Bastiat The Law Study Guide [NOT DONE]

Life Is a Gift from God - What three gifts of God precede legislation? How is property gained by use of our talents? Where does law fit in the scheme of things?

- life, liberty, and property

- property can be gained by fulfilling his wants with ceaseless labor

- the law helps protect each person protect their three gifts from God

What Is Law? - What is the source of the collective right to protection? What uses of force pervert the law from its true purpose: organized justice?

- individual rights which cannot exist without the other

- using force to destroy the property of others

A Just and Enduring Government - What is the price of the state's intervention into the private affairs of its citizens? What does Bastiat mean by "state-created displacements?" (3-4) [7-8]

- the state can be blamed for misfortune

- the government's intervention in the three gifts from God makes them bear more responsibility than they ought to have to

The Complete Perversion of the Law - How has the law been used to destroy its own objective? Identify the two causes. (4-5) [8-9]

- the law has been applied to annihilating the justice it was supposed to maintain

- limiting and disposing of rights it was created to protect

- has placed the collective force to the exploit people, making plunder the law

two causes: stupid greed and false philanthropy

A Fatal Tendency of Mankind - What is the origin of the desire to live and prosper at the expense of others? The greed motive is examined in several sections: (5-20) [9-24]. (5-6) [9-10]

Nature of man that is primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain

What is the origin of property? Plunder? - What is the proper function of the law? What accounts for its almost universal perversion? (6-7) [10-11]

- to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work

- the law is made by man and the dominating force is entrusted to those who make the laws combined with satisfying wants with the least amount of effort as possible

Victims of Lawful Plunder - When plunder is organized by law, what is the natural reaction of the plundered classes? What is apt to happen when the tables are turned (topsy-turvy)? (7-8) [11-12]

- plundered classes try to enter by peaceful or revolutionary means into the making of the laws

- when tables are turned the once plundered establish a system of reprisals against other classes

The Results of Legal Plunder - What are some consequences of this perversion?

it erases from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice

The Results of Legal Plunder - What happens when law and morality contradict each other?

the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law

The Results of Legal Plunder - What happens to the distinction between justice and injustice?

people are able to hold erroneous beliefs that something is just because the law makes it so

The Fate of Non-Conformists - What happens to those who express doubts as to the morality of such institutions? How does government suppress free speech? Why does Bastiat believe that the result is to give "an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts? (9-10) [13-14]

- you are going to be seen as a dangerous innovator, and may shatter the foundation upon which society rests

- he believes it gives exaggerated

Who Shall Judge? - How do arguments over universal suffrage illustrate the problem? (10-11) [14-15]

It excludes three out of four people and creates a gross falsity. It means universal suffrage for those who are capable but then that asks the question who is capable?

The Reason Why Voting Is Restricted - Why is voting restricted? Why is incapacity a motive for exclusion? (11-12) [15-16]

- people who are prevented from voting are assumed to be incapable

- because it is not the voter alone who suffers the consequences of his vote, each vote has the power to touch the entire community

The Answer Is to Restrict the Law - Regardless of one's preferences concerning the extent of suffrage, what would cause the excitement over suffrage to die down? Why, if law were confined to its proper functions, would everyone's interest in the law be the same? (12-13) [16-17]

- everyones interest in the law would be the same

The Fatal Idea of Legal Plunder - When the law is used to redistribute property (plunder), why does every class grasp for power over it? (13-14) [17-18]

- everyone wants to use the law for their own profit

Perverted Law Causes Conflict - Under what circumstances will political questions become "prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing?" Which country was generally most successful in keeping the law in bounds around 1850? (14-15) [18-19]

- as long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose then everyone wants to participate in the making of the law

- the US

Slavery and Tariffs Are Plunder - What were the two issues in the United States around 1850 that always endangered the public peace? (15) [19]

Slavery and tariffs

Two Kinds of Plunder - What are the two kinds of plunder? Why is socialism not an example of illegal plunder? (15-16) [19-20]

- legal and illegal

- illegal plunder is not the kind of plunder that threaten society

The Law Defends Plunder - Why does the law sometimes defend plunder and participate in it?

To spare the beneficiaries shame, danger, and scruple which their actions would otherwise invoke.

The Law Defends Plunder - Why is the victim of plunder sometimes treated as a criminal?

in order to protect the people in charge

How to Identify Legal Plunder - How is legal plunder to be identified? What is the remedy? How is legal plunder defended? How may it be built into a whole system? (17-18) [21-22]

- see if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other person it does not

- it is claimed it is in order to protect ones rights and legal claim

- to attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it

Legal Plunder Has Many Names - Identify some of ways of organizing legal plunder. (18) [22]

Socialism Is Legal Plunder - How may socialism be opposed? (18-19) [22-23]

The Choice Before Us - What are the choices? (19-20) [23-24]

The Proper Function of the Law - What is the proper function of law? When does the use of force destroy justice? (19-21) [23-24]

The Seductive Lure of Socialism - Having disposed of "human greed," Bastiat moves on to a more subtle hazard: "false philanthropy" [love of man]. (21) [25]

Enforced Fraternity Destroys Liberty - Why is the word fraternity inseparable from the word voluntary? (21-22) [25-26]

Plunder Violates Ownership - What is the meaning of plunder? What is the nature of plunder as an idea, a system, and an injustice independent of personal intentions? (22-23) [26-27]

Three Systems of Plunder - Identify three varieties or systems of plunder. How did this popular aspiration to promote the general welfare through general plunder originate? (23-24) [27-28]

Law Is Force - As the Rev. T. Robert Ingram noted, law is the power to kill. In this light, why does Bastiat say that "the proper functions of the law cannot lawfully extend beyond the proper functions of force?" (24) [28]

Law Is a Negative Concept - Why is true law negative? Why is the positive use of law to regulate society dangerous? (24-25) [28-29]

The Political Approach - How do politicians attempt to remedy the ills of society, which may in fact be due to earlier plundering? (25-26) [29-30]

The Law and Charity, The Law and Education, The Law and Morals - Why does Bastiat criticize the use of the treasury for charitable, educational, and religious purposes? How does Bastiat respond to socialist objections to individualism? (26-28) [30-32]

A Confusion of Terms - How do the socialists confuse the distinction between government and society? (28-29) [32-33]