Students from over a dozen states entered FEE’s Bastiat Essay Contest, which challenged them to read Frédéric Bastiat’s book The Law and respond to one of five questions. The contestants came from a pool of over 5,000 students who have attended FEE seminars and talks over the last eight months and high-school-age readers of The Freeman.
The three winning essays were:
First Place: Andrew Roos Bell
Here is the first paragraph and a later excerpt from Andrew Bell’s essay:
“‘Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society.’ In penning this line, Frederic Bastiat summarized the difference between his ideology, as presented in The Law, and that of his socialist political opponents. In many respects, Bastiat and the socialists were the same: they both desired a moral, pious, prosperous, productive, safe, secure, and otherwise happy society. Their philosophical difference occurred when they answered the question of how to achieve such a society. While Bastiat sought to work within society for good ends, the socialists proposed using government to mold society, blurring the boundary between society and law. I agree with Bastiat’s charge that socialism fails to recognize the difference between government and society, but before I give my own reasoning it is important to understand how Bastiat reached this conclusion….
“This law constitutes the set of rules that governs society. Of course common sense and experience tell us that society is comprised of so much more than just its rules. The situation is analogous to a debate competition. Just as there are rules in society, there are rules in competitive debate that govern who may speak when, for how long, and so forth. But just as society and the law are two different things, no one would claim that debate is nothing more than its rules, or that those rules are the point of debate. It is crucial to realize that while government may be a part of society, it is at most only a component, a subgroup of society–the rulebook, and not the game. Most of society naturally exists on its own, outside of government. However, socialists miss this distinction, and believe that society is an office, a bureau, and a department of government; in effect, government is society. This error becomes reality when instead of limiting itself to enforcing the basic rules of society–do not steal, do not murder, etc.–a government decides that it wants to step beyond its defined place in society – for instance, to give to charity–something that, far from being the function of a rule, is an action of society. To return for a moment to the debate analogy, it is as if the rules of debate were to begin to instruct the competitors not only when to speak and in what turn, but what to say. And it is at this point that any meaningful distinction between a set of rules and the thing that it governs–in this case, society–is lost.”
Second Place: Sarah Sanderlin
Here is the first paragraph and a later excerpt from Sarah Sanderlin’s essay:
“Khalil Gibran, a noted author and artist, once said, ‘Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.’ Mr. Gibran here asserts an idea that has been the cornerstone of every just and enduring government—the idea that life, deprived of its sacred liberty, is a kind of death. History itself is an epic testament to mankind’s struggle for liberty and self-determination. The importance of liberty to human existence and government cannot be overemphasized. Liberty is the purpose of law and the driving force behind successful economics….
“Legislators, however, have a tendency to turn the law aside from its guardianship of liberty; they use the law to regulate those things which are entirely outside of its sphere of dominion. Frédéric Bastiat observes that law cannot control such things as charity, religion, labor, and education without violating life, liberty, or property. For law is force, and it is deeply objectionable to force a man to live his private life in a way that defies his will. If the law begins to so regulate men’s lives, it is violating the ideals that it was meant to protect, and thus it discredits its own authority. Transgressions such as these on the part of the law put citizens in an unenviable position, as Bastiat articulates: ‘[A perversion of the law] erases from everyone’s conscience the distinction between justice and injustice. … 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. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.’”
Third Place: Sarah Christian Roger Defries
Here is the first paragraph and a later excerpt from Sarah Defries’s essay:
“‘The strange phenomenon of our times- one which will probably astound our descendants–is the doctrine based on this triple hypothesis: the total ineptness of mankind, the omnipotence of the law and the infallibility of the legislature.’ Frédéric Bastiat–The Law
“This is the summation of an ideology, which has weakened and often ruined countless nations and is threatening to commit the same atrocity on American soil. Unbelievably, this is being accomplished under the auspices of a supposedly infallible, democratic government, with the consent of half the American population. Bastiat, a genius of political justice and economics, would be no less than disgusted with the general state of the country which he extended as a guide and an example for 19th century Europe. The only two cracks in the United States he felt, were slavery and tariffs. One, has since been abolished (almost reversed, if that is possible) and is now, replaced by numerous other faults. The other remains rampant. The two cracks have multiplied at an alarming rate, as the result of Bastiat’s, ‘strange phenomenon.’ It is strange that a watered-down version of the political mindset, which built and, conversely, destroyed Soviet Russia and continues to bind the lives of millions of Chinese, could have infiltrated any democratic government, so thoroughly. The mind-set, unfortunately, is simple: to package ideology, so as to appear benevolent, to practically any unsuspecting voter. To a charismatic power-seeking official, little packaging seems to be needed. The stealthiness and seemingly innocent intentions are frightening. ‘It’ is called socialism….
“Now, while that is a demonstration of an immense lack of backbone and a total loss of morals, the even more baffling aspect of the success of socialism, (in terms of countries conquered), is the willingness of the inhabitants to go along. The worst part of the strategy of socialism, is that it is very easy to package. The nature of the system panders to weakness and laziness: both very common human attributes. Those who are not, but listen too willingly, are almost as likely to be susceptible. While humans naturally gravitate toward, seeking control, they can also be massively gullible. Often, in the human mind, property translates to power. This is only true when the property is earned, for that which a socialist government doles out, is not a gift. In reality, the onerous taxes, which come from the governed, pay for it all. The catch is, that, once paid, taxes are used for expenditures that the government deems acceptable for the people. This system is not just accepted, because of the free (i.e., tax paid) benefits, but because financial equality is played up, extensively. Those who are well off are not the ones who agree with this; it is the poor. And inevitably, the poor constitute a greater majority than the rich. It all sounds kind and righteous, but all of society is eventually pulled down by the lowest denominator. This is how legal plunder, which Bastiat abhors, came about. In other words, property is legally taken from the owner, for the government’s use. Unbelievably, all that most people have to do to combat this doctrine and mind-set is to simply use some common sense. The socialist’s method of reinforcing and creating this is daily bombardment. The majority of people, if continuously told the same beliefs and opinions, will slowly but surely begin to, at least, sympathize with the espoused view. Altogether, at the end, the socialist has succeeded in constructing a weaker more gullible individual and populace, who are convinced that, this is the moral thing to do and believe.”
FEE thanks everyone who participated in the contest.