Quote

The creation of new capital always... releases... labor. Its actual effect [though] is not to make jobs scarce, but to free men's labor for other jobs.

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
Make
Release
Always
Effect
Men
Labor
Effects
Creation
Releases
Though
Scarce
Free
Capital
Jobs
Actual

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Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
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The impulses of my heart are the voice of Nature, which is never mistaken. The institutions that stand in my way are man-made and are only arbitrary conventions to which I have never given my consent. In trampling these institutions underfoot, I shall have the double pleasure of satisfying my inclinations and of believing myself a hero
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...the statement, The purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign, is not a rigorously accurate statement. It ought to be stated that the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is injustice, instead of justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent.
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Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone.
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We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life - physical, intellectual, and moral life.
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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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Property, the right to enjoy the fruits of one's labor, the right to work, to develop, to exercise one's faculties, according to one's own understanding, without the state intervening otherwise than by its protective action this is what is meant by liberty
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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.
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There is in all of a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are just because the law makes them so.
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Treat all economic questions from the viewpoint of the consumer, for the interests of the consumer are the interests of the human race.
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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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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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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 profit of the one is the profit of the other.
Frederic Bastiat
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When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.
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When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.
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The solution of the social problem is in liberty.
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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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Property does not exist because there are laws, but laws exist because there is property.
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Liberty is an acknowledgement of faith in God and his works.
Frederic Bastiat