chevalier was sacked from his Chair in Political Economy at the University of Paris because the incoming government disagreed with his free market and free trade ideas. His chair was broken up into 5 separate positions which would teach "applied economics" more useful to bureaucrats and technocrats. After considerable lobbying on his behalf by the Political Economy society, Chevalier was reinstated in November 1848.

[30] (Note by Bastiat.) General Council of manufactures, Agriculture, and Commerce. Session of May 6, 1850.

[31] In early 1850 there were plans to reduce the suffrage by requiring more strict residency requirements for would-be voters. Bastiat had considerable experience with elections as he was elected twice to represent his district of Les Landes. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly in the election of 23 April 1848 to represent the département of Les Landes. He served on the Comité des finances (Finance Committee) and was elected 8 times as vice-president of the committee (such was the regard of his colleagues for his economic knowledge) and he made periodic reports to the Chamber on Finance Committee matters. In the election of 13-14 May 1849 for the Legislative Assembly 6.7 million men voted (out of 9.9 million registered voters). Bastiat was elected to the Legislative Assembly again to represent the département of Les Landes.

[32] In addition to his better known "economic sophisms" Bastiat also wrote several "political sophisms" on voting, elections, the nature of political representation, and the state. See, "Bastiat's Political Sophisms," in the Introduction to CW3, pp. lxvii-lxviii.

[33] Indirect taxes were levied on drink, salt, sugar, tobacco, gun powder, and other goods. According to the budget for 1848 the government raised fr. 307.9 million in indirect taxes which represented 22.4% of its total revenue of fr. 1.37 billion. Bastiat's idea of an ideal tax system was to replace indirect taxes which fell most heavily on the poor with low income tax on everybody and a 5% "fiscal" tariff rate. He thought indirect taxes were a a "trick" or a "hoax" on the poor. See "A Hoax," Jacques Bonhomme, 15-18 June 1848).

[34] Auguste Pierre Mimerel de Roubaix (1786-1872) was a textile manufacturer and politician from Roubaix who was a vigorous advocate of protectionism. In October 1846 he was instrumental in organizing the regional committees to form a national body based in Paris known as the "Association pour la défense du travail national" (Association for the Defense of National Employment). The latter was formed to oppose the French Free Trade Association, in which Bastiat played a crucial role, which became a national body on 10 May, 1846.

[35] The National Assembly sat in the Palais Bourbon. It was built by Louis XIV in 1722 for his daughter Louise Françoise. It is located on the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. It was confiscated during the revolution (1791) and has been the location for the Chamber of Deputies since the Restoration. Bastiat uses this term in a mocking way.

[36] Bastiat uses here the word "la discorde" (discord, disharmony) which was the opposite of his famous notion of the essential "harmony" of the free market. See my essay on "Bastiat's Theory of Harmony and Disharmony: An Intellectual History" (2020) and the accompanying concept map of the terms he used to describe this theory.

[37] Here Bastiat is getting back at the socialists who agitated for state support for their plans "to organise" French society along socialist lines, as argued by Louis Blanc in Organisation du travail (1839) which he discusses below. The words "Association" and "Organisation" were two key words used by socialists like Victor Considerant and Louis Blanc to describe how they would like to see industry and labor organized in a socialist system: the "organisation of labour" by the state into "national or social workshops," and the association of workers into cooperative living and working arrangements as opposed to private property, wages, and exchanges on the free market. Bastiat frequently argued that the economists also believed in "association" and "organization" as long as it was done voluntarily. Here he is arguing that the socialists' schemes will in fact lead to "disorganisation" on a massive scale.

[38] In the U.S., in 1832 the protectionist Tariff imposed an average rate of 33%; the Compromise Tariff of 1833 intended to lower rates to a flat 20%; and the 1846 Tariff created 4 tariff schedules for goods which imposed 100%, 40%, 30%, or 20% depending upon the particular kind of good. The average rate in the U.S. in 1849 was about 23% and in 1890 about 40%. France had an average rate of about 12% in 1836 and it was still around 11% in 1848 before it began to drop steadily reaching 5% in 1857, then spiking briefly to 7.5% in 1858, and dropping steadily again to about 1.5% in 1870 (the Anglo-French Free Trade Treaty was signed in 1860), before again moving steadily upwards to about 8% in 1893. In 1849 the rates were about 6% in Britain and 10% in France.

[39] Charles Forbes, comte de Montalembert (1810-70) was a liberal Catholic who supported a free, Catholic alternative to the state monopoly of eduction and was arrested and fined for his activities. During the 1848 revolution he was elected to the Constituent Assembly as a moderate republican. He is known for his work Des devoirs des Catholiques sur la question de la liberté de l'enseignement (1843).

[40] Possibly Pierre Carlier (1794-1858) who was the Chief of Police during the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. He was made Prefect of the Police in Paris in November 1849 and in February 1850 ordered the uprooting of all the liberty trees which had been planed during the Revolution of 1848. He helped Louis Napoléon plan his coup d'état in December 1851.

[41] Charles Dupin (1784-1873) was a naval engineer who later became Minister of the Navy. He taught mathematics at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers and also ran courses for ordinary working people. He served in the Constituent and then the National Assemblies during the Second Republic. Bastiat may be referring to a passage in Dupin's Conseils adressés aux ouvriers parisiens (Paris: Firmin-Didot frères, 1840), pp. 5-6. Here he called the socialist ideal of equality "an equality in name only, a deceitful and bestial equality where you count workers by the number of their heads and not by the number of their minds; where you pay according to the number of their arms and not the strength of their arms; where you count for nothing the dexterity of the hands used by the skilled worker, nor for the dexterity of the ideas used by the skilled industrialist."

[42] By "extra-legal" Bastiat means "plunder which takes place outside the law", that is without the sanction of the law.

[43] Bastiat's use of the term "la spoliation extra-légale" (extra-legal plunder) appeared much later than "legal plunder," for the first time in the article "Justice et fraternité" (Justice and fraternity), JDE, 15 June 1848. See CW2, pp. 60-81.

[44] Bastiat uses the term "l'appareil" (apparatus) to describe two different sets of bureaucratic and social structures. The "apparatus of the state" (the legal system and the military) and the "apparatus of commerce and exchange." See my essay "The 'Apparatus' or Structure of Exchange".

[45] He gives two examples of how those seeking benefits from the state at taxpayer or consumer expence should really use force with their own hands instead of hiding behind "the great law factory" to do their dirty work for them. See the story of M. Prohibant, an iron manufacturer, using his own coercive force to block iron imports from Belgium instead of going to the Chamber, in VII. "Trade Restrictions" in WSWNS, CW3, p. 428. And another similar story "Plunder and the Law" (May 1850), in CW2, p. 269.

[46] Bastiat is referring to an argument commonly used by protectionists to justify their privileges by arguing that the benefits they received from tariff protection will inevitably "trickle down" to other workers in society as those protected individuals spend their wages and profits. He called this "le sophisme des ricochets" (the sophism of the ricochet effect). See "The Sophism Bastiat never wrote: The Sophism of the Ricochet Effect" in Further Aspects of Bastiat's Thought, in CW3, pp. 457-61.

[47] A major political battle was fought between the economists and the socialists over the summer of 1848 over the idea of "le droit au travail" (the right to a job). The right to a job (paid for by tax payers if need be) was a key platform of the socialists like Louis Blanc who tried to implement it in the National Workshops he set up in the wake of the February Revolution. Bastiat opposed this vigorously in the Chamber as the Vice-president of the Finance Committee. The free market politicians in the Chamber tried to stop the socialists inserting a clause in the new constitution to this effect over the summer of 1848, and they were eventually successful. Their preferred alternative was "la liberté du travail" (the liberty of working). See "The right to work vs. the right or freedom of working," in Bastiat's Political Writings: Anecdotes and Reflections, in CW1, pp. 410-12.

[48] Another political battle was fought between Bastiat and the anarchist socialist Proudhon who tried to get the Provisional government to set up "Peoples Banks" which would issue free credit to workers to set up their own businesses. The two had an extended debate on this question at the end of 1849 which was published as Gratuité du crédit. Discussion entre M. Fr. Bastiat et M. Proudhon (Free Credit. A Discussion between M. Fr. Bastiat and M. Proudhon) (Paris: Guillaumin, 1850).

[49] Among the many descriptions of socialism Bastiat gave this one is apt: "In brief, socialism has come to put into practice the theory of plunder." In "Spoliation et loi" (Plunder and Law) JDE, 15 May 1850. See CW2, p. 273. In the last two years of his life wrote a dozen anti-socialist pamphlets, the last of which was "The Law" (June 1850). His most extended discussions of socialism can be found in Free Credit (1850), Baccalaureate and socialism (1850) in CW2, pp. 185-234, and "Plunder and Law" (May 1850) in CW2, pp. 266-76. See my essay "Bastiat's Anti-socialist Pamphlets, or "Mister Bastiat's Little Pamphlets".

[50] In his first book on Cobden and the League (1845) he realised that the "war of ideas," in this case against protectionism, would be a long one. He carefully studied the strategies used by the English Anti-Corn Law League and thought about how to apply them to the conditions in France. He believed radical change would only occur "par une révolution lente et pénible, paisiblement accomplie dans les esprits" (by means of a slow and difficult revolution, (which will be) peacefully achieved in the minds (of men)). In Cobden and the League (1845). He also realised that the same could be said about the war of ideas against socialism and communism which replaced the war against protectionism after the February 1848 Revolution.

[51] In his pamphlet "Protectionism and communism" (Jan. 1849) he accused the protectionists of using the same methods to get benefits from the state as the communists planned to do; and in Baccalaureate and socialism (early 1850) he accused the conservatives who wanted to keep the old education system based on the teaching of Latin of spreading the values of slave owners and plunderers which encouraged the youth of France to move closer to communist ideology. See "Protectionism and communism" (Jan. 1849), in CW2, pp. 235-65, and Baccalaureate and socialism (early 1850), in CW2, pp. 185-234.

[52] During the June Days uprising in 1848 (23-26 June) the Constituent Assembly authorised General Cavaignac to use the army to crush the rebellion which had sprung up to oppose the closing of Blanc's National Workshops. Artillery was used to break up the hundreds of street barricades which had been erected throughout Paris resulting in the deaths of hundreds perhaps thousands of people. He then declared martial law which remained in effect until October. Bastiat said in a letter he was an eye-witness to this activity. See Letter 104 "To Julie Marsan" (29 June, 1848), CW1, pp. 156-57.

[53] In a speech to the Legislative Assembly in May 1850 he stated: "Je vous demande, Messieurs, si, en présence de ce progrès flagrant du socialisme, vous voulez rester impuissants et silencieux, si vous ne voulez apporter aucun remède au progrès du mal tel que je viens de vous le signaler par cet exemple éclatant, je le répète et je le constate, incontesté. Eh bien, non! Quant à moi, je soutiens que vous ne le devez pas, et je suis sûr que vous ne le voudrez pas. Il faut donc faire, à ce mal qui croît tous les jours, la guerre la plus énergique, la guerre que permet la Constitution, par tous les moyens que ne réprouvent pas la justice, l'honneur et les lois qui nous gouvernent." See "Discours sur la Réforme électorale" (Assemblé Nationale Législative. Séance du 22 mai 1850), pp. 427-53, in Oeuvres de M. le Comte de Montalembert (Paris: Lecoffre, 1860), Volume 3, p. 440.

[54] See Bastiat's speech on ""On the Allocation of the Land Tax in the Department of Les Landes" (July 1844) to his Local General Council on how local workers might turn to revolution if they did not get political representation and a more equal tax burden.

[55] He had begun making the distinction between "la Spoliation partielle" (partial plunder) and "la Spoliation universelle" (universal plunder) only the previous month in his article "Plunder and Law," JDE, 15 May 1850, in CW2, pp. 266-76.

[56] By this he meant a political system dominated by a very limited franchise, or what he called "la classe électorale." See note above.

[57] With the re-introduction of universal manhood in the Second Republic in February 1848. Elsewhere he talked about "reciprocal" or "mutual" plunder or theft, as in his essay "The state" (September 1848) where he warned of the danger of the coercive power of the state being use as "un instrument d'oppression et de spoliation réciproque" (an instrument of reciprocal oppression and plunder), CW2, p. 104.

[58] This is a reference to his fast failing health. His throat condition (possibly cancer not tuberculosis) would kill him six months after this essay was written (Christmas Eve1850).

[59] The phrase "la plus illogique perturbation sociale" is his second use in this essay of the word "la perturbation" (disturbance or disruption) which is caused by government intervention. For some reason both FEE and Wells translated this as "perversion." See note above on "Disturbing Factors."

[60] Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) was a poet and statesman and as an immensely popular romantic poet, he used his talent to promote liberal ideas. Lamartine was elected Deputy representing Nord (1833-37), Saône et Loire (1837-Feb. 1848), Bouches-du-Rhône (April 1848-May 1849), and Saône et Loire (July 1849- Dec. 1851). During the campaign for free trade organised by the French Free Trade Association between 1846 and 1847 Lamartine often spoke at their large public meetings and was a big draw card. He was a member of the Provisional government in February 1848 (offering Bastiat a position in the government, which he declined) and Minister of Foreign Affairs in June 1848. After he lost the presidential elections of December 1848 against Louis-Napoléon, he gradually retired from political life and went back to writing.

[61] We do not have this letter, but there a similar one, Letter 25 To Lamartine (7 March 1845), in CW1, p. 56-57.Bastiat wrote two public letters to Lamartine criticising him his for his stand on the right to job (which was a socialist demand) and price controls on food during periods of food shortage. See "Letter from an Economist to M. de Lamartine. On the occasion of his article entitled: The right to a Job," JDE, February 1845, and "Second Letter to M. de Lamartine (on price controls on food)," JDE, Oct. 1846.

[62] Bastiat discusses his views on fraternity and how they differed from that of the socialists in more detail in two of his pamphlets published in June 1848: "Justice and fraternity" (JDE, 15 June 1848), in CW2, pp. 60-81; and "Individualism and fraternity" (c. June 1848), in CW2, pp. 82-92.

[63] In early 1846 Bastiat decided that it was time to use "brutal" (brutal, violent, rough, harsh) language instead of euphemisms in the battle against the protectionists. He used the word "theft" to describe the policy of giving subsidies to industry at taxpayer expence, and gave a similar apology to the reader as he does here. See ES2 9 "Theft by Subsidy" (JDE, January 1846), in CW3, p. 170.

[64] Bastiat devoted a section at the end of Chap. X "Private property and Community" in EH1 to attacking communism. He defined this as a new kind of plunder, "la spoliation systématique" (systematic plunder), as "Communism is based on systematic plunder, since it consists in handing over to one person the labor of another with no compensation." During 1850 he wrote two pamphlets pointing out to conservatives that their policies were "communist" in their effects: to conservative supporters of teaching Latin in the schools he argued in Baccalaureate and socialism (early 1850) (CW2, pp. 185-234) that "classical conventionalism" was preparing the minds of young people for socialism or worse; and to conservative supporters of protectionism in "Protectionism and communism" (Jan. 1849) (CW2, pp. 235-65) that they were using the same methods to benefit themselves as the socialists intended to do for the working class.

[65] (Note by Bastiat.) If protection were granted in France to only one class, for example, to ironmasters, it would be so absurdly plunderous that it could not be maintained. This is why we see all protected industries banding together, making common cause, and even expanding their ranks to appear as if they encompass the entirety of national labor. They instinctively sense that plunder becomes less visible when it is generalized.

[66] Bastiat regarded "former acts of plunder carried out by means of the law" as classic examples of the "disturbing factors" which upset the free market's tendency to produce "harmonious" outcomes.

[67] Bastiat distinguishes between two types of societies and organisatons those that are "natural" (i.e. voluntary and spontaneous) and those that are "artificial" (i.e. created coercively or by acts of law (by force). He also uses the adjective "légal" to describe something which is state funded or state created, as in "la charité légale" (state funded charity, as opposed to voluntary charity). Here, in the expression "des organisations légales ou factices" (legal and artificial organisations), he is using legal in the latter, negativesense.

[68] Bastiat says something similar about communism towards the end of EH Chap VIII "Private property and Community."

[69] Setting up a nation-wide system of "social workshops" which would replace privately owned and profit making factories and workshops which paid workers wages was a dream of the socialist Louis Blanc. In the first few months after the February Revolution he seized control of the Luxembourg Palace and ran the "National Workshops" from there until the Constituent Assembly withdrew funding and closed them down. Bastiat, as Vice-President of the Finance Committee, played a major role in bringing this about. This act triggered the widespread violent protest known as the "June Days."

[70] These were all slogans used by the socialists in their political campaigns.

[71] In the very first chapter of Economic Harmonies Bastiat lays out his distinction between "Natural and Artificial Organisation," namely that the first kind is based on voluntary agreements between individuals and the latter is based on coercion, usually by means of the state.

[72] Bastiat says "Ce n'est pas la solidarité providentielle, mais la solidarité artificielle, qui n'est qu'un déplacement injuste de Responsabilité." which FEE translated as "We repudiate the artificial unity that does nothing more than deprive persons of individual responsibility. We do not repudiate the natural unity of mankind under Providence." This misses the reference to "providential solidarity" as well as to the "displacement of responsibility" caused by coercion by the state.

[73] Scattered throughout Bastiat's writings are many intriguing statements which prefigure some key ideas of the Austrian School of economic thought, such as the "le principe d'action" (the principle of action) which is used here. He also uses the phrases "un être actif" (an acting or active being), "un agent" (an agent, or actor), "un agent intelligent" (an intelligent or thinking actor), and to their behaviour in the economic world as "l'action humaine" (human action) or "l'action de l'homme" (the action of human beings, or human action), and to the guiding principle behind it all as "le principe actif" or "le principe d'activité" (the principle of action). See my essay on "Human Action".

[74] The question whether mankind's behavior was like that of a plant or a creature capable of reason was crucial in Bastiat's rethinking of Malthus's theory of population. He thought it was the latter. See his article "De la population," JDE, October 1846 (in CW4 forthcoming) which was extensively rewritten and became Chapter 16 on Population in the 1851 expanded edition of Economic Harmonies.

[75] Bastiat liked to use the analogy of society being a kind of "mécanisme social" (social mechanism) with its own wheels, springs, and movements (les rouages, les ressorts, and les mobiles). However, unlike the socialists he thought these wheels and cogs were living, acting, and choosing individuals who needed no "mechanic," "organizer," or "legislator" to make them run. See my essay "The Social Mechanism and its Driving force".

[76] A key part of Bastiat's own economic theory is the idea that there is "le Moteur social"(the social driving force) which is properly understood self-interest. See the chapter by this name in Economic Harmonies.

[77] Here he is making fun of the socialists' penchant for naming all the complex hierarchies and subdivisions of their proposed planned societies, especially Fourier. For example, his "serial" or "stepped" method of arranging his categories under the rubric of "Inter, Citer, Ulter, Anter, Poster, Avant, and Final". See, Charles Fourier, La fausse industrie morcelée, répugnante, mensongère, et l'antidote, l'industrie naturelle, combinée, attrayante, véridique, donnant quadruple produit (Paris: Bossange père, 1835), p. 393.

[78] The Commune was a local administrative district.

[79] The socialist Victor Considerant gave a speech in the Chamber on 13 April, 1849 in which he reiterated his demand that the government give his followers 4,000 acres of land and fund an experimental socialist community near Paris in order to demonstrate the viability and even the superiority of socialism. Bastiat immediately responded by saying that a better option would be to set up competing experimental communities, including a laissez-faire free trade zone with minimal taxes and regulations, to show which form of society worked best.

[80] In fact, Bastiat is speaking from personal experience as he tried to introduce a number of reforms in the way his own tenant farmers operated their farms. This was not successful. See "Considérations sur le métayage" (Thoughts on Sharecropping), JDE, Feb. 1846.

[81] Bastiat was very hostile to a classical education based upon learning Latin as he believed the Roman ruling elite were warriors and plunderers whose writings mislead the French youth who studied them and prepared them intellectually to accept socialist ideas. A good example of these sentiments can be found in Baccalaureate and socialism (early 1850), CW2, pp. 185-234. His own education was at an experimental private school where he learned modern languages, music, and poetry.

[82] This insight is central to the modern Public Choice theory of economics which argues that politicians and bureaucrats also pursue their own interests.

[83] The French word "on" has no real equivalent in English and is translated by "one," "we," "you," "they," or "people," depending on the context. We have chosen "one" in this context but will also use "they" where appropriate.

[84] Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704) was Bishop of Meaux, a historian, court priest to King Louis XIV, and tutor to the dauphin (son of Louis XIV). He was a noted orator and writer whose sermons and orations were widely studied as models of French style by generations of French schoolchildren. In politics he was an intransigent Gallican Catholic, an opponent of Protestantism, and a supporter of the idea of the divine right of kings. He wrote a multi-volume universal history, Discours sur l'histoire universelle (1681).

[85] In brackets are Bastiat's comments on the quote.

[86] Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Discours sur l'histoire universelle, publié avec la chronologie des Bénédictines et celles de Bossuet et avec notes par A. Olleris (Paris: Hachette, 1847), Part III. "Les empires," Chap. III, pp. 417, 418, 422, 424.

[87] Here Bastiat is punning, as he often does, on the phrase "laisser faire" (leaving people free to go about their own business). He he says "Il ne s'agissait pour eux que de se laisser faire" (It was only a matter of them (the people)letting them (the rulers) do their job).

[88] Bossuet, Discours sur l'histoire universelle, pp. 430-31.

[89] Bossuet, Discours sur l'histoire universelle, p. 447.

[90] Bossuet, Discours sur l'histoire universelle, p. 451.

[91] François Fénelon (1651-1715) was the Archbishop of Cambrai, a theologian, poet, writer, and tutor to the young duke of Burgundy, the grandson of Louis XIV. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (which had granted toleration for Protestants in France), Fénelon was one of several high-ranking clergy sent to convert recalcitrant Protestants to Catholicism. He wrote a collection called Dialogue des morts et fables (1700), and Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699), which was a thinly veiled satire of the reign of Louis XIV and a critique of the notion of the divine right of kings. For example, in the latter the hero Telemachus visits Idomeneus, King of Salente and asks him very pointed and embarrassing questions about the nature of good rulership.

[92] The Adventures of Telemachus is the story of Telemachus's search for his father in the company of Mentor, who instructs the young Telemachus on the virtues required by a prince. They come across the fictitious city of Salentum (Salente in French), which has been corrupted by luxury and military despotism. Only the dictatorship of an enlightened legislator could reform Salentum according to Fénelon. The complete works of Fénelon were published in multi-volume editions in 1830 and again in 1848-52: Oeuvres complètes de Fénelon.

[93] Fénelon, Les aventures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse (A. Gand, 1819), Vol. 1, pp. 77-78.

[94] Fénelon, Les aventures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse (A. Gand, 1819), Vol. 1, pp. 79-80.

[95] Fénelon, Les aventures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse (A. Gand, 1819), Vol. 1, pp. 148-49.

[96] Olivier de Serres (1539-1619) was a pioneering French agronomist who is best known for introducing the growing of silk to France. His best-known work is Le Théâtre d'agriculture et mésnage des champs (1600).

[97] Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) was one of the most influential legal theorists and political philosophers of the eighteenth century. He trained as a lawyer and practiced in Bordeaux before going to Paris, where he attended an important enlightened salon. His ideas about the separation of powers and checks on the power of the executive had a profound impact on the architects of the American constitution. His most influential works are L'Esprit des lois (1748), Les Lettres persanes (1721), and Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence (1732).

[98] Montesquieu, L'Esprit des lois in Œuvres de Montesquieu. Vol. 1 (Paris: A. Belin, 1817), Livre V, Chap. VI "Comment les lois doivent entretenir la frugalité dans la démocratie," p. 39

[99] Montesquieu, L'Esprit des lois, p. 38.

[100] William Penn (1644-1718) was an English Quaker, writer, and founder of the state of Pennsylvania.

[101] Between 1609 and their expulsion from Latin America in 1767, the Jesuits organized among the native people of Paraguay a community based on Christian and communist principles. The Jesuits aim was to Christianize the native people, organize the social and economic life of the communities, and create "the kingdom of God on earth." Bastiat rejected the idea of these communities, just like he did with the contemporary attempts to create utopian socialist communities in Europe and America in the 1830s and 1840s, on the grounds that the communities owned property, in particular land, in common, sought an equality of ownership, and strictly regulated the free market.

[102] Montesquieu, L'Esprit des lois, Chap. VI "De quelques institutions des Grecs," pp. 29-31.

[103] Said by Alceste to Philinte in Moliére's play "Le Misanthrope," Act I, sc. II in Oeuvres de J. B. Poquelin de Molière (Paris: Th. Dabo, 1820), Vol. 3, p. 173.

[104] Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) was a Swiss philosopher and novelist who was an important figure in the Enlightenment. In his novels and discourses he claimed that civilization had weakened the natural liberty of mankind and that a truly free society would be the expression of the "general will" of all members of that society. He influenced later thinkers on both ends of the political spectrum. Bastiat often criticized Rousseau as he thought he was the inspiration behind much of the interventionist legislation introduction by the revolutionaries during the 1790s (especially Robespierre) and then later in the 1848 Revolution. He is best known for his book Du Contrat Social (The Social Contract) (1761); he was also the author of, among other works, the Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes (Discourse on Inequality) (1755), the autobiographical Les Confessions (1783), and the novels Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse (1761) and Emile, ou l'education (1762).

[105] Rousseau, Du contrat social, in Oeuvres complètes de J.-J. Rousseau; Nouvelle édition, avec des Notes historiques et critiques; augmentée d'un Appendice aux Confessions, par M. Musset-Pathay. Vol. IX. Philosophie. Politique.- Tome 1. (Bruxelles: Th. Lejeune, 1827), Livre II, Chap. VII. "Du Législateur," pp. 119-20.

[106] The edition of Spirit of the Laws that Bastiat might have had access to was Oeuvres de Montesquieu, avec éloges, analyses, commentaires, remarques, notes, réfutations, immitations, par MM. Destut de Tracy, Villemain (Paris, 1827), in eight volumes. The editor was Victor Destutt de Tracy the son of Antoine Destutt de Tracy, who had written an extensive commentary on the Spirit of the Laws for Thomas Jefferson who had it published in 1811, A Commentary and Review of Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws": To which are annexed, Observations on the Thirty First Book by the late M. Condorcet; and Two Letters of Helvetius, on the Merits of the same Work.

[107] Rousseau, Du contrat social, Livre II. Chap. XI "Des diver système de Législation," pp. 135-38.

[108] Rousseau, Du contrat social, Livre II, Chap. VII. "Du Législateur," p. 120.

[109] Guillaume-Thomas-François, abbé Raynal (1713-96) was an enlightened historian who wrote on the Dutch Stadholderate and the English Parliament. His most famous work was the eight-volume Histoire philosophique et politique, des établissements et du commerce des européens dans les deux Indes (1770), which went through some thirty editions by 1789, was put on the Index in 1774, and publicly burned. The book was found objectionable because of its treatment of religion and opposition to colonialism and its advocacy of the popular right to consent to taxation and to revolt, among other things. Its sometimes incendiary treatment of the slave trade became canonical in the debate over abolition of slavery, of which it did much to spur.

[110] Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans le deux Indes. Nouvelle édition (Paris: Amable Costes, 1820), T. 9, hap. XXX A quelle degré la population s'est-elle élevée dans l'Amérique septentrionale, pp. 230-33.

[111] Gabriel Bonnot, abbé de Mably (1709–95) was an enormously popular writer on political, legal, and economic matters. He trained as a Jesuit and briefly entered religious orders. Mably was an admirer of Plato and Sparta, both of which he regarded as a model for political and economic institutions. In economics, Mably was an advocate for ending private property and for the redistribution of property by the state in order to achieve equal ownership for all, thus qualifying him as an early communist thinker. Mably was best known for his work Entretiens de Phocion, sur le rapport de la morale avec la politique (1763); and the Observations sur le gouvernement et les lois des États-unis d'Amérique (1784).

[112] Gabriel Bonnot de Mably, "Droits et devoirs du Citoyen," Lettre VIII, in Oeuvres complètes (Lyon: J.B. Delamolliere & Falque, 1796),, Volume 11, pp. 465-66.

[113] The Abbé de Condillac (1714-80) was a priest, philosopher, economist, and member of the Académie française. Condillac was an advocate of the ideas of John Locke and a friend of the encyclopedist Denis Diderot. In his Traité des sensations (1754), Condillac claims that all attributes of the mind, such as judgment, reason, and even will, derive from sensations. His book Le Commerce et le gouvernement, considérés relativement l'un a l'autre (1776) appeared in the same year as Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

[114] Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Lecointe et Durey, 1822), vol. XV, Étude de l'histoire et logique, Chap. II "Des vérités fondamentales auxquelles il faut s'attacher en étudiant l'histoire," pp. 24-25.

[115] Condillac, Oeuvres complètes, vol. XV, Chap. III Seconde vérité, pp. 26-29.

[116] Compare this passage to one in his "Draft Preface for the Economic Harmonies" (late 1847) CW1, p. 318. It is the form of an ironic letter to himself: "Like you I love all forms of freedom; and among these, the one that is the most universally useful to mankind, the one you enjoy at each moment of the day and in all of life's circumstances, is the freedom to work and to trade. I know that making things one's own is the fulcrum of society and even of human life. I know that trade is intrinsic to property and that to restrict the one is to shake the foundations of the other. I approve of your devoting yourself to the defense of this freedom whose triumph will inevitably usher in the reign of international justice and consequently the extinction of hatred, prejudices between one people and another, and the wars that come in their wake."

[117] Rousseau, Du contrat social, Livre II, Chap. VII "Du Législateur," p. 123.

[118] Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767-94) was a close friend and colleague of Robespierre. Saint-Just suffered the same fate as did Robespierre, execution by guillotine in July 1794. He served in the National Guard and was elected to the Legislative Assembly (but denied his seat because of his young age), and then to the Convention, where he joined the Montagnard faction. Saint-Just became a member of the Committee of Public Safety in 1793 and was active in military affairs on the Committee's behalf. He was much influenced by Rousseau and supported the creation of an austere and egalitarian republic.

[119] Saint-Just, "Discours sur la Constitution à donner à la France (24 avril, 1793), Œuvres de Saint-Just, represéntant du peuple à la Convention nationale (Paris: Prévot, 1834), p. 74.

[120] Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-94) was a lawyer and one of the best-known figures of the French Revolution. In the National Convention he was an active member of the Société des amis de la constitution (Society of Friends of the Constitution) (the Jacobin Club) and became leader of the Montagnard faction. He was a fierce opponent of the liberal Gironde faction, and in his position as leader of the Committee of Public Safety (1793) he had arrested and executed many members of this group during the Terror. Eventually the Terror turned on its own supporters and Robespierre was himself executed in July 1794. In his political thinking, Robespierre was strongly influenced by the writings of Rousseau, and in 1793 he supported a new declaration of the rights of man that subordinated private property to the needs of "social utility."

[121] Robespierre, "Rapport fait par Robespierre au nom du Comité de salut public sur les principes du gouvernement révolutionnaire (Convention Nationale, Séance du 25 décembre 1793) in Œuvres de Maximilien Robespierre: avec une notice historique, des notes et des commentaires, par Laponneraye (Paris: Chez l'éditeur, 1840), Vol. 3, p. 512.

[122] Jean Billaud-Varennes (1756-1839) was a lawyer, a Montagnard member of the Convention, a leading orator in the Jacobin Club, and a member of the Committee of Public Safety. He was at first a supporter of Robespierre, then an opponent who contributed to his downfall and execution.

[123] Convention nationale. Rapport fait a la Convention nationale, au nom du Comité de salut public, par Billaud-Varenne, dans la séance du 1er floréal, l'an 2e de la République une et indivisible ; sur la théorie du gouvernement démocratique, et sa vigueur utile pour contenir l'ambition, et pour tempérer l'essor de l'esprit militaire; sur le but politique de la guerre actuelle; et sur la nécessité d'inspirer l'amour des vertus civile par des fêtes publiques et des institutions morales (de l'Imprimerie de Charpentier, 1794), p. 4.

[124] Louis-Michel Lepeletier, marquis de Saint-Fargeau (1760-1793) was a Councillor at the Parlement de Paris before the Revolution and then President of the National Constituent Assembly in 1790. He was murdered by an ex-Royal Guard for having voted for King Louis XVI's execution.

[125] Michel Lepeletier, "Plan d'Éducation nationale" in Oeuvres de Michel Lepeletier Saint-Fargeau (Bruxelles: Arnold Lacrosse, 1826), p. 268.

[126] Robespierre, Rapport sur les principes de morale politique qui doivent guider la Convention nationale dans l'administration intérieure de la République, fait par Robespierre au nom du Comité de Salut Public (Convention Nationale, Séance du 5 février 1794), p. 542.

[127] The National Convention was a single chamber which ruled France between September 1792 and October 1795. It was the first republican government after the execution of King Louis XVI.

[128] Napoléon Bonaparte (1769–1821) was born in Corsica and became a French general, first consul of France (1799–1804), and emperor of the French (1804–15). Although Napoléon's conquests of Europe were ultimately unsuccessful (Spain 1808; Russia 1812; Waterloo, Belgium, 1815), he dramatically altered the face of Europe economically, politically, and legally (the Civil Code of 1804). many European countries suffered huge economic losses from Napoléon's occupation and the looting of museums and churches. Napoléon introduced a new form of economic warfare, the "continental system" (the Berlin Decree of 21 November 1806), which was designed to cripple Britain by denying its goods access to the European market. Napoléon did not seem to have a well thought out economic theory but his scattered remarks recorded in his Mémoires de Napoléon Bonaparte: manuscrit venu de Sainte-Hélène (Paris: Baudouin, 1821) show him to be an economic nationalist and strong protectionist.

[129] These are all French or English socialists: Étienne-Gabriel Morelly (ca. 1717-78), François Babeuf (alias "Gracchus") (1760-97), Robert Owen (1771-1858), Henri Saint-Simon (1760-1825), and Charles Fourier (1772-1837).

[130] Louis Blanc (1811-1882) was a journalist and historian who was active in the socialist movement. Blanc founded the journal Revue du progrès and published therein articles that later became the influential pamphlet L'Organisation du travail (1839). During the 1848 revolution he became a member of the provisional government, headed the National Workshops, and debated Adolphe Thiers on the merits of the right to work in Le socialisme; droit au travail, réponse à M. Thiers (1848). When his supporters invaded the Chamber of Deputies in May 1848 to begin a coup d'état in order to save the national Workshops from closing, they carried him around the room on their shoulders. He was arrested, lost his parliamentary immunity, and was forced into exile in England. Bastiat was one of the few Deputies to oppose the Chamber's treatment of Blanc.

[131] Louis Blanc, Organisation du travail. 4. ed. (Paris: Cauville freres, 1845). First edition 1839.

[132] Blanc, Organisation du travail, p. 126.

[133] Blanc, Organisation du travail, pp. 125-26.

[134] Blanc, Organisation du travail, p. xxiv.

[135] The block of left-wing Deputies called themselves the "dém-socs" short for "les démocrates socialistes" (socialist democrats, or social democrats).

[136] Victor Prosper Considerant (1808-93) was a follower of the socialist Charles Fourier and edited the most successful Fourierist magazine La Démocratie pacifiste (1843-1851). He was elected Deputy to represent Loiret in April 1848 and Paris in May 1849. The Fourierists advocated a utopian, communistic system for the reorganization of society. The population was to be grouped in "phalansteries"of about 1,800 persons, who would live together as one family and hold property and work in common. Considerant on a couple of occasions tried to set up state funded experimental communities based upon Fourierist principles but was unsuccessful. He was also an advocate of the "right to work" (the right to a job), an idea which the Economists opposed

[137] See for example: "Elle (La Révolution) a livré au laissez-faire le plus absolu, à la concurrence la plus anarchique, à la guerre la plus aveugle, et, par suite, au Monopole des grands capitaux l'Atelier social et économique tout entier, c'est-à-dire tout le domaine de la Production et de la Répartition des richesses" (It (the Revolution) has handed over to the most absolute form of laissez-faire, to the most anarchical form of competition, to the the most blind form of war, and as a consequence, to the Monopoly of big capital, the entire social and economic Workshop, that is to say the entire domain of the production and distribution of wealth) in Victor Considérant, Principes du socialisme: manifeste de la démocratie au XIXe siècle (Paris: Librairie phalansterienne, 1847), p. 4.

[138] Blanc, Organisation du travail, p. 6.

[139] Blanc, Organisation du travail, p. 60-61.

[140] Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877) was a conservative liberal lawyer, historian, politician, and journalist. During the July Monarchy he was briefly Minister for Public Works (1832-34), Minister of the Interior (1832, 1834-36), and Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs (1840). During the Revolution he wrote a book defending private property from a conservative point of view, De la propriété (1848) which was harshly criticised by Gustave de Molinari for being inadequate.

[141] When proposals to reform the education system came up for discussion in the Chamber in early 1850 Bastiat was unable to speak in the Chamber because of his failing voice, so he published his speech as a pamphlet and circulated it among the Deputies. In it he discusses Thiers' plans in some detail. See, Baccalaureate and socialism, in CW2, pp. 185-234.

[142] The French educational system was placed under the administrative control of the national University by a series of decrees issued by Napoleon in May 1806 and March 1808. These granted the University the power to set the number of schools, the level at which private schools were taxed, the curriculum for entry into professional schools (the Baccalaureate examination), pay rates for teachers and inspectors, and so on.

[143] Between May 1848 and July 1850 Bastiat wrote a series of 12 anti-socialist pamphlets, or what the Guillaumin publishing firm marketed in their Catalog as the "Petits pamphlets de M. Bastiat" (Mister Bastiat's Little Pamphlets), which included several for which Bastiat has become justly famous such as "The state" (Sept. 1848), The Law (July 1850), and What is Seen and What is Not Seen (July 1850). See, my essay "Bastiat's Anti-Socialist Pamphlets".

[144] Another Public Choice insight by Bastiat.

[145] Bastiat might have had in mind the practice of shepherds in his home Department of Les Landes to walk on stilts across the heathland, thus literally putting them far above the level of the sheep they were herding.

[146] He makes a similar point in his speech to the Friends of Peace Congress held in Paris in August 1849 that high taxes on the poor causes further economic misery which is an important factor leading to to revolution. See, "Bastiat's Speech on 'Disarmament and Taxes' (August 1849)," in Addendum: Additional Material by Bastiat, CW3, p. 527.

[147] He chastises the poet and statesman Lamartine in two public letters for having betrayed the classical liberal cause in his statements: "Letter from an Economist to M. de Lamartine. On the occasion of his article entitled: The right to a Job," JDE, February 1845, and "Second Letter to M. de Lamartine (on price controls on food)," JDE, Oct. 1846.

[148] "Déclaration des principes" (21 octobre 1847), (which originally appeared in le Bien public), republished in Alphonse de Lamartine, La politique de Lamartine, choix de discours et écrits politiques: précédé d'une étude sur la vie politique de Lamartine (Paris: Hachette & Cie., 1878), vol. 2, pp. 273-82. Quote on p. 280.

[149] (Note by Bastiat.) Political economy precedes politics; the former determines whether human interests are naturally harmonious or antagonistic, which the latter should understand before defining the functions of government.

[150] Pierre Laurent Barthélemy, comte de Saint Cricq (1772-1854). Saint Cricq was a protectionist Deputy who became Director General of Customs (1815), president of the Trade Council, Minister of Trade and Colonies (1828-29), and then appointed to the Peerage (1833).

[151] In this concluding section it is hard to translate the very terse term "une force publique" to best convey what Bastiat means here. He has in mind a government which is strictly limited in its powers, namely the use of force or coercion; which uses what little power it has solely to defend the rights to person, liberty, and property of each individual; that it never uses force to benefit a person or class at the expense of others. See my essay on Bastiat's idea of "Limited government".

[152] Bastiat was a justice of the Peace in his home town of Mugron in Les Landes He was appointed in May 1831 in spite of the fact he had no legal training, perhaps as a reward for his support of the July Revolution of 1830 which brought Louis Philippe to power. He got a reputation making for quick and fair decisions in local legal disputes.

[153] Armand, vicomte de Melun (1807-77) was a politician, philanthropist, and Catholic social reformer. He was elected deputy in 1843 and took up the cause of improving the social condition of workers by founding the Société d'économie charitable and the journal Les Annales de la charité (1847). Although he was instrumental in establishing private charities to achieve this end, he also was an active proponent of state intervention, because only the state, in his view, "was in a position to reach all miseries."

[154] There are there examples where Bastiat presents his own utopian vision for a liberal society: the first is in an economic sophism, ES2 11 "The Utopian" (LE, 17 Jan., 1847), in CW3, pp. 187-98, where Bastiat is made dictator for a day and is free to reform French society as he sees fit; the second is his response to Considerant in "Petition from an Economist" (March, 1848) in CW1, pp. 426-29 where he challenges Considerant to set up competing utopian, experimental communities (Considerant's is socialist and his is laissez-faire); and "Barataria" (early 1848), which is a parody of Cervantes' Don Quixote where Pancho is made dictator of the island a Barataria and urged to impose socialist reforms which he refuses to do.

[155] Bastiat says "l'humanité accomplira avec ordre, avec calme, lentement sans doute, mais avec certitude, le progrès, qui est sa destinée" which FEE translates as "mankind will achieve—slowly, no doubt, but certainly—God's design for the orderly and peaceful progress of humanity." This converts "progress, which is his destiny" into another reference to God - "God's design for the orderly and peaceful progress of humanity."

[156] Bastiat says "où la pensée de Dieu prévaut le plus sur les inventions des hommes" which FEE translated as "where the inventions of men are most nearly in harmony with the laws of God." This changes "the thought of God" into "the laws of God."

[157] Jacques de Vaucanson (1709–82) was a French inventor who was famous for creating automata that could play musical instruments to entertain the nobility. He was best known for his machines "The Flute Player" and "The Duck." Vaucanson also turned his hand to more-practical subjects by trying to automate the weaving of silk.

[158] Bastiat says "Il y a une physiologie sociale providentielle comme il y a une physiologie humaine providentielle" which FEE translated as "He (God) has provided a social form as well as a human form," leaving out the references to providence and inserting another reference to God.

[159] Fourier was a socialist and founder of the phalansterian school ("Fourierism"). Fourierism advocated a utopian, communistic system for the reorganization of society. The population was to be grouped in "phalansteries"of about 1,800 persons, who would live together as one family and hold property and work in common.