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Module 2 Essay Resubmission: An Op-Ed on “Petition”, “Law”, and “Government” In The Bastiat Collection.

Alexis Del Angel
School of Business, Oklahoma State University – Stillwater
EEE 2083: Entrepreneurship & Society
Professor Steve Trost
2.20.2023

Module 2 Essay Resubmission: An Op-Ed on “Petition”, “Law” and “Government” In The Bastiat Collection.

This is my resubmitted opinion piece relating to the three essays/critiques from the Bastiat Collection. Those being “Petition”, “Law”, and “Government.” I will summarize the first and following with the third. Then, a more in-depth summary and opinion of “Law” will follow.

On: “Petition” By Claude-Frederic Bastiat In The Bastiat Collection

Opening up with a hilarious stretching of political discourse and practice within an economical point of view of candlemakers (& more) and their sector in the market. Well, should I say, the Manufacturers of Candles, Waxlights, Lamps, Candlelights, Street Lamps, Snuffers, Extinguishers, and the Producers of Oil, Tallow, Resin, Alcohol, and, Generally, of Everything Connected with Lighting as Bastiat (2011, p. 227) so eloquently put it. We will say “Petition” for short. Bastiat hilariously takes the role of the tradespeople while under the pretense of showing how far-reaching the effects of the law and government can be, let alone if they are to be manipulated by lobbying group.

Illustrating this with a seemingly logical and fool-proof lobbying of tariffs to protect domestic industries. This reaches a comical head when the tradespeople calling upon the government to have the people

“close all their windows, dormer-windows, skylights, outside and inside shutters, curtains, blinds, bull’s-eyes; in a word, of all openings, holes, chinks, clefts, and fissures, by or through which the light of the sun has been in use to enter houses, to the prejudice of the meritorious manufactures with which we flatter ourselves we have accommodated our country (Bastiat, 2011, p. 228)”.

As a way to combat the monopoly the sun has (yes, the sun).

What Bastiat is getting at is something really forward-looking for someone in the 19th century to notice and call out. It is entertaining and heartwarming to know even intellectuals of the past had the ability to spit vicious satire. The best things are the underlying hints the composition has. The idea of contradictory groups within a society, how far law is involved, and what the government has a say in.

On: “Government” By Claude-Frederic Bastiat In The Bastiat Collection

The “Government" is Bastiat at his most direct in my opinion. Bastiat waxes poetic on the philosophical meaning of the word, what it actually is, and what it actually does or better yet should do. He mentions what the common man of the time would say is the government jobs to establish a general understanding of what will be critiqued and to expose their contradictory nature. Further describing the government as two hands; one soft, one hard. The idea being one that gives and one that takes as the takes/imposes labor form one to the other. Bastiat (2011) then mentions this creates a dilemma, if a government can does not grant the requests made to it, it is accused of weakness, ill-will and incapacity (p. 102) while the reverse obligates it to tax. This causes a downward spiral into hopes and promises being placed to/from the government and never being fulfilled. Eventually leading to another revolution. Closing out, he says the government is more of an abstract thing,

“people organized, not to be an instrument of oppression and mutual plunder among citizens; but, on the contrary, to secure to everyone his own, and to cause justice and security to reign. (Bastiat, 2011, p. 107)”

I fundamentally agree, particularly when we distill what the government is as entity and social construct, as well as what it actually can provide us equally, ethically, and universally as a citizen. I find myself believing it can only provide two things: security in my internal invests within the country and/or a semblance of unity for ease of human development between the country lands. Thinking pessimistically, it can hardly provide those two, our current recession and Ukraine war are two real-world current examples that show us how tumultuously it can be to simply be a government. This instability is inherent to the world we live in, leading me to agree with Bastiat.

On: “Law” By Claude-Frederic Bastiat In The Bastiat Collection

The Law is Bastiat’s general critique of…well, the law. More specifically, the law as it pertains to what it is, what its responsibility is, and its ethical and moral implications. Opening with the purpose of the law, Bastiat says there has been a perversion of it and what was once used as a tool for justice has become a tool enacting injustice instead. The perversion coming from the logic that if one person is not able to force someone else than why should a group be able to. Saying this casts a lens on why exactly do we even have to follow laws, whether or not some group even has the right to enact and force laws onto us. After all, if not someone why then some group?

Bastiat states this has created a form of legal plunder, a group gets to take form another but now it is baked into the law. Believing man’s natural greed and selfishness as the driving force of this. As those same individual men make up the group with the right to enact and force laws to then partake in legal plunder. He specifically mentions that

“When a portion of wealth passes out of hands of him who has acquired it, without his consent, and without compensation, to him who has not created it, whether by force or by artifice, I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is perpetrated (Bastiat, 2011, p. 63)”

Affirming Bastiat’s position that regardless of portion, any portion of wealth wrongfully taken is an act of plunder.

This legal plunder spread so rapidly and pervasively because it had created a sort of cyclical system, where when the plundered classes take to creating laws they do so with reparations and retributions in my mind. They should be trying to expunge the plunder itself. Bastiat (2011) goes as far as to call those groups idiots, with eloquence of course, stating in order to break the cycle one would suppose “them to have enlightenment, which they cannot have (p. 79.)” Apparently, we are wrong to believe in the general intelligence of the people. Yet, he latter mentions that the people of the world would not cease to create with the abolishment of laws. I suppose defining a general intelligence for mankind is not needed for his thought experiments.

He eventually ends up at the distillation that law is justice. Although not in the direct sense, but as an inverse, law is the prevention of injustice. Because when applied universally, as best as one could, the legislator, the common man, the idea itself, religious entities and establishments, fraternity and even the ideal are all inequitable for the individuals’ pursuits within liberty, rights, and life as a fellow citizen. There will always be the plunderer and the plundered. I believe this inherently reduces the ability for a government to actually do something just.

I find the critiques themselves quite accurate and really ahead of their time. This is from the 1850s and reads like it could’ve been released twenty years ago. I am conflicted on how Bastiat ends the essay. Stating the 19th century version of:

Yeah bro, just, like, you know, go out and do your own thing. Screw the system. Live and love God.

Okay maybe it is not that simple, but he does say away with virtually all traditional forms of human societal structure, especially from our 21st century perspective. As society has seemingly only further intrenched itself in this law approach and rhetoric.

Some of the notable critiques being the plundered group looking to continue the cycle, the idea that if as an individual we cannot impose our rights on others than why can a group do so, and legislators seem to see themselves as separate group from mankind. I like the plundered criticism because it really shows how people can sometimes create the cycle of oppression themselves. Maybe we are just taking turns marginalizing each other for the benefit of the other. It is a sad but easy to believe thought. The expression “crabs in a bucket” comes to mind. I enjoy the calling of attention to the individual’s rights vs the groups as it really makes us ask, why does this group get to decide and enforce things about my life. Lastly, legislators seeing themselves as a separate group is just something I found funny to call out. Because as Bastiat calls out himself, he is basically putting himself in a similar position by critiquing incessantly and so thoroughly. Dangerously close to being a critic who was a failed artist, so to speak but his self-awareness tells us otherwise.

Conclusion

These were entertaining reads, dense, a bit repetitive and melodramatic but still a great time. Bastiat’s critical look at the Government, Law, and its implications really incredibly in-depth and opened my eyes to new critical lens from which to view the government. I learned a lot and find myself wanting to dig further into Bastiat’s work. Overall, I agree with the criticisms, I do not know if I agree with the readings being only criticisms but that is more of a literary critique regardless.

References

Bastiat, Claude-Frederic (2011). Petition of the Manufacturers of Candles, Waxlights, Lamps, Candlelights, Street Lamps, Snuffers, Extinguishers, and the Producers of Oil, Tallow, Resin, Alcohol, and, Generally, of Everything Connected with Lighting. in The Bastiat Collection, 2nd ed., 227-232. essay, Ludwig von Mises Institute

Bastiat, Claude-Frederic (2011). The Law. In The Bastiat Collection, 2nd ed, 95-107. essay, Ludwig von Mises Institute

Bastiat, Claude-Frederic (1988). Government. In The Bastiat Collection, 2nd ed., 49-94. essay, Ludwig von Mises Institute