Frederic Bastiat on socialist anthropology

Here is an absolute must read: Frederic Bastiat's tract entitled, "The Law." Frederic Bastiat was a French economist who lived in the first half of the nineteenth century, who was bold enough to challenge the followers of the great Rousseau ("who consider themselves far advanced, but whom I consider twenty centuries behind the times," writes Bastiat). He challenged the fundamental assumptions of socialism, and wrote an essay repudiating all forms of government intervention, including "protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works," all of which he says "are always based on legal plunder, organized injustice." According to Bastiat, the main purpose of the Law was to banish all plunder from a society, which he defined as that "fatal desire" in mankind "to live and prosper at the expense of others." Instead, he points out, the Law ends up being used for the opposite purpose: either that the few should profit at the expense of the many, or that they many should profit at the expense of the few; or that everyone should profit at the expense of everyone else.

At the heart of his argument is a fundamental objection to the intellectual assumptions of his day concerning the nature of human beings. Consider, first of all, this critique:

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.

"We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. [Ironic from today's perspective, isn't it?] We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."

This confusion between state and society is connected to a view of the human being as "inert," so the the relationship between the intellectual and society is like that "between a potter and clay":

"Present-day writers--especially those of the socialist school of thought--base their various theories upon one common hypothesis: They divide mankind into two parts. People in general--with the exception of the writer himself--from the first group. The writer, all alone, forms the second and most important group. Surely this is the weirdest and most conceited notion that ever entered a human brain!

"In fact, these writers on public affairs begin by supposing that people have within themselves no means of discernment; no motivation to action. The writers assume that people are inert matter, passive particles, motionless atoms, at best a kind of vegetation indifferent to its own manner of existence. They assume that people are susceptible to being shaped--by the will and hand of another person--into an infinite variety of forms, more or less symmetrical, artistic, and perfected."

Bastiat's view was quite different. In his view, human productivity and cooperation were tendencies given to us through Providence, and were not the product of the state. Order was achieved through spontaneous forces, which no government had the power to create or control.

This essay by Bastiat seems as timely as ever. I do not think the intellectual climate in the West has ever moved toward full acceptance of the idea that society and the state are fundamentally distinct categories. Our political discourse is dominated by the assumption that government "manages" society, and it is taken for granted that we must compete with one another for representation in government if we want our slice of the pie. I challenge everyone to rethink these assumptions, and stop pretending that our modern problems are so very different from the problems faced in centuries past!

The Party of Life: the liberalism of F. A. Hayek

The postscript to Friedrich Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty is entitled, "Why I Am Not a Conservative." For Americans aware of Hayek's influence on political developments of the past half-century or so, this title may be astonishing. Aren't conservatives the very people most influenced by and most appreciative of Hayek's work? How can he devote a whole essay to why he isn't one of them?

The whole essay is indeed confusing for Americans, and from the tone of the essay one senses that Hayek was exasperated at the confusion Americans have created over the terms "liberal" and "conservative." As I've written before, the two terms scarcely mean in American today what they have traditionally meant; the term "liberal" has probably suffered more distortion even than "conservative." For this reason most Americans reading the essay will probably experience a great deal of confusion over who exactly Hayek is talking about, excepting those who are very knowledgeable about the history of ideas. Nevertheless, this is precisely what makes the essay so relevant. It is, in some sense, Hayek's warning not to do exactly what we have done: we have so closely associated his ideas with American conservatism that we can't tell what he was actually saying.

Did you know you voted for socialism?

Despite polls showing that Americans did not approve of this health care bill, Rev. Al Sharpton insists that the American people wanted this all along. Obama ran on a socialist platform, he says (apparently not troubled by that idea). The people overwhelmingly voted for Obama. Therefore, the people overwhelmingly voted for socialism.

Sadly, he's right. Whether or not people knew that's what they were voting for, that's what they voted for. This is why mere words like "change" and "hope" as well as phrases like "yes we can" serve no purpose but to hypnotize people into voting for a disaster.

Next time, America, remember that policies matter, and they're the only thing that matters when it comes to elections. It doesn't matter how inspiring or how charismatic a politician is. All that matters is what he will do.

And what Obama has done is apparently not going to go through without a fight from several states. (See also this article.)

A victory for the American people? It sounds more like a civil war.