Plunder Violates Ownership
I do not, as is often done, use the word in any vague, uncertain, approximate, or metaphorical sense. I use it in its scientific acceptance — as expressing the idea opposite to that of property [wages, land, money, or whatever]. When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it — without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud — to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed.
I say that this act is exactly what the law is supposed to suppress, always and everywhere. When the law itself commits this act that it is supposed to suppress, I say that plunder is still committed, and I add that from the point of view of society and welfare, this aggression against rights is even worse. In this case of legal plunder, however, the person who receives the benefits is not responsible for the act of plundering. The responsibility for this legal plunder rests with the law, the legislator, and society itself. Therein lies the political danger.
The Results of Legal Plunder
It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.
Frederic Bastiat
Thanks for the post. I'm a simple minded guy so this is how I see it:
Two produces of wealth, say farmers, each need some of what the other grows,
so they swap good at an excepted rate of equivalency. So far everything is OK.
A third farmer wants to get into the trading, and exchange his crop for some of the other’s crop, so he says lets trade in a common medium to make trading easier amongst ourselves, so they choose pieces of gold as a common medium. Each farmer sells his crop to a “Farmers Market” in exchange for an amount of gold that they agree upon.
Now a city slicker comes along and says, hey carrying all that gold around is burdensome. I'll give you a debt note, saying that this paper ‘money’ is evidence that I owe you an $X.YZ amount of gold. Now the city slicker can't eat gold, so he comes up with a scheme. He sets up a bank, and says he will loan out ‘money’ at an interest rate, and furthermore, he gets the sheriff to agree that for every $X.YZ amount of money he has in actual gold, he can loan out Twice that amount, and collect interest on it too.
So now the banker doesn't have to grow anything, and he gets to eat better than anyone else, and has actually stolen real wealth via the debt instrument called money. The sheriff (The Law) is entirely to blame for this theft and fraud, but it allows the town to grow and prosper as long as not everyone demands that the ‘money’ be redeemed into the original gold!
Did I miss anything?
Robbery - The taking of money or goods in the possession of another, from his or her person or immediate presence, by force or intimidation
The definition of robbery could easily be applied to taxation. The creation of money or fractional banking we witness today is taxation. Those who think the government is moving to own everything are wrong. The banks will own everything and they already own our government. They are positioning themselves to own the world.
My rant aside, thanks for posting Bastiat. I need to read him again.