Frédéric Bastiat on Government
“The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at
the expense of everyone else.” ― "The State" in Journal des
débats (1848) par. 5.20
“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. 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.” ― The Law
“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made
laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and
property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the
first place.” ― The Law
“But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See
if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it
to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits
one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen
himself cannot do without committing a crime.” ― The Law
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society,
over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system
that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” -
Economic Sophisms, 2nd series (1848), ch. 1 Physiology of
plunder ("Sophismes économiques", 2ème série (1848),
chap. 1 "Physiologie de la spoliation")