Leth reviewed The Law by Frédéric Bastiat
Read "Seeing Like a State" instead
2 stars
This is a book written by a dying man who was evidently not in a position to evaluate where his ideas were leading him. It has since been used as a pipelining document by right-wing Chicago School economist types to get people who don't know any better to align with their self-serving ideas about rugged individualism and "small" government.
The trouble is that, despite Bastiat's conservatism and bullheadedness, he has a lot of good points to say about what John C. Scott later called "High Modernism." That is, he's really upset about people coming into power through the law and directing others on how to live. And he is correct that that is bad, although he really should not have doubled down so hard on the idea that socialism is the only source of that. But Bastiat argument basically boils down to a "nuh-uh" that is puddle deep. I …
This is a book written by a dying man who was evidently not in a position to evaluate where his ideas were leading him. It has since been used as a pipelining document by right-wing Chicago School economist types to get people who don't know any better to align with their self-serving ideas about rugged individualism and "small" government.
The trouble is that, despite Bastiat's conservatism and bullheadedness, he has a lot of good points to say about what John C. Scott later called "High Modernism." That is, he's really upset about people coming into power through the law and directing others on how to live. And he is correct that that is bad, although he really should not have doubled down so hard on the idea that socialism is the only source of that. But Bastiat argument basically boils down to a "nuh-uh" that is puddle deep. I mean, this guy all but says giving women the right to vote was bad because it diluted the ability of men to a select group of people to guide society by using law the right way. This is exactly what he accuses the high modernist of doing. And Bastiat only justifies it to himself by handwaving at the idea that it's a compromise towards his ideal world, which is an underdeveloped Lockean property fetishism that goes absolutely nowhere.
I mean, you can only nod along with "we should be able to do what we want with our property" for so long before you look around and realize that there are kinds of property that confer power upon you in this society... And you don't have any of that. And a small group of people has pretty much all of that. Lockean "liberty" and "individualism" are not the path to freedom because they separate us. Freedom is a gift we give each other.
It also gets very repetitive towards the end.
But, equally, Bastiat was dying when he wrote this, so he was probably not in a position to be thinking super long-term about it.
Just read "Seeing Like a State". I know it's longer, but it's a big subject that requires more care than this.
