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Life is a Gift from God
Life, faculties, production--in other words, individuality, liberty, property--this is man. These three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are
superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men made laws.
On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed
beforehand that caused men to make laws.
What is Law
What, then is law? It is the collective organization of the
individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right--from God--to defend his
person, his liberty, and his property. These are three basic requirements of
life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the
preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of
our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties?
If every person has the right to defend--even by force--his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to
organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus
the principle of collective right--its reason for existing, its lawfulness--is
based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective
right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that
for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully
use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then
the common force--for the same reason--cannot lawfully be used to destroy the
person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since
no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of
others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to
the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the
individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of
a common force for individual forces. And the common force is to do only what
the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect
persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause
justice to reign over us all.
The Complete Perversion of the Law
But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to it proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some
inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it
has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to
destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that
it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real
purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal
of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and
property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect
the plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to
punish lawful defense.
What is Law
Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin
of property.
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder.
Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain--and since labor is pain in itself--it follows that man will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier
than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions,
neither religion nor morality can stop it.
Victims of Lawful Plunder
Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the
plundered classes try somehow to enter--by peaceful or revolutionary
means--into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment,
these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when
they attempt to attain political power; Either they may wish to stop lawful
plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the power to make laws!
The Results of Legal Plunder
No society can exist unless the laws are respected. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each
other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense
or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence,
and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.
The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in
all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also
legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously
held that things are "just" because law makes them so. Thus, in order
to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only
necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and
monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also
among those who suffer from them.
How to Identify Legal Plunder
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.
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a
law--which may be an isolated case--is not abolished immediately, it will
spread, multiply, and develop into a system.
The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his
particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the
protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the
poor workingmen.
Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests.
The Proper Function of the Law
And, in all sincerity, can anything more than the absence of plunder be required of the law? Can the law--which necessarily requires the use of force--rationally
be used for anything except protecting the rights of everyone? I defy anyone to
extend it beyond this purpose without perverting it and, consequently, turning
might against right. This is the most fatal and most illogical social
perversion that can possibly be imagined. It must be admitted that the true
solution--so long searched for in the area of social relationships--is
contained in these simple words: Law is organized justice.
Now this must be said: When justice is organized by law--that is, by force--this excludes the idea of using law (force) to organize any human activity
whatsoever, whether it be labor, charity, agriculture, commerce, industry,
education, art or religion. The organizing by law of any one of these would
inevitably destroy the essential organization--justice. For truly, how can we
imagine force being used against the liberty of citizens without it also being
used against justice, and thus acting against its proper purpose?
Law is Force
Since the law organizes justice, the socialist ask why the law should not also organize labor, education, and religion.
Why should not law be used for these purposes? Because it could not organize labor, education, and religion without destroying justice. We must remember that law is force, and that, consequently, the proper functions of the law cannot
lawfully extend beyond the proper functions of force.
When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige him only to abstain from harming others. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor his property. They safeguard
all of these. They are defensive; they defend equally the rights of all.
The Seductive Lure of Socialism
Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it
sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and
inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral
self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend
welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation.
This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction of each other. We must choose between them. A
citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free.
Enforced Fraternity Destroys Liberty
In fact, it is impossible for me to separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced
without liberty being legally destroyed, and thus justice being legally
trampled underfoot.
Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said before, is in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy.
At this point, I think that I should explain exactly what I mean by the word plunder.
Plunder Violates Ownership
I do not, as is often done, use the word in any vague, uncertain, approximate, or metaphorical sense. I use it in its scientific acceptance--as expressing the
idea opposite to that of property (wages, land, money, or whatever). When a
portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it--without his
consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud--to anyone
who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of
plunder is committed.
I say that this act is exactly what the law is supposed to suppress, always and everywhere. When the law itself commits this act that it is supposed to
suppress, I say that plunder is still committed, and I add that from the point
of view of society and welfare, this aggression against rights is even worse.
In this case of legal plunder, however, the person who received the benefits is
not responsible for the act of plundering. The responsibility for this legal
plunder rests with the law, the legislator, and society itself. Therein lies
the political danger.
It is to be regretted that the word plunder is offensive. I have tried in vain to find an inoffensive word, for I would not at anytime--especially now--wish to
add an irritating word to our dissensions. Thus, whether I am believed or not,
I declare that I do not mean to attack the intentions or the morality of
anyone. Rather, I am attacking an idea which I believe to be false; a system
which appears to me to be unjust; an injustice so independent of personal
intentions that each of us profits from it without wishing to do so, and
suffers from it without knowing the cause of the suffering.
Three Systems of Plunder
The sincerity of those who advocate protectionism, socialism, and communism is not here questioned. Any writer who would do that must be influenced by a political spirit or a political fear. It is to be pointed out, however, that protectionism,
socialism, and communism are basically the same plant in three different stages
of its growth. All that can be said is that legal plundering is more visible in
communism because it is complete plunder; and protectionism because the plunder
is limited to specific groups and industries. Thus it follows that, of the
three systems, socialism is the vaguest, the most indecisive, and,
consequently, the most sincere stage of development.
But sincere or insincere, the intentions of persons are not here under question. In fact, I have already said that legal plunder is based partially on
philanthropy, even though it is a false philanthropy.
With this explanation, let us examine the value--the origin and the tendency--of this popular aspiration which claims to accomplish the general welfare by
general plunder.
Law is a Negative Concept
The harmlessness of the mission performed by law and lawful defense is
self-evident; the usefulness is obvious; and the legitimacy cannot be disputed.
As a friend of mine once remarked, this negative concept of law is so true that the statement, the purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign, is not a
rigorously accurate statement. It ought to be stated that the purpose of the
law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is injustice,
instead of justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only
when injustice is absent.
But when the law, by means of its necessary agent, force, imposes upon men a regulation of labor, a method or a subject of education, a religious faith or
creed--then the law is no longer negative; it acts positively upon people. It
substitutes the will of the legislator for their own wills; the initiative of
the legislator for their own initiatives. When this happens, the people no
longer need to discuss, to compare, to plan ahead; the law does all this for
them. Intelligence becomes a useless prop for the people; they cease to be men;
they lose their personality, their liberty, their property.
Try to imagine a regulation of labor imposed by force that is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed by force that is not a violation of
property. If you cannot reconcile these contradictions, they you must conclude
that the law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice.
The Enormous Power of Government
As long as these ideas (socialism and fraternal government) prevail, it is clear that the responsibility of government is enormous. Good fortune and bad fortune, wealth and destitution, equality and inequality, virtue and vice—all then depend upon political administration. It is burdened with everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything; therefore it is responsible for everything.
If we are fortunate, then government has a claim to our gratitude; but if we are unfortunate, then government must bear the blame. For are not our persons and property now at the disposal of government? Is not the law omnipotent?
In creating a monopoly of education, the government must answer to the hopes of the fathers of families who have thus been deprived of their liberty; and if
these hopes are shattered, whose fault is it?
In regulating industry, the government has contracted to make it prosper;
otherwise it is absurd to deprive industry of its liberty. And if industry now suffers, whose fault is it?
In meddling with the balance of trade by playing with tariffs, the government thereby contracts to make trade prosper; and if this results in destruction
instead of prosperity, whose fault is it?
In giving the maritime industries protection in exchange for their liberty, the government undertakes to make them profitable; and if they become a burden to
the taxpayers, whose fault is it?
Thus there is not a grievance in the nation for which the government does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it surprising, then, that every failure increases the threat of another revolution?
Proper Legislative Functions
It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property. The existence of persons and property preceded the existence of the legislator, and his function is only to guarantee their safety.
It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our wills, our education, our opinions, our work, our trade, our talents, or
our pleasures. The function of the law is to protect the free exercise of these rights, and to prevent any person from interfering with the free exercise of these same rights by any other person.
Since law necessarily requires the support of force, its lawful domain in only in the areas where the use of force is necessary. This is justice.
Every individual has the right to use force for lawful self-defense. It is for this reason that the collective force which is only the organized combination of the individual forces; may lawfully be used for the same purpose; and it cannot be used
legitimately for any other purpose.
Law is solely the organization of the individual right of self-defense which existed before law was formalized. Law is justice.
Law and Charity Are Not the Same
The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property. Its mission is to protect persons and property.
Furthermore, it must not be said that the law may be philanthropic if, in the process, it refrains from oppressing persons and plundering them of their property; this would be a contradiction. The law cannot avoid having an effect upon persons and property; and if the law acts in any manner except to protect them, its actions then necessarily violate the liberty of persons and their right to own property.
The law is justice; simple and clear, precise and bounded. Every eye can see it, and every mind can grasp it; for justice is measurable, immutable, and unchangeable. Justice is neither more than this nor less than this.
If you exceed this proper limit; if you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, literary, or artistic; you will then be lost in an uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced
utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the
law and impose it upon you. This is true because fraternity and philanthropy, unlike justice, do not have precise limits. Once started, where will you stop? And where will the law stop itself?
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