The Law

by Frederic Bastiat

Translated from the French by Dean Russell

Foreword by Walter E. WilliamsIntroduction by Richard Ebeling Afterword by Sheldon Richman

Foundation for Economic EducationIrvington-on-Hudson, New York

The LawCopyright © 1998 by the Foundation for Economic EducationAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted inany form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permis-sion in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.Foundation for Economic Education30 South Broadway Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533(914) 591-7230

Publisher’s Cataloging in Publication

(Prepared by Quality Books, Inc.)

Bastiat, Frederic, 1801-1850[Loi. English]The law / Frederic Bastiat. — 2nd ed.p. cm.Includes indexPreassigned LCCN: 98-73568ISBN 1-57246-073-31. Law and socialism.2. Law—Philosophy.3.Socialism and liberty.I. Title.K357.B37 1998 340.115QBI98-1118Second edition, August 1998second printing, September 2000; third printing, October 2001fourth printing, June 2004Cover design by Doug HesseltineManufactured in the United States of America

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Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Eco-nomics at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.

Foreword

Walter E. Williams

I must have been forty years old before reading FredericBastiat’s classic

The Law.

An anonymous person, to whom I shalleternally be in debt, mailed me an unsolicited copy. After read-ing the book I was convinced that a liberal-arts education with-out an encounter with Bastiat is incomplete. Reading Bastiatmade me keenly aware of all the time wasted, along with thefrustrations of going down one blind alley after another, organiz-ing my philosophy of life.

The Law

did not produce a philosoph-ical conversion for me as much as it created order in my thinkingabout liberty and just human conduct.Many philosophers have made important contributions tothe discourse on liberty, Bastiat among them. But Bastiat’s great-est contribution is that he took the discourse out of the ivory tower and made ideas on liberty so clear that even the unlet-tered can understand them and statists cannot obfuscate them.Clarity is crucial to persuading our fellowman of the moral supe-riority of personal liberty.