Law and Charity Are Not the Same

by Frédéric Bastiat

  The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder themof their property, even though the law may be acting in aphilanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect persons and property.

  Furthermore, it must not be said that the law may be philanthropicif, in the process, it refrains from oppressing persons and plunderingthem of their property; this would be a contradiction. The law cannotavoid having an effect upon persons and property; and if the law actsin any manner except to protect them, its actions then necessarilyviolate the liberty of persons and their right to own property.

  The law is justice -- simple and clear, precise and bounded.Every eye can see it, and every mind can grasp it; for justice ismeasurable, immutable, and unchangeable. Justice is neither more thanthis nor less than this.

  If you exceed this proper limit -- if you attempt to make the lawreligious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, literary,or artistic -- you will then be lost in an uncharted territory, invagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in amultitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose itupon you. This is true because fraternity and philanthropy, unlikejustice, do not have precise limits. Once started, where will youstop? And where will the law stop itself?


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