“The Law,” “The State,” and Other Political Writings, 1843–1850. Bastiat Frédéric

naturally and doubly improved without their moral condition being elevated and purified. We are therefore proceeding along the path of equality. I am not talking only about equality before the law, which is obviously implied since it excludes any form of injustice, but actual equality, both physical and moral, that results from the fact that the remuneration of labor increases in the same proportion as the income from capital decreases.

      If we cast an eye on the relationships of this people with other nations, we will see that they all favor peace. Arming itself against any form of aggression is its sole policy. It does not threaten nor is it threatened. It has no diplomatic service and still less any armed diplomatic force. Since by virtue of the principle of universal justice no citizen is able to call upon the law in his own self-interest to intervene to prevent another citizen from buying or selling abroad, the commercial relationships enjoyed by these people will be free and extensive. No one will argue that such relationships are not a

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      contributory factor to maintaining peace. They are a genuine and valuable system of defense, which will make arsenals, fortresses, navies, and standing armies almost pointless. Thus, all the forces of this people will be directed toward productive work, an additional cause of an increase in capital with all its consequences.

      It is easy to see that within this people, the government has been reduced to very slender proportions and the wheels of administration to their simplest form. What does this mean? Giving government the sole mission of maintaining justice between the citizens. Well, this can be done at little cost, and even in France today it costs only twenty-six million. Therefore this nation will to all intents and purposes not pay any taxes. It is even certain that civilization and progress will tend to make the government ever more simple and economic, since the more justice results from sound social habits, the more it will be apposite to reduce the force organized to impose it.

      When a nation is crushed by taxes, nothing is more difficult, and I might even say impossible, than to distribute them equitably. Statisticians and financiers no longer aspire to do so. However, there is something that is even more impossible, and that is to restrict the taxes to the rich. The state can have a great deal of money only by draining everybody’s resources, especially those of the masses. But in the simple regime to which I am devoting this humble argument, a regime that requires only a few tens of millions, nothing is easier than an equitable distribution. A single contribution, proportional to the property realized, raised in the family and at no cost within municipal councils, will be enough. There will be no more of the tenacious tax system or voracious bureaucracy that are the dank moss and vermin of the social body, no more of the indirect contributions, the money snatched by force or guile, the tax traps set on all the paths of work, the harassments that hurt us even more because of the freedoms they withdraw from us than because of the resources of which they deprive us.

      Do I need to show that order would be the inevitable result of a regime like this? Where would disorder come from? Not from destitution; it would probably be unknown in the country at least as a chronic occurrence; and where temporary and accidental suffering did on occasion occur, no one would dream of turning against the state, the government, or the law. At present, when it is accepted in principle that the state has been set up to distribute wealth to everyone, it is natural that it should be asked to account for this commitment. To fulfill it, the state increases the number of taxes and causes more destitution than it relieves. New demands from the public, new

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      taxes from the state, and we can go only from one revolution to the next. But if it was fully understood that the state should take from workers only what was absolutely essential to protect them from all forms of fraud and violence, I cannot see from what quarter disorder would arise.

      There are some who will think that society would be very dismal and gloomy under such a simple regime that is so easy to set up. What would become of great political action? What use would statesmen be? Would not national representation itself, reduced to improving the civil and penal codes, cease to offer the spectacle of passionate debates and dramatic combats to the avid curiosity of the public?

      This curious reservation comes from the idea that government and society are one and the same thing, an erroneous and disastrous idea if ever there was one. If they were really identical, simplifying government would in effect be to demean society.

      But would the mere fact that government would limit itself strictly to maintaining justice take something away from the initiative of the citizens? Is their action even today restricted within limits set by the law? Would it not be possible for them, provided that they did not depart from the principles of justice, to form an infinite variety of alliances or associations of all kinds—religious, charitable, industrial, farming, and intellectual, indeed not excluding even political associations like those of the followers of Fourier and Cabet? On the contrary, is it not certain that a wealth of capital would encourage all these activities? The only thing would be that each person would join voluntarily at his own risk. What people want, through the intervention of the state, is to share in the risks and expenses of the public.

      It will doubtless be said: “In this sort of regime, we can clearly see justice, economy, freedom, wealth, peace, order, and equality, but we do not see fraternity.”

      Once again, does the human heart contain only what the legislator has put there? Was it necessary for fraternity to issue from the electoral urn for it to appear on earth? Does the law forbid you to practice charity because it imposes only justice on you? Do you believe that women would cease to be selfless and have a heart open to pity because selflessness and pity were not commanded by the Code? And which is the article of the Code that tears young girls from the embraces of their mothers and propels them toward the distressing asylums in which the hideous wounds of the body and even more hideous wounds of the mind are displayed? Which is the article of the Code that determines vocations to the priesthood? To which written law or

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      government intervention are we to relate the founding of Christianity, the zeal of the apostles, the courage of the martyrs, the good deeds of Fénelon or Francis de Paule,⁹ the self-denial of so many men who in our time have risked their lives for the triumph of the popular cause.¹⁰

      Every time we judge an act to be good and fine, we want it to become more widespread, and this is natural. However, when we see within society a force before which everything bows down, our first thought is to have it collude with us in decreeing and imposing the act in question. But what is important is to know whether we are not in this way depreciating both the nature of this force and the nature of the act which from being voluntary has been made obligatory. As far as I am concerned, I cannot get into my head that the law, which is a force, can usefully be employed for anything other than curbing wrongs and maintaining rights.

      I have just described a nation in which this would be so. Let us now suppose that within this people the opinion became prevalent that the law

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      would no longer be limited to imposing justice but would aim to impose fraternity as well.

      What would happen? It will not take me long to tell you since the reader has only to redo the scenario by reversing the foregoing picture.

      First of all, a terrible uncertainty and a deadly insecurity would hang over the entire domain of private activity since fraternity can take on thousands of unknown forms and consequently thousands of decrees that cannot be anticipated. A host of draft regulations will threaten established relationships each day. In the name of fraternity some will demand the uniformity of earnings, and at a stroke the working classes will be reduced to the condition of Indian castes. Skill, courage, assiduity, and intelligence will not be enough to redress their situation; the lead weight of the law will weigh down upon them. This world will be for them like Dante’s Inferno: “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate chi!”¹¹ In the name of fraternity, another will demand that work be reduced to ten, eight, six, or four hours, and production will grind to a halt. As there will be no more bread to assuage hunger or cloth to keep out the cold, a third inspiration will demand the missing bread and cloth be replaced by obligatory