Tres Ironique
On the occassion of Frederic Bastiat's 205th birthday, Andy Roth offers up a little mini-celebration of the great 19th century French free-market thinker. Andy offers up some great excerpts from Bastiat, one of which describes legal plunder:
“But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”
This on the very same day that the French government voted to plunder Apple's intellectual property. Oh, the irony is thicker than cassoulet.
America's genius is that it knows a good idea when it sees one, regardless of its origin, and we have become more Bastiatian than France, whose great failing is that they have abandoned the great ideas that flowered right there on their own soil. Our gain doesn't have to be France's loss, Bastiat's influence is open to all...it's not too late mon freres!
“But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”
This on the very same day that the French government voted to plunder Apple's intellectual property. Oh, the irony is thicker than cassoulet.
America's genius is that it knows a good idea when it sees one, regardless of its origin, and we have become more Bastiatian than France, whose great failing is that they have abandoned the great ideas that flowered right there on their own soil. Our gain doesn't have to be France's loss, Bastiat's influence is open to all...it's not too late mon freres!
posted by Donny Baseball at 10:24 AM
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