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The Law: The Classic Blueprint for a Free Society (Book/ Paperback)

Product Overview

The Law has been acclaimed for more than a century as the classic moral defense of individual liberty and limited government. Here is the timeless message of immutable principle – in the immortal words of one of history’s most courageous thinkers and brilliant writers.

In The Law, Bastiat states that "each of us has a natural right - from God - to defend his person, his liberty, and his property". The State is a "substitution of a common force for individual forces" to defend this right. The law becomes perverted when it punishes one's right to self-defense in favor of another's acquired right to plunder. Bastiat defines two forms of plunder: "stupid greed and false philanthropy". Stupid greed is "protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits" and false philanthropy is "guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works". Monopolism and Socialism are legalized plunder which Bastiat emphasizes is legal but not legitimate.

About the Author(s)

Claude Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly. He was notable for developing the important economic concept of opportunity cost.