The Law Mini-Course
If you are already enrolled and want to begin, scroll down to the Course Content table and click on 1: When Law is Used to Plunder.
The content of this mini-course is also covered in our full government and economics classes. If you are enrolled in either of them, you do not need to also enroll in this mini-course.
Mini-course is $30.00 FREE!
Frédéric Bastiat’s 50-page essay, The Law—written in 1850, is a classic defense against socialism. It is a “must read” for anyone wanting to understand the principles of liberty and writing law that will protect it. This four-lesson mini-course emphasizes the important principles that must be understood if we are to rightly evaluate the policies being proposed by politicians vying for your vote.
Bastiat had a gift for making the natural law principles of government and economics that govern our universe understandable. When we violate these principles it always results in negative consequences. Bastiat points out the boundaries for good law that when observed lead to peace and prosperity.
In four lessons you will learn ways to evaluate almost every policy proposal in the news. Bastiat has a way of saying things that yields many quotes you will want to take away and remember forever. A few brief examples:
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.
The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.
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.
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.
It answers questions such as:
- What is law?
- When is the use of force justified?
- What should legislators seek to do when writing law? What should be their goal?
- What is behind the proposals of socialists?
- What is wrong with laws that redistribute wealth?
You will receive 365-day access.
Please help us improve our courses
by letting us know what you think of them
Help others benefit from your experience with our courses. Leave a review on our website’s homepage for us to use on our site.