Jay's Tuesday Free Enterprise Quote

"If everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing."                        Frederic Bastiat

If you have never heard of Bastiat you should!  He was a terrific classical liberal economist (the equivalent of a conservative now...) living from 1801-1850.  His most famous book was The Law.  His thesis in The Law is "each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property".

Prescient, he says among other things, that ill-intended governments perform two types of plunder, "stupid greed and false philanthropy."

He defines stupid greed as "protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits".  Does the government guarantee profits?  Yes, and most particularly for itself.

The kicker is his definition of false philanthropy -- and this is his prescience coming to fore -- "guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works".

So there you go!  Gee, who is he warning us Americans about?

According to Bastiat, what is socialism? He calls socialism "legalized plunder."  He says that while it may be "legal" (the government can institute anything and call it legal) he emphasizes that it is NOT legitimate.

Oh, Karl Marx came out with his little thesis, The Communist Manifesto, in 1848, just two years before The Law was published.   

I have read The Law and I have read everything Marx ever wrote, which is a whole mess of pottage.  Bastiat was certainly an economist.  Marx was certainly NOT...