Frédéric Bastiat, the 19th-century French economist and philosopher, is best known for his defense of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government, and his ideas, especially at the time he conceived them were as profound as they were simple and elegant. He recognized the absolute need to protect the smallest minority in the world, the individual, and he clearly saw the numerous dangers of state overreach, of aggressive interventionism and of the slippery slope to authoritarianism. Arguably he would have been very disturbed to see the state of the world today and he would have deeply lamented that his teachings were not only forgotten by most, but openly contradicted, as modern governments chose to follow the extreme opposite path from the one Bastiat recommended.
In his work “The Law”, he warns against “legal plunder,” where the state uses its authority to take from some to benefit others, distorting justice and corrupting economic incentives. This has become so commonplace today, so ubiquitous that nobody even questions it anymore, which only emboldens the State to aggress and to trespass even more heavily and blatantly into private affairs and in the lives of the governed.
In his essay “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen”, Bastiat also brings up one of my favorite concepts: the broken window fallacy. He illustrated the idea through the parable of a shopkeeper’s window being broken by a vandal and bystanders arguing that this was actually a good thing for the economy, because it would create work for the glazier who would replace the window, and would then go on to spend his newly earned money elsewhere, thereby stimulating the economy in a chain-reaction kind of way. Bastiat conceded that this is indeed true; the “seen” effect of the broken window is the obvious economic activity that will result from it. However, he argues that the “unseen” cost behind it is far greater: The shopkeeper will have to spend money to repair his window, instead of spending it elsewhere. He could have spent it on upgrading his shop, which could have led to higher profits in the future, he could have bought new clothes or books for his kids, but instead he was forced to divert these funds just to reverse the damage, to “neutralize a negative”. This means that the net result is not economic gain, as the bystanders claimed, but a mere redirection of resources, with no new wealth created and that at the end of the day, the economy and society are worse off because of that broken window.
Politicians today seem totally incapable of understanding these simple, yet essential, concepts (or perhaps more likely, they do understand them, but choose to ignore them for personal gain and to further their own careers and agendas). This is why absurd policies like “green” taxes and penalties, or extreme stimulus packages and nearly non-stop money printing have become the norm. They intervene so deeply and so forcefully in the economy and they twist and contort free market forces to such an extent that they can then easily and plausibly claim that “capitalism doesn’t work” and that markets and society at large desperately need the wise guiding hand of the State to “correct” them and “keep them in check”.
The public’s memory is short, after all, so eventually, people begin to believe this narrative, and some even enthusiastically embrace it. This is how the majority becomes dependent on the State, expecting to be told what to do and how to act and what to think. The very idea of self reliance and individual financial sovereignty fades into oblivion and citizens look to their government for guidance and for support. This creates the vicious circle that we now seem to be stuck in, this infinite loop, where intervention leads to calls for more intervention, until the centralization of power is absolute and until no sense of individual rights, identity or opinions is left.
Most advanced economies are now in the final stages of this process, as the concentration of political power has reached levels unprecedented in recent memory. This represents a great challenge and serious threat to all free-thinking people who cherish their liberty and their right to self determination.
The State, especially in its current form, is the precise antithesis of everything Bastiat stood for and taught. In fact, it has most likely outgrown even his worst fears. It no longer merely “plunders legally”: it has actually institutionalized plunder as the very foundation of its existence. Through taxation, regulation, and perhaps most surreptitiously, though inflation, it systematically transfers wealth from productive individuals to itself and to those connected to it and serving its interests.
Bastiat wisely cautioned us that when the law is used not to protect life, liberty, and property, but instead it is twisted and weaponized to violate them, the result is not order but legalized injustice. This is what we are seeing unfold before our eyes today and it will only likely get worse, as governments continue to concentrate power and to become increasingly emboldened.
This is why the modern State should be judged by its actions and not its words and promises. In this light, it is clearly revealed as a predator and not the guardian it pretends to be. Its growth always comes at the expense of the individual citizen, its expansion requires the continuous erosion of liberty and all its security and protection guarantees actually put the people in more danger.
Therefore please always remember: “Government is a gang of thieves writ large.”
Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland. www.claudiograss.ch
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