What is Law and What is Its Purpose?  William T. Holmes We must agree on the answers to these fundamental questions before we waste further debate on government programs. In 1850, Frederic Bastiat posed these questions, and with impeccable logic, he comprehensively answered them in his essay entitled "The Law." I encourage everyone to read his work, which I paraphrase here. Property existed before Law. The right of an individual to defend himself and his property existed before Law. When people contracted with each other to take turns at guard or to pool their resources and hire full time guards, so they could be more productive and more reliably enjoy the fruits of their labor, they made Law. Law is merely an expression of collective self-defense. As such, the Law cannot justifiably be used by one individual or group of individuals to take the life, liberty or property of another individual or group, or to deny them self-defense. If the Law is so used, it is perverted. The Law becomes an instrument of plunder (rob, ravage, despoil) rather than the punisher of plunder. There is no end to the mischief that can be done in the name of Law perverted. Regardless of the form a government may take, the Law can only take one of three forms: 1. the few plunder the many, 2. everyone plunders everyone, or 3. nobody plunders anybody. In the first form, the Law is perverted by a few and used for their benefit at the expense of those without influence over the making of the Law. In the second form, suffrage is more or less universal. Everyone competes to pervert the Law to their benefit, or to impose their vision of utopia on everyone else. In the third form, the Law is unperverted. It is restricted to the equal protection of each individual's life, liberty and property, so there is little interest in the making of Law. We must choose among these three forms of Law. In 1776, we chose to end the plunder — with two exceptions: slavery and import duties. Bastiat accurately predicted in 1850 that these exceptions would compel disunion, as they did in 1861. It was import duties and the threat of free ports in the South that motivated the North to maintain the union by force. Not long after the American revolution, the French people ended their monarchy, but despite Bastiat's best efforts to persuade them otherwise, they used their newly acquired vote to partake of the plunder rather than end it. They embraced mercantilism and socialism. We see in their recent riots the difficulty of ending plunder once it is considered to be a right. We gradually came to emulate the French. We voted to pervert the Law and use it for plunder. Now many Americans feel they are entitled to the property of others or to the fruits of their labor. Many Americans find it easier to grasp the Law and use it to compel rather than persuade people to contribute to their favorite charity or to behave differently. Our corporate and social subsidies, unequal taxes and duties and innumerable regulations are just various ways of organizing plunder. We are all less secure, less wealthy, less free and more divided as a consequence. Do we continue the perversion of Law as an instrument of plunder? Do we continue the legislative circus, the see-saw battle over power and pork? Do we continue to organize into special interest groups seeking more plunder, or seeking protection from plunder? Do we continue to escalate the cost of influence to the extent that the few again plunder the many? Or do we return the Law to its rightful purpose? The choice is yours. You may continue to let your thoughts be bound by the two-party system, or you can find, and vote for, those candidates for public office who will work to end the plunder — ALL of it. William Holmes is an active Libertarian and proud of it.