• “Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways; hence, there are an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, bonuses, subsidies, incentives, the progressive income tax, free education, the right to employment, the right to profit, the right to wages, the right to relief, the right to the tools of production, interest free credit, etc., etc. And it the aggregate of all these plans, in respect to what they have in common, legal plunder, that goes under the name of socialism.” ~French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
  

• “Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways; hence, there are an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, bonuses, subsidies, incentives, the progressive income tax, free education, the right to employment, the right to profit, the right to wages, the right to relief, the right to the tools of production, interest free credit, etc., etc. And it is the aggregate of all these plans, in respect to what they have in common, legal plunder, that goes under the name of socialism.” –Frederic Bastiat, French economist (1801-1850)
  

When plunder becomes a way of life . . .

• “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it” ~Frederic Bastiat French economist, statesman and author (1801-1850)
  

A Fatal Tendency of Mankind . . .

• “A Fatal Tendency of Mankind. Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing. But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others. … This fatal desire has its origin in the very nature of man — in that primitive, universal, and insuppressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain.” –French economist and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

Historical Insights

• If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all. — psychologist and philosopher Will Durant (1885-1981)

• The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else. –French economist, statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

• He who does not bellow out the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers. –French poet, essayist and editor Charles Peguy (1873-1914)

Reasonable insights . . .

• “Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone.” –French economist, statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

• “With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.” –economist Fredrich von Hayek (1899-1992)

• “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” –commentator, author and founder of National Review William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008)

Insight from years gone by . . .

• “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” –French economist, statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

• “You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.” –Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

• “Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt.” –American poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972)