To the Democrats; F. Bastiat

The amendment to decrease the subsidy lost by a small margin. Bastiat's letter, published the fol lowing day in a newspaper, ex presses his opinion on the vote. Readers will note that the popu lar America.tftJattitude tow:ardsuch matters has changed since Bastiat described it in 1850. This makes it more important than ever to review what he said. FREDERIC BASTIAT No, I am not mistaken; I feel, beating within my breast, a demo cratic heart. How, then, does it happen that I find myself so often in opposition to those who pro claim themselves the exclusive representatives of democracy? Yet we must understand one another. Has this word two op posite meanings? For my part, it seems to me that there is a connection between the aspiration that impels all men towards the improvement of their 58 material, intellectual, and moral condition, and the faculties with which they are endowed to realize this aspiration.

Hence, I should like each man to have, on his own responsibility, the free disposition, administra tion, and control of his own per son, his acts, his family, his trans actions, his associations, his intel ligence, his faculties, his labor, his capital, and his property. This is how they understand freedom and democracy in the 1965 TO THE DEMOCRATS 59 United States. There ea.ch citizen is vigilant with a jealous care to remain his own master. It-is by virtue of such freedom that the poor hope to emerge from poverty, and that the rich hope to preserve their wealth. And, in fact, as we see, in a very short time this system has brought the Americans to a de gree of enterprise, security, wealth, and equality of which the annals of the human race offer no other example. However, there as everywhere, there are men who do not scruple to violate' for their personal ad vantage the freedom and property rights of their fellow citizens.

That is why the law intervenes, through the instrumentality of the public police force, to prevent and repress such aggressive in clinations. Everyone cooperates, in propor tion to his means, in the main tenance of this force. This is not a case, as has been said, of sacri ficing a part of one's liberty to preserve the rest; it is, on the contrary, the most simple, just, efficacious, and economical means of guaranteeing the freedom of all. And one of the most difficult problems of politics is to keep the trustees of this public police force from doing themselves what they are charged with preventing. The French democrats, so it seems, see things in an entirely different light. Undoubtedly, like the American democrats, they condemn, reject, and hold in contempt the-a.cts of plunder that citizens might be tempted to commit on their own authority against one another every act of aggression commit ted against the property, labor, and freedom of one individual by another individ ua!.

But plunder, which they reject between individuals, they regard as a means of equalizing p.roperty, and, consequently, the'y entrust plunder to the law, to the public police force, which I thought was instituted to prevent it. Thus, while the American demo crats, having empowered the pub lic police force to punish individ ual plunder, are very much con cerned that this force should not itself become spoliative; the French democrats, on the con trary, make of this force an in strument of plunder, which seems to be the very foundation and es sence of their system. . . . Conse quently, they have demanded and obtained a law that, by taxes on drinks and salt, takes money from the poor parents of 290,000 chil dren, to be distributed to them, the rich parents, by way of gra. tuity, encouragement, indemnity, subsidy, etc., etc.

60 THE FREEMAN August M. Mortimer-Ternaux has de manded that this monstrous situa tion be brought to an end, but he has failed in his efforts. The ex treme Right finds it very con venient to make the poor pay for the education of rich children, and the extreme Left finds it very politic to seize such an occasion to have the' system of legal plun der established and sanctioned. At which I ask myself: Where are we going? The Assemhly must direct itself by some principle; it must commit itself to justice everywhere and for everybody, if it is not, in fact, to rush headlong into the system of legal and recip rocal plunder, to the point of com pletely equalizing all classes, that is, to the point of communism. Yesterday it declared that the poor must pay taxes to relieve the rich. How can it have the che'ek to reject taxes that will soon be proposed to it to "soak the rich" in order to relieve the poor?

For my part, I cannot forget that when I presented myself be fore the voters, I said to them: "Would you approve a system of government which was based on the following arrangement: You would have the re'sponsibility for your own existence. You would demand, in exchange for your labor, your effort, and your industry, the means of feeding, clothing, lodging, and enlightening yourselves, of attaining af fluence, well-being, and perhaps prosperity. The government would concern itself with you only to guarantee you against all distur bance and unjust aggression. For its part, it would ask of you only the very modest tax indispensable for accomplishing this task." And all cried out: "We ask nothing else of it." And now, what would be my position if I had to present myself anew before those poor farmers, those honest artisans, those fine workers, to say to them: "You are going to pay more in taxes than you were expecting to pay . You are going to have less freedom than you hoped for. It is to some extent my fault, for I have departed from the system of government you had in view when you elected me. On April 1, I voted for an increase in the tax on salt and drinks, in order to come to the aid of the small num ber of our countrymen who send their children to the state schools."

Whatever happens, I hope never to put myself in the sad and ridiculous position of having to make such a speech to those who have placed their trust in me. ~ From Bastiat's Selected Essays on Political Economy, Copyright 1964, D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey.