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BTW (again!): Democrats are being successful with a new (though very old tactic, where they only talk about taxation; namely, raising taxes towards 70% or more. They also talk about income equality, where businesses are supposed to raise wages towards decent self-sustaining salaries. Higher-taxes and wage-hikes via government laws, is nothing more than socialism. FACT is that, high-taxes which punishes the rich/super-rich/wealthy/well-off, is nothing more than a round-about form of socialism. Since socialists can't make the argument for government takeover of industries and businesses, they've found a clever way to do the same, via much higher taxes. Whatever they couldn't control directly, they can control indirectly and in the back-end, the back-end being the result of people's productivity and business-productivity: iow, high-taxes is the back-end route towards control of people and businesses and productivity. YOUR productivity and that of business, can become the property of the government, via high-taxes. Can't get it up-front, but they're attempting to get it all in the back-end.

It's socialism in disguise. It's about control, and control can be achieved via high-taxation and higher-wage laws. So, even with the higher-laws, the socialists are attaining more control over businesses and over the people, since, the people getting those higher wages will tend to vote for those who befriended them with higher incomes.

I like your commentary very much, adorno. Thank you.

You may have read Frederic Bastiat's famous pamphlet The Law written before and after the French Revolution of 1848.

A translation for French was done by The Foundation for Economic Education. The linked Word version of this above is my own edited version using the Foundation's translation as my starting point.

I spent several hours trimming down The Law to its best and most relevant passages, for example, cutting out his discussion of Universal Sufferage because the parallels to today's society are not as clear.

The genius of Bastiat is he explains the natural, righteous, and God-given origins of the Law and shows how Socialism and "Legal Plunder" corrupts the Law, thereby detroying man's freedom and civil society.

The biggest attraction of Bastiat's The Law is that it is a text powerful and simple enough for the everyday layman to follow.