“The Law,” “The State,” and Other Political Writings, 1843–1850. Bastiat Frédéric
minds who believe that they possess it. Well, I ask you, is it genuine fraternity that has recourse to force to impose or at least risk imposing error? Diversity is feared and stigmatized as anarchy, but it is the inevitable result of the very diversity of intelligent minds and convictions and besides, it tends to be reduced by discussion, study, and experience. In the meantime, by what right is one system valued above the others by law or political fiat? Here again, we find that this alleged fraternity, which invokes the law or legal constraint, is in opposition to justice.
I could make the same remarks with regard to the press, and in truth I find it hard to understand why those who demand a uniform education
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imposed by the state do not also demand the same thing for the press. The press is a form of education too. The press allows discussion because it lives by it. It therefore also contains diversity and anarchy. Why not, in accordance with these ideas, create a ministry of publicity and make it responsible for inspiring all the books and journals in France? Either the state is infallible, in which case we could not do better than to submit to it the entire domain of intelligent thought, or it is not, in which case it is no more rational to hand over education to it than to the press.
If I consider our relationships with foreigners, in this case, too, I see no rule except justice, so prudent, solid, and acceptable to all that it is capable of becoming a law. To submit these relationships to the principle of legal, obligatory fraternity is to decree perpetual and universal war, for it would become an obligation for us to place our forces and the blood and treasure of our citizens at the service of anyone who claimed them with regard to any cause that arouses the sympathy of the legislator. What a singular form of fraternity! A long time ago Cervantes personified its ridiculous vanity.
But it is above all with regard to work that the dogma of fraternity seems to me to be dangerous, where, contrary to the idea that is the essence of this sacred word, plans are made to incorporate it into our codes, accompanied by the penal dispositions that sanction any positive law.
Fraternity always implies the idea of selflessness and sacrifice, and because of this it arouses tears of admiration whenever it occurs. If it is said, as some socialists do say, that acts of fraternity are profitable to their author, there is no need to decree them; men do not need a law to induce them to make a profit. Besides, this point of view degrades and much tarnishes the notion of fraternity.
Let us therefore leave it its character, summed up in these words: a voluntary sacrifice inspired by fraternal sentiment.
If you make fraternity a legal prescription, whose acts are prescribed and made obligatory by the industrial code, what remains of this definition? Only one thing: sacrifice, but an involuntary sacrifice, one that is forced, determined by a fear of punishment. And in good faith, what is a sacrifice of this nature, imposed on one person for the benefit of another? Is this fraternity? No, it is injustice. The word must be spoken; it is legal plunder, the worst form of plunder, since it is systematic, permanent, and unavoidable.
What was Barbès doing when in the session on 15 May he introduced a tax of a billion in favor of the suffering classes? He was putting your principle into practice. This is so true that the proclamation by Sobrier, which
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comes to the same conclusion as the speech by Barbès, starts with this preamble: “The consideration that fraternity must no longer be an empty word but must be revealed through actions entails the following: capitalists, identified as such, will pay, etc.”
You who are protesting, what right have you to blame Barbès and So-brier? What have they done apart from being slightly more consistent than you and taking your own principle a little further?
I say that when this principle is introduced into legislation, even when it first makes just a timid appearance, it paralyzes capital and labor, for nothing guarantees that it will not develop further indefinitely. Do we need so many reasoned arguments to show that where men are no longer certain of enjoying the fruit of their work they no longer work or work less? You should be fully aware that insecurity is the major cause of paralysis of investment. It drives investment away and prevents it from building up, and then what happens to those very classes whose sufferings are allegedly being relieved? I sincerely think that this phenomenon alone is enough to make the most prosperous of nations descend rapidly to a level below that of Turkey.
The sacrifice imposed on some in favor of others through the operation of taxes obviously loses its fraternal character. Who therefore gains the merit for it? Is it the legislator? The only cost to him is casting a ball into an urn. Is it the tax collector? He obeys for fear of losing his job. Is it the taxpayer? He pays in self-defense. To whom therefore will be attributed the merit that selflessness implies. Where is the morality to be found?
Extralegal plunder arouses total aversion and turns against itself all the forces of public opinion, making them agree with the notions of justice. Legal plunder, on the other hand, is accomplished without disturbing consciences, which leads only to a weakening of a moral sense within a people.
With courage and prudence, we can avoid the plunder that is contrary to law. Nothing can protect us from legal plunder. If someone tries it, what dreadful sight is set before society? A plunderer armed by the law against a victim resisting the law.
When on the pretext of fraternity the law imposes mutual sacrifices on citizens, human nature does not for this reason lose its rights. Each person strives to contribute little to the sacrificial heap and to receive a great deal from it. However, in this struggle, are the most unfortunate the ones that gain most? Certainly not, those who gain the most are the most influential and the greatest schemers.
Are union, agreement, and harmony at least the fruit of fraternity as we
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have understood it? Doubtless, fraternity is the divine chain that in the long run will bind in unity all individuals, families, nations, and races. But this is on condition that it remains as it is, that is to say, the most free, spontaneous, voluntary, meritorious, and religious of sentiments. Its mask will not accomplish the prodigy, and it will be in vain that legal plunder adopts the name of fraternity with its features, formulae, and insignia. Legal plunder will always be just a principle of discord, confusion, unjust claims, terror, deprivation, inertia, and hatred.
A serious objection is made. We are told: “It is true that freedom and equality before the law constitute justice. But strict justice remains neutral between the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the scholar and the ignorant, the owner and the proletarian, the fellow countryman and the foreigner. However, since self-interests are by nature antagonistic, leaving men their freedom and allowing only just laws to intervene between them is to sacrifice the poor, the weak, the ignorant, the proletarian, and the athlete who presents himself unarmed for the combat.”
“What could result from this freedom of production on which so much hope had been banked,” said M. Considérant, “from this celebrated principle of free competition, which was thought to be so strongly endowed with the characteristics of democratic organization? The only result would be collective enthrallment of the propertyless masses, who are also without manufactured weapons or the wherewithal of production or education, in a word, their general subservience to the class that is well endowed with power over production and well armed to boot. It is said that ‘the lists are open, each individual is called to combat and the conditions are the same for all combatants.’ Very well, only one thing has been forgotten, and that is that on this great battlefield some are educated, seasoned, equipped, and armed to the teeth, that they possess a major procurement system, equipment, ammunition, and weapons of war and occupy all the positions; whereas the others are deprived, naked, ignorant, and famished and, in order to scrape a daily living for themselves and their wives and children, are obliged to implore their opponents themselves to give them work of sorts and a meager wage.”12
What, are we comparing work with war? These arms that are being called capital, which consist in procurements of all sorts and which can never be
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employed