I don’t know who Krzysztof Szczawinski is, and couldn’t pronounce his name if my life depended upon it. I only know he seems to be a pretty smart Polish fellow who calls himself a “fan of reason, liberty, and Western Civilization.” He has recently written, on “X,” an excellent summary of Frédéric Bastiat’s views on “law,” and I’d like to share his summary here and put it into an American context. But Mr. Szczawinski deserves the credit for the good things here, not me. Any mistakes are mine. I want that clear.
For those who might need a little introduction, Frédéric Bastiat was an early 19th-century French economist and philosopher, a strong believer in free trade and limited government. In other words, much in line with the thinking of Adam Smith, our Founding Fathers, the Austrian school of economics, Friedman, Sowell, Williams, and other champions of free market economics. His philosophy is highly regarded by those who prize free economic principles. If you’ve never heard of him, it’s because the Left hates his guts and doesn’t want you to know what he taught. And since the big government Left has dominated the American education system for generations now, Bastiat is not as well known as he should be. I think you will see why in the synopsis below.
Here is Mr. Szczawinski’s summary of Bastiat, with some (mostly unnecessary) comments from me afterwards.
“1. Every person has a natural right to defend their life, liberty, and property. Law is simply that individual right organized collectively – nothing more, nothing less.”
The whole purpose of law should be to protect people’s God-given rights to life, liberty, and property. As Bastiat (and our Founding Fathers) said, every human has an individual right to life, liberty, and property and to protect such. This is one reason for the 2nd Amendment. “Government” and “society” are the collective ways individuals organize themselves to protect those rights. That is, as our Founders taught us (or tried to), the purpose of government.
“2. The moment law goes beyond that — taking from some to give to others — it has stopped being law and become legal plunder.”
This is, of course, where most governments go, and have gone, wrong. Law is for protecting virtuous citizens; it is not a club against them to be used by politicians to buy votes and forcefully redistribute resources.
“3. Legal plunder isn’t exceptional. It’s the normal operating mode of most governments most of the time: subsidies, redistribution, bailouts – each one a faction using state force to extract what it couldn’t get by voluntary agreement.”
Bastiat knew, as our Founders did, what governments in the past had done, i.e., used their citizen-given power to plunder those citizens for the benefit of the government. It was as evident to Bastiat in 1850 as it was to America’s Founders in 1776. Our Founders wrote a Constitution specifically designed to prevent this, but sadly, they failed.
“4. The test is simple: if the same act performed by a private individual would be called theft, it’s theft when the state does it, too. The badge doesn’t change the nature of the act.”
That is exactly the truth, and needs no comment from me.
“5. Two wrong responses to legal plunder: give everyone the right to plunder (socialism), or let the current plunderers keep going (cronyism). The only legitimate answer is to strip law back to its actual function.”
“Cronyism” has not been unknown in American history, and indeed, was what our government did for much of its history — give benefits to those whom the party in power favored. It often leads to civil war in history, and it led to one in America. The Democrats today, of course, are not only practicing cronyism, but also want to introduce socialism. That would give the government even more power, which is exactly what they want.
As Bastiat said, the only answer to this is to return law to its legitimate function; in America, to return to the Constitution the way it was written and intended. But that isn’t going to happen.
“6. Once people see law as a machine for taking rather than protecting, everyone floods politics to control it – because whoever runs the machine can point it at their enemies. This is why Bastiat defined the state as “that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” Lobbying and corruption aren’t aberrations. They’re the logical conclusion of a law that plunders.”
Power corrupts, and government has power. Evil, selfish people want to control the government for their own benefit. The last statement about lobbying and corruption (waste and fraud) is especially perceptive.
“7. Bastiat isn’t describing what the law is. He’s describing what it’s supposed to be – and showing, relentlessly, how far the thing calling itself law has drifted from that. Real law protects, not takes. Everything else wearing the name “law” is organized force, plunder, and theft in disguise.”
Frédéric Bastiat was exactly right. Our Founding Fathers knew it before he did, and they told us the same thing, in various ways and writings. And again, they wrote a Constitution designed especially to prevent government from practicing “legal plunder.” Thomas Jefferson put it this way: “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” This is exactly what Frédéric Bastiat was talking about.
All law, all of our rights, ultimately come from God, our “Creator.” They must do so, for only He is perfectly just and wise. If we look at legal systems created without His wisdom and guidance, we see the utter chaos such has produced. America has, for a generation now, left God out of our laws, and we are not better, or freer, because of it.
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