Frédéric Bastiat: French Socialism
The topic discussed was heavily focused on the idea of legal plunder, and what that means regarding the socialist government in France. The first work we read, Government, was from The Bastiat Collection by Frédéric Bastiat in 1848. This essay depicts Bastiat begging for a definition of “Government”. He explains that the Government contradicts its laws and beliefs because it says that it will give to the people without taking from them. Bastiat explains that the resources must come from somewhere, and believing they aren’t is foolish. The idea of legal plunder is heavily taken on, and the definition of what our god-given rights are as humans. He seems to believe that any and every form of plunder is a plight against our basic human rights. Bastiat then goes on to mock the French Government, saying it is like saying “the child will feed the mother” (p. 101). With give and take, there is also a third variable that needs to be brought up. Bastiat says that the Government can take, restore, and then keep some for themselves. Every time that this happens, there is money taken out of the citizen's money circulation. He writes at the end summarizes his thoughts, “According to one of them, Government ought to do much, but then it ought to take much” (p. 107).
The Law by Frédéric Bastiat is a continuation and expansion of his first essay, “Government”. In this, he is heavily hitting on the topic of a person's rights and natural resources. He explains that every person has the natural right to protect themselves—even with force—over their person, liberty, and property. Bastiat claims that the “law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense” (p.3). He believes that the nation should be founded on the idea that every person has been given the resources and faculties to do everything that they must do to exist. He believes that everyone should live solely by the fruits of their own labor, and anything else is a form of plunder. Bastiat goes on to say that everyone should be able to enjoy doing whatever they want within the limits of their capabilities and faculties, and this should let people live and prosper. Yet there is a fatal issue with mankind that ruins his plans, and that is Bastiat’s fatal foe: human greed. He says that impossible to “introduce society to a greater change and a creator evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder” (p.7).
He says that the law can perform a legal act of plunder, where they take from one citizen and give to another. Taxes, tariffs, and laws, all are ways that the government forces people into giving up their property. Which, being one of his big three, is abhorrent in his viewpoint. He says that “all these plans as a whole—with their common aim of legal plunder—constitute socialism” (p.13). This is the heart of his issues with the government, the socialist ideals are legalizing plunder and taking away mankind's god-given rights. In his mind, there are three versions of plundering; partial plunder, universal plunder, and absence of plunder. He states that with no legal plunder, it is “the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic.”
The last reading by Frédéric Bastiat is an essay titled “The Candlemakers’ Petition”, which is a satirical essay mocking the restriction of foreign import. To do this, he uses the analogy of trying to get rid of a foreign competitor, who ends up being natural light, the sun itself. He claims at the end of his essay, that “the question, and we pose it formally, is whether what you desire for France is the benefit of consumption free of charge or the alleged advantages of onerous production” (p.73).
These works by Frédéric Bastiat take an extreme view against socialism. First, his topic of plunder is a strange extreme that doesn’t appear to be thought all the way through. In his attempt to have the person be completely and utterly self-sufficient, he takes it to the extreme that voluntary trade, is still a form of plundreing and should be abolished. In his attempt to abolish plunder of any type, legal, illegal, or voluntary, he doesn’t take into account the community and the realities of human beings throughout the entirety of history. In completely restricting taking part in others' labor, where is the community in this? And in the sense that voluntary trade is an act of plundering, where exactly does that fit in with his views that everything should be voluntary instead of compulsory? If he believes that schools and the like should be funded by the goods of people's hearts, instead of tax money, is this voluntary act going to be successful? If you create a society where everyone has to fend for themselves and do everything for themselves, where does the idea of community and thus generosity come into play? In “The Law” he claims that plundering is when a portion of wealth is transferred “without his consent and compensation and whether by force or fraud” to anyone who doesn’t own it. Yet in his essay “Government” he writes “what are we to think of a people who never seem to suspect that reciprocal plunder is no less plunder because it is reciprocal” (p.100). In this he appears to contradict himself, when he takes things to the farthest extreme, it tends to clash with other ideals he wants to come to pass.
To continue on the essay, Government, the video homework asked the question; is government the great fiction where everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else? I think that this idea is true in some extremes, yet clashes with the goal of a working community. If everyone was taking little bits off everyone else and everyone else was taking something from them, it is a way to create a well-functioning society. Should people be living without doing anything, waiting for someone elses money to land on their lap? No. But there also shouldn’t be a complete opposition to any form of “plundering” either, because it takes away society and a way to function together.
The other question that ties in with the previous, is; are you more or less in favor of profiting off labor of others? I think that there is a nuance that Frédéric Bastiat does not have or acknowledge. Is education funded out of the voluntary giving of society not the children then profiting off the labor of others? In his zealous attempts to fight socialism with an old wooden broom, Bastiat turns a blind eye to the interworkings of a voluntary giving-based community. In his fervent attempts to go against plundering and the ripping away of his god-given rights, he is creating a society that wouldn’t work, last, or function correctly longer than an unscrewed wheel on a fast-moving wheelbarrow.