Knight...thanks for the reminder! Socialism Is Legal Plunder This site should be of interest:
lexrex.com
Socialism Is Legal Plunder
Mr. de Montalembert has been accused of desiring to fight socialism by the use of brute force. He ought
to be exonerated from this accusation, for he has plainly said: "The war that we must fight against
socialism must be in harmony with law, honor, and justice."
But why does not Mr. de Montalembert see that he has placed himself in a vicious circle? You would use
the law to oppose socialism? But it is upon the law that socialism itself relies. Socialists desire to practice
legal plunder, not illegal plunder. Socialists, like all other monopolists, desire to make the law their own
weapon. And when once the law is on the side of socialism, how can it be used against socialism? For
when plunder is abetted by the law, it does not fear your courts, your gendarmes, and your prisons.
Rather, it may call upon them for help.
To prevent this, you would exclude socialism from entering into the making of laws? You would prevent
socialists from entering the Legislative Palace? You shall not succeed, I predict, so long as legal plunder
continues to be the main business of the legislature. It is illogical -- in fact, absurd -- to assume otherwise.
The Choice Before Us
This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it:
1. The few plunder the many.
2. Everybody plunders everybody.
3. Nobody plunders anybody.
We must make our choice among limited plunder, universal plunder, and no plunder. The law can follow
only one of these three.
Limited legal plunder: This system prevailed when the right to vote was restricted. One would turn back
to this system to prevent the invasion of socialism.
Universal legal plunder: We have been threatened with this system since the franchise was made
universal. The newly enfranchised majority has decided to formulate law on the same principle of legal
plunder that was used by their predecessors when the vote was limited.
No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day
of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too
inadequate).*
*Translator's note: At the time this was written, Mr. Bastiat knew that he was dying of tuberculosis.
Within a year, he was dead. |
