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There is not a tool, an implement, or a machine that has not resulted in a decrease in the contribution of human labor. Labor is not made permanently idle [though] when replaced in one special category... it turns its attack against other obstacles on the main road to progress.

Frederic Bastiat

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Frederic Bastiat
Age: 49 †
Born: 1801
Born: June 30
Died: 1850
Died: December 24
Economist
Essayist
Magistrate
Philosopher
Politician
Baiona
Claude Frédéric Bastiat
Made
Road
Tool
Resulted
Labor
Contribution
Implement
Progress
Machine
Permanently
Special
Attack
Decrease
Though
Obstacles
Category
Turns
Main
Idle
Human
Machines
Categories
Humans
Tools
Replaced

More quotes by Frederic Bastiat

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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.
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The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder.
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The mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even thought the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect property.
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It is easier to show the disorder that must accompany reform than the order that should follow it.
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Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them.
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Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal.
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They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority.
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No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice.
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And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works
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The plans differ the planners are all alike.
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There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
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The state tends to expand in proportion to its means of existence and to live beyond its means, and these are, in the last analysis, nothing but the substance of the people. Woe to the people that cannot limit the sphere of action of the state! Freedom, private enterprise, wealth, happiness, independence, personal dignity, all vanish.
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The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.
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Liberty is an acknowledgement of faith in God and his works.
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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.
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Repetition may not entertain, but it teaches.
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Legal plunder has two roots: One, as we have just seen, is in human selfishness the other is in false philanthropy.
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Either fraternity is spontaneous, or it does not exist. To decree it is to annihilate it. The law can indeed force men to remain just in vain would it try to force them to be self-sacrificing.
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Nothing is more senseless than to base so many expectations on the state, that is, to assume the existence of collective wisdom and foresight after taking for granted the existence of individual imbecility and improvidence.
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