It Is Easier To Show

Here I Encounter The Most Popular Fallacy Of Our Times. It Is Not Considered Sufficient That The Law Should Guarantee To Every Citizen The Free And Inoffensive Use Of His Faculties For Physical, Intellectual And Moral Self-improvement. Instead, It Is Demanded That The Law Should Directly Extend Welfare, Education, And Morality Throughout The Nation. This Is The Seductive Lure Of Socialism. And I Repeat: These Two Uses Of The Law Are In Direct Contradiction To Each Other.

Trade Protection Accumulates Upon A Single Point The Good Which It Effects, While The Evil Inflicted Is Infused Throughout The Mass. The One Strikes The Eye At A First Glance, While The Other Becomes Perceptible Only To Close Investigation.

Now Since Man Is Naturally Inclined To Avoid Pain - And Since Labor Is Pain In Itself - It Follows That Men Will Resort To Plunder Whenever Plunder Is Easier Than Work. History Shows This Quite Clearly. And Under These Conditions, Neither Religion Nor Morality Can Stop It. When, Then, Does Plunder Stop? It Stops When It Becomes More Painful And More Dangerous Than Labor. It Is Evident, Then, That The Proper Purpose Of Law Is To Use The Power Of Its Collective Force To Stop This Fatal Tendency To Plunder Instead Of To Work. All The Measures Of The Law Should Protect Property And Punish Plunder.

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.

When Under The Pretext Of Fraternity, The Legal Code Imposes Mutual Sacrifices On The Citizens, Human Nature Is Not Thereby Abrogated. Everyone Will Then Direct His Efforts Toward Contributing Little To, And Taking Much From, The Common Fund Of Sacrifices. Now, Is It The Most Unfortunate Who Gains From This Struggle? Certainly Not, But Rather The Most Influential And Calculating.