The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder.
Interpretation
Bastiat criticizes the idea that more government intervention can solve problems caused by previous government actions.
In this quote, Frederic Bastiat argues that politicians often attempt to fix societal issues by employing methods that exacerbate the problems, particularly through increasing government regulations or interventions that lead to 'legal plunder.' He suggests that these remedies are fundamentally flawed because they rely on the same misguided principles that created the initial problems, thereby perpetuating a cycle of mismanagement and injustice in society.
In practice
During a political debate, to illustrate the failure of government solutions to economic problems.
The state tends to expand in proportion to its means of existence and to live beyond its means, and these are, in the last analysis, nothing but the substance of the people. Woe to the people that cannot limit the sphere of action of the state! Freedom, private enterprise, wealth, happiness, independence, personal dignity, all vanish.
Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on.
No society can exist if respect for the law does not to some extent prevail; but the surest way to have the laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction, the citizen finds himself in the cruel dilemma of either losing his moral sense or of losing respect for the law, two evils of which one is as great as the other, and between which it is difficult to choose.
The law is the collective organization of the individual's right to lawful defense of his life, liberty and property. When it is used for anything else, no matter how noble the cause, it becomes perverted and justice is weakened. Thus, the law has become perverted by stupid greed and false philanthropy.
If you wish to prosper, let your customer prosper.
They will come to learn in the end, at their own expense, that it is better to endure competition for rich customers than to be invested with monopoly over impoverished customers.
I have the highest respect for Obama. I have worked with 10 American presidents, both Republicans and Democrats. As far as Israeli security is concerned, he has done the most that an American president can do.
Our government should be entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight.
Behold a republic standing erect while empires all around are bowed beneath the weight of their own armaments - a republic whose flag is loved while other flags are only feared.
As we speak, Iran has rolled back its nuclear program, shipped out its uranium stockpile, and the world has avoided another war.
In 1988, when democracy was restored, the military establishment was still very powerful. The extremist groups were still there. And when the aid and assistance to Pakistan was cut, we had to adopt harsh economic policies. So in a way, it showed that democracy doesn't pay, and the military was able to reassert itself.
No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.