Section 8 - The Law - Frederic Bastiat

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Section eight. One of the strangestphenomena of our time, and one that
will probably be a matter of astonishmentto our descendants, is the doctrine which
is founded upon this triple hypothesis.The radical passiveness of mankind, the omnipotence
of the law, the infallibility ofthe legislator. This is the sacred symbol

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of the party that proclaims itself exclusivelydemocratic. It is true that it professes
also to be social. So faras it is democratic, it has an
unlimited faith in mankind. So faras it is social, it places mankind
beneath the mud our political rights underdiscussion. Is a legislator to be chosen?

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Oh? Then, the people possessscience by instinct. They are gifted
with an admirable discernment. Their willis always right. The general will cannot
err Suffrage cannot be too universal.Body is under any responsibility to society.
The will and the capacity to choosewell are taken for granted. Can the

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people be mistaken? Are we notliving in an age of enlightenment? What
are the people to be forever letabout by the nose? Have they not
acquired their rights at the cost ofeffort and sacrifice. Have they not given
sufficient proof of intelligence and wisdom?Are they not arrived at maturity? Are
they not in a state to judgefor themselves? Do they not know their

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own interest? Is there a manor a class who would dare to claim
the right of putting himself in theplace of the people, of deciding and
of acting for them. No?No, the people would be free,
and they shall be so. Theywish to conduct their own affairs, and
they shall do so. But whenonce the legislator is duly elected, then

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indeed the style of his speech alters. The nation is sent back into passiveness,
inertness, nothingness, and the legislatortakes possession of omnipotence. It is
for him to invent, for himto direct, for him to impel,
for him to organize. Mankind hasnothing to do but to submit. The

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hour of despotism has struck, andwe must observe that this is decisive for
the people just before, so enlightened, so moral, so perfect, have
no inclinations at all, or ifthey have any, these all lead them
downwards towards degradation. And yet theyought to have a little liberty. But

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are we not assured by mister considerant, that liberty leads fatally to monopoly.
Are we not told that liberty iscompetition and that competition, according to mister
Louis Blanc, is a system ofextermination for the people and of ruination for
trade. For that reason, peopleare exterminated and ruined in proportion as they

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are free. Take for examples,Cherland, Holland, England, and the
United States does not Mister Louis Blanctell us again that competition leads to monopoly,
and that for the same reason,cheapness leads to exorbitant prices, that
competition tends to drain the sources ofconsumption and diverts production to a destructive activity,

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That competition forces production to increase andconsumption to decrease. Whence it follows
that free people produce for the sakeof not consuming, that there is nothing
but oppression and madness among them,and that it is absolutely necessary for mister
Louis Blanc to see to it whatsort of liberty should be allowed to men.

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Liberty of conscience, but we shouldsee them all profiting by the permission
to become atheists. Liberty of education, but parents would be paying professors to
teach their sons, immorality and error. Besides, if we are to believe
mister Thierre's education, if left tothe national liberty would cease to be national,

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and we should be educating our childrenand the ideas of the Turks or
the Hindus, instead of which,thanks to the legal despotism of the universities,
they have the good fortune to beeducated in the noble ideas of the
Romans. Liberty of labor. Butthis is only competition, whose effect is
to leave all products unconsumed, toexterminate the people, and to ruin the

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tradesmen. The liberty of exchange.Ah, But it is well known that
the protectionists have shown over and overagain that a man will inevitably be ruined
when he exchanges freely, and thatto become rich it is necessary to exchange
without liberty liberty of association. Butaccording to the socialist doctrine, liberty and

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association exclude each other, for theliberty of men is attacked just to force
them to associate. You must see, then, that the socialist democrats cannot
in conscience allow men any liberty,because by their own nature they tend in
every instance to all kinds of degradationand demoralization. We are therefore left to

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conjecture in this case upon what foundationat universal suffrage is claimed for them with
so much importunity. The pretensions oforganizers suggest another question, which I have
often asked them, and to whichI am not aware that I ever received
an answer. Since the natural tendenciesof mankind are so bad that it is

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not safe to allow them liberty,how comes it to pass that the tendencies
of organizers are always good? Donot legislators and their agents form a part
of the human race? Do theyconsider that they are composed of different materials
from the rest of mankind. Theysay that society, when to itself,

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rushes to inevitable full destruction, becauseits instincts are perverse, they presume to
stop it in its downward course,and to give it a better direction.
They have therefore received from Heaven intelligenceand virtues that place them beyond and above
mankind. Let them show their titleto this superiority. They would be our

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shepherds, and we are to betheir flock. This arrangement presupposes in them
a natural superiority, the right towhich we are fully justified in calling upon
them to prove. You must observethat I am not contending against their right
to invent social combinations, to propagatethem, to recommend them, and to

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try them upon themselves at their ownexpense and risk. But I do dispute
their right to impose them upon usthrough the medium of the law, that
is, by force and by publictaxes. I would not insist upon the
cabitists, the four areasts, thePrudonians, academics, and the protectionists renouncing

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their own particular ideas. I wouldonly have them renounce the idea that is
common to them all, viz.That of subjecting us by force to their
own categories and rankings, to theirsocial laboratories, to their ever inflating bank,
to their Greco Roman morality, andto their commercial restrictions. I would

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ask them to allow us the facultyof judging of their plans, and not
to oblige us to adopt them ifwe find that they hurt our interests or
are repugnant to our consciences. Topresume to have recourse to power and taxation,
besides being oppressive and unjust, impliesfurther the pernicious assumption that the organized

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is infallible and mankind incompetent. Andif mankind is not competent to judge for
itself, why do they talk somuch about universal suffrage. This contradiction in
ideas is unhappily to be found alsoin facts. And whilst the French nation
has preceded all others in obtaining itsrights, or rather its political claims,

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this has by no means prevented itfrom being more governed and directed, and
imposed upon, and fettered and cheatedthan any other nation. It is also
the one of all others where revolutionsare constantly to be dreaded, and it
is perfectly natural that it should beso, so long as this idea is

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retained, which is admitted by allour politicians, and so energetically expressed by
Monsieur Louis Blanc in these words,society receives its impulse from power so long
as men consider themselves as capable offeeling, yet passive, incapable of raising
themselves by their own discernment and bytheir own energy, to any morality or

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well being. And while they expecteverything from the law. In a word,
while they admit that their relations withthe state are the same as those
of the flock with the shepherd.It is clear that the responsibility of power
is immense. Fortune and misfortune,wealth and destitution, equality and inequality all

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proceed from it. It is chargedwith everything, It undertakes, everything,
it does everything. Therefore, ithas to answer for everything. If we
are happy, it has a rightto claim our gratitude. But if we
are miserable, it alone must bearthe blame. Are not our persons and
property? In fact, at itsdisposal, is not the law omnipotent.

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In creating the educational monopoly, itis undertaken to answer the expectations of fathers
of families who have been deprived ofliberty. And if these expectations are disappointed,
whose fault is it? In regulatingindustry it has undertaken to make it
prosper, Otherwise it would have beenabsurd to deprive of its liberty. And

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if it suffers, whose fault isit? In pretending to adjust the balance
of commerce by the game of tariffsit undertakes to make commerce prosper. And
if so far from prospering it isdestroyed, whose fault is it? In
granting its protection to maritime armaments inexchange for their liberty? It is undertaken

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to render themselves sufficient if they becomeburdensome, whose fault is it. Thus
there is not a grievance in thenation for which the government does not voluntarily
make itself responsible. Is it anywonder that every failure threatens to cause a
revolution, And what is the remedyproposed to extend indefinitely the dominion of the

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law i e. The responsibility ofgovernment. But if the government undertakes to
raise and to regulate wages and isnot able to do it, If it
undertakes to assist all those who arein want and is not able to do
it. If it undertakes to providework for every labor and is not able
to do it. If it undertakesto offer to all who wish to borrow

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easy credit and is not able todo it. If in words that we
regret should have escaped the pen ofMonsieur de la Martine quote. The state
considers that its mission is to enlighten, to develop, to enlarge, to
strengthen, to spiritualizes, and tosanctify the soul of the people. End

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quote. If it fails in this, is it not obvious that after every
disappointment which alas is more than probable, there will be a no less inevitable
revolution. End of Section eight