Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways; hence, there are an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, bonuses, subsidies, incentives, the progressive income tax, free education, the right to employment, the right to profit, the right to wages, the right to relief, the right to the tools of production, interest free credit, etc., etc. And it the aggregate of all these plans, in respect to what they have in common, legal plunder, that goes under the name of socialism
—Frederic Bastiat
Topics: Welfare
Each of us has a natural right—from God to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties?
—Frederic Bastiat
Topics: Property
If you wish to prosper, let your customer prosper…
When people have learned this lesson, everyone will seek his individual welfare in the general welfare. Then jealousies between man and man, city and city, province and province, nation and nation, will no longer trouble the world.
—Frederic Bastiat
Topics: Business
All men’s impulses, when motivated by legitimate self-interest, fall into a harmonious social pattern.
—Frederic Bastiat
The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.
—Frederic Bastiat
Topics: Government, Welfare
A science of economics must be developed before a science of politics can be logically formulated. Essentially, economics is the science of determining whether the interests of human beings are harmonious or antagonistic. This must be known before a science of politics can be formulated to determine the proper functions of government.
—Frederic Bastiat
Topics: Economy
But how is…legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals.
—Frederic Bastiat
Topics: Justice, Welfare
If goods don’t cross borders, armies will.
—Frederic Bastiat
Topics: War
When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.
—Frederic Bastiat
Topics: Soldiers
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Montesquieu French Political Philosopher
- Alexis de Tocqueville French Historian, Political Scientist
- Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand French Writer, Statesman
- Margaret Fuller American Journalist, Feminist
- Honore de Balzac French Novelist
- James Mill Scottish Philosopher
- Henry George American Economist
- John Stuart Mill English Philosopher, Economist
- Harriet Martineau English Sociologist
- Edgar Quinet French Intellectual
Leave a Reply