This image is my own creation.
There is much to digest in these readings, and for that purpose I will focus mainly on Bastiat’s 'The Government' and pull in snippets from ‘The Law’ and ‘Petition.’
There are two portions to this reflection.
Greed: The Cardinal Sin of Socialism
Deeply rooted in those who truly strive for government control, is greed. Only then can these individuals “get what they deserve.” This comes in many forms: The tech company billionaire, wanting more say in regulation and production, or even the sloth, dissatisfied with his government check every month, unwilling to earn his pay. Avarice is behind every socialist push for “equality.” How could this be? you may ask. To this, I pose a question: In what world is it fair to reap what another man has sown? Furthermore, in what world is it equitable to accept the harvest of another man when it is forced upon you? This is shockingly apparent in Bastiat’s “The Government” when he gives readers man’s situation: Man can either work to enjoy his life, or ‘suffer of privation’ if he does not. Bastiat notes that the only way man can live his life without work is “to enjoy the labor of others” (98). This of course, is sloth and greed.
The answer as to how such ideas and governments come into power also lies in Bastiat’s writings: Individuals are fed up with taxes and promote their own ideals, promising change if they are put into power. Then once in power, they find that the government’s hand is inert without revenue from the people – now content with the power they hold, and unwilling to give it up, they make empty promises and buy time so that they may stay in power. Usually this comes in the form of exploiting demographics that have been underserved by the government already – because, in the government’s eyes, what do they have to lose? Malcolm X was rather keen on this thought:
“The White liberal is the worst enemy to America and the worst enemy to the Black man … Now the White liberals aren’t White people who are for independence, who are liberal, who are moral, who are ethical in their thinking, they are just a faction of White people who are jockeying for power the same as the White conservatives are a faction of White people who are jockeying for power. Now they are fighting each other for booty, for power, for prestige and the one who is the football in the game is the Negro. Twenty million Black people in this country are a political football, a political pawn an economic football, an economic pawn, a social football, a social pawn...”
Malcolm Little (1963)
As much as I’d like to think that man acts with grace in his heart, that is something I cannot believe. I have seen men – indeed, I have been and always will be a broken man – that is unable to act with perfect goodness and grace. It is for these reasons that I believe Malcolm and Bastiat are correct. Man will stop at nothing to stay in power. Furthermore, if you do not think such schemes are occurring today, what say you about student debt relief? Thousands of individuals flocked to the polls in hopes that the debt that they’re saddled with could be forgiven, yet once their candidate was elected, it became apparent that not only was this a false promise, but an illegal one at that! This rabbit hole is infinite, however the deeper one dives into it, the more one realizes “that Government can restore more to the public than it has taken from it. It is therefore ridiculous for us to appear before it in the humble attitude of beggars. It is radically impossible for it to confer a particular benefit upon any one of the individualities which constitute the community, without inflicting a greater injury upon the community as a whole” (The Bastiat Collection 102). Be it lust for power or money, it seems that much of what those who call themselves 'socialists' want, is nothing more than unbridled greed.
Bastiat: The Original Anarcho-Capitalist
Anarcho-Capitalism was at the forefront of my mind just from doing a touch of research about Bastiat before reading some of his work. What a coincidence! If you're not familiar with the term, wikipedia defines it in this fashion:
"Anarcho-capitalism (colloquially: ancap or an-cap) is an anti-statist, libertarian political philosophy and economic theory that seeks to abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies with systems of private property enforced by private agencies, the non-aggression principle, free markets and self-ownership, which extends the concept to include control of private property as part of the self."
I find this definition to be accurate, and there certainly was a time when I would have considered myself to actually be 'ancap.' However, much like socialism, it isn't really feasible in a society greater than about 100 people.
Now, what makes me believe that Bastiat is an anarcho-capitalist?
First, its plastered all over his writings. One of the principal beliefs of ancaps is that government is wholly incapable of providing any kind of net-benefit to the people. This is because in order for the government to do so, it must repurpose resources that the the people themselves use to make their own lives good. Sounds pretty similar to the whole 'rough hand' thing no? Rough hand aside, the general idea is that the free market will provide for the people as the people need. This is similar to what Bastiat is communicating through the petition. There is no need to regulate any kind of trade for the benefit of the people, because the free market (which is comprised of said people) will ultimately provide an effective and efficient amount of a good for itself – provided there are no market failures incurred by the government. Another principal belief of ancaps is that state-funded protection is quite literally a contradiction – The government robs you of your resources to 'protect' you from robbers. It is set this way by law... "legal plunder" if you will. Sound familiar?
Second, and less important, "The Bastiat Collection" is published by the Mises Institute, which was established by Murray Rothbard, who coincidentally, coined the term 'anarcho capitalist.'
And with that hodge-podge of neo-liberal propafganda, I conclude my post for today.