Frédéric Bastiat’s The Law: Why a 175-Year-Old Warning Still Describes Modern PowerThe Last WireWhen Frédéric Bastiat published The Law in 1850, he was not writing for academics or philosophers. He was writing in alarm. France had just endured revolution, regime collapse, and the seductive promise that the state could reorganize society into fairness. Bastiat saw where this road led. His argument was simple, precise, and unforgiving. Law exists to protect life, liberty, and property. When law goes beyond that role, it becomes an instrument of legalized theft.
That warning now reads less like theory and more like diagnosis.
Bastiat begins with a moral foundation that modern politics often avoids. Individuals possess natural rights before government exists. Life, liberty, and property are not granted by the state. The state is formed to protect them. Law is legitimate only insofar as it serves that protective function. The moment law is used to take from one person and give to another, even for noble reasons, it ceases to be justice. It becomes plunder with paperwork.
This is where Bastiat becomes uncomfortable for modern readers. He does not deny compassion. He does not deny poverty. He denies that coercion is a moral substitute for virtue. When the state forces one citizen to support another, Bastiat argues, it corrodes both. The giver loses freedom. The recipient loses dignity. The law loses legitimacy.
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