The Results of Legal Plunder

by Frédéric Bastiat

　　It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and agreater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrumentof plunder.

　　What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would requirevolumes to describe them all. Thus we must content ourselves withpointing out the most striking.

　　In the first place, it erases from everyone's conscience thedistinction between justice and injustice.

　　No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certaindegree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make themrespectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizenhas the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losinghis respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence,and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them. Thenature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that,in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the samething. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe thatanything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread thatmany persons have erroneously held that things are "just" because lawmakes them so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacredto many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree andsanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders notonly among those who profit from them but also among those who sufferfrom them.