deception or force the freedom to negotiate in order to
receive a service without receiving another in return.
Plunder by force is exercised as follows: People wait for a man to
produce something and then seize it from him with weapons.
This is formally condemned by the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt
not steal.
When it takes place between individuals, it is called theft and leads to
prison; when it takes place between nations, it is called conquest and
leads to glory.
It is not certain when these words were written as neither Bastiat nor Paillottet
provide that information. It is most likely that they were written specifically for the
the Second Series of the Economic Sophisms which were published in January 1848.
In an earlier article published in January 1846, “Theft by Subsidy”, Bastiat
responded to criticism of his First Series of Economic Sophisms which had just
appeared in print that they were “too theoretical, scientific, and metaphysical.” His
response was to make sure that his future writings could not be accused of this
again, which he did by peppering their pages with an “explosion of plain
speaking.” By this he meant that he would use very blunt, direct, even “brutal”
language, such as “theft”, “pillage”, “plunder,” and “parasitism,” when describing
the activities undertaken by the State which were accepted by most people as
perfectly normal and “legal”.
11
So, in many of the essays written in 1846 and 1847
which were to end up in future editions of the Economic Sophisms Bastiat wanted to
make it perfectly clear what he thought the state was doing by regulating and
taxing French citizens and to call these activities by their “real name”, namely theft
and plunder. As he notes in an aside:
Page 11
11
“Le vol à la prime”, Journal des économistes, January 1846, T. XIII, pp. 115-120; this also
appeared in SE2 IX, pp. ???
Frankly, my good people, you are being robbed. That is plain speaking
but at least it is clear.
The words, theft, to steal and thief seem to many people to be in bad
taste. Echoing the words of Harpagon to Elise, I ask them: Is it the
word or the thing that makes you afraid?
12
He cites the Ten Commandments, the French Penal Code, and the Dictionary of
the French Academy to define what theft is as clearly as he can and to note its
universal prohibition. According to these definitions, in Bastiat’s mind, the policies
of the French government were nothing more than “theft by subsidy”, “theft by
Customs duties”, “mutual theft” of all Frenchmen via subsidies and protective
duties, and so on. Altogether they made up an entire system of “plunder” which
had been evolving for centuries and which he had wanted to make the topic of his
book on “A History of Plunder”.
Therefore, because of the ubiquity of plunder in human history it was essential
for political economy to take it into account when discussing the operation of the
market and its “disturbing factors”:
Some people say: “PLUNDER is an accident, a local and transitory
abuse, stigmatized by the moral order, reproved by law and unworthy
of the attentions of Political Economy.”
But whatever the benevolence and optimism of one’s heart one is
obliged to acknowledge that PLUNDER is exercised on a vast scale in
this world and is too universally woven into all the major events in the
annals of humanity for any moral science, and above all Political
Economy, to feel justified in disregarding it.
13
Page 12
12
“Theft by Subsidy”, p. 104.
13
“1. The Physiology of Plunder” in Economic Sophisms II, p. 2.
v.“La Ruse” (Trickery) and Legal Plunder
A key feature of plunder which distinguishes it from the acquisition of wealth by
voluntary exchange is the use of violence or what he called “la Ruse” (fraud or
trickery) fraud. Within the category of “plunder” there are two main types which
interested Bastiat: “illegal plunder” which was undertaken by thieves, robbers, and
highway men and which was prohibited by law - hence the title “illegal plunder”;
the second type of plunder was what Bastiat called “legal plunder” which was
usually undertaken by the state under the protection of the legal system which
exempted sovereigns and government officials from the usual prohibition of taking
other people’s property by force. Illegal plunder was less interesting to Bastiat as it
was universally condemned and quite well understood by legal theorists and
economists. Instead, Bastiat concentrated in his scattered writings on the latter
form, legal plunder, as it was hardly recognized at all by economists as a problem in
spite of the fact that it had existed on a “vast scale”
14
throughout history and was
one its driving forces. As he noted in his “final and important aperçu” which ended
the “Conclusion” to Economic Sophisms I:
Force applied to spoliation is the backdrop of the annals of the
human race. Retracing its history would be to reproduce almost
entirely the history of every nation: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the
Medes, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the
Goths, the Francs, the Huns, the Turks, the Arabs, the Mongols and
the Tartars, not to mention the Spanish in America, the English in
India, the French in Africa, the Russians in Asia, etc., etc.
15
Page 13
14
“1. The Physiology of Plunder” in Economic Sophisms II, p. 2.
15
“Conclusion” to Economic Sophisms I , p. 197.
Dostları ilə paylaş: |