How to Identify Legal Plunder

by Frédéric Bastiat

　　But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. Seeif the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives itto other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefitsone citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizenhimself cannot do without committing a crime.

　　Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evilitself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because itinvites reprisals. If such a law -- which may be an isolated case --is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and developinto a system.

　　The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly,defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state isobligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that thisprocedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thusable to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.

　　Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. Theacceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a wholesystem. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusionis an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; tomake plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.