When asked during the Huckabee forum (Dec.3) to name one book that all Americans should read, Ron Paul suggested The Law by Frédéric Bastiat:
Well, I think, to simplify things, to get a message out, since we’re talking about politics and the law, if people want to read a short book to really wake them up on what the law should be, they should read a book called “The Law” by Bastiat. If they read that and find out the moral principle behind law, saying that you, as an individual, can’t do certain things. But if you can’t do it, the government can’t do it. If you can’t steal from your neighbor, you can’t send the politician to steal from your neighbor. The law is a basic principle worth starting with, and I think it would introduce a great idea to a lot of people.
It is published in its entirety online and indeed well worth reading.
When a reviewer wishes to give special recognition to a book, he predicts that it will still be read "a hundred years from now." The Law, first published as a pamphlet in June, 1850, is already more than a hundred years old. And because its truths are eternal, it will still be read when another century has passed. Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist, statesman, and author. He did most of his writing during the years just before — and immediately following — the Revolution of February 1848. This was the period when France was rapidly turning to complete socialism. As a Deputy to the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Bastiat was studying and explaining each socialist fallacy as it appeared. And he explained how socialism must inevitably degenerate into communism. But most of his countrymen chose to ignore his logic. The Law is here presented again because the same situation exists in America today as in the France of 1848. The same socialist-communist ideas and plans that were then adopted in France are now sweeping America. The explanations and arguments then advanced against socialism by Mr. Bastiat are — word for word — equally valid today. His ideas deserve a serious hearing.
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
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