T H E    L A W

By

Frederic Bastiat

Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state.  They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone. – Frederic Bastiat

The Law (by Frederic Bastiat)

It is said that if special recognition is to be given a book, a reviewer will predict that it will still be read “a hundred years from now.”  That was said by a reviewer over 50 years ago and has been the case with The Law.  The Law, first published as a pamphlet in June 1850, is now well over a hundred years old.  Yet the truths found within the pages of this book seem to be eternal—as fresh and as cutting edge today as when it was first written.

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist, statesman, and author who did most of his writing during the years just before and immediately following the Revolution of February 1848.  France was rapidly turning to complete socialism.  Bastiat explained how socialism, legal plunder, degenerates into communism.

This is an engaging, quick-read book—only 75 pages.  If you can read only half of the book, you will have benefited.

Within its pages, you will. . .

• See if the law can benefit one citizen at the expense of another (by doing what the citizen himself cannot do), without committing a crime.
• Learn how the law has become an instrument of injustice.
• Study the choices before us:  This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all.  We must make our choice among limited plunder, universal plunder, and no plunder.  There are only three ways to settle it: (1) The few plunder the many, (2) Everybody plunders everybody, or (3) Nobody plunders anybody. 

Suitable for Adults and Young Adults.

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to read The Law in its entirety (PDF version).