Nothing American about socialism

Are we to believe there is anything truly American about socialism and statism? Such concepts are antithetical to our foundation, a foundation that, by God's grace, provided more freedom and more prosperity to more people than any other nation before its time.

Though practiced in increasing measure, socialism has never been considered a legitimate form of American government until now.

French economist, statesman and author, Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), recognized the brilliance of our founding. He attempted to steer his countrymen away from socialism toward the example set by the United States: “There is no country in the world where the law is kept more within its proper domain: the protection of every person's liberty and property. As a consequence of this, there appears to be no country in the world where the social order rests on a firmer foundation.” (Bastiat did not overlook America's sin of slavery, acknowledging it as “a violation, by law, of liberty.”)

A pillar for a just society, according to Bastiat, was the belief that people owned what their toil produced. (Bastiat referred to progressive taxation as a form of “legal plunder.”) Bastiat's test for bad law? “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.”

Read Bastiat's book, “The Law,” online.

Michael E. Mallie

Kalona