Bastiat makes fun of the government a lot. He talks about how people ask for things to be done by the government, “ ‘Organize labor and workmen.’ ‘Do away with greed.’ ‘Repress insolence and the tyranny of capital.’ ‘Experiment with manure and eggs.’ ‘Cover the country with railways.’ ‘Irrigate the plants.’ ‘Plant the hills.’ ‘Make model farms.’ ‘Found social laboratories.’ ‘Colonize Algeria.’ ‘Nourish children.’ ‘Educate the youth.’ ‘Assist the aged.’ ‘Send the inhabitants of towns into the country.’ ‘Equalize the profits of all trades.’ ‘Lend money without interest to all who wish to borrow.’ ‘Emancipate Italy, Poland, and Hungary.’ ‘Rear and perfect the saddle-horse.’ ‘Encourage the arts, and provide us with musicians and dancers.’ ‘Restrict commerce, and at the same time create a merchant navy.’ “ (Bastiat, 96). He then makes fun of the government by saying the government responds with ‘yeah we’re gonna get on that, but first we need resources so we’re going to have some new taxes for you to pay’. Everyone says the government is so good, that it is like a universal doctor, an unlimited pocketbook, and a counselor, but that is too good to be true according to Bastiat. The government is constantly overturned by the people because it does not fulfill these roles people want it to. He says it is one of the strangest illusions that the human mind has fallen for. He states that people will suffer from privation, just by their nature, unless they take the trouble to work to meet their needs. The only way for someone to avoid both problems, the privation and the work, is to “enjoy the labor of others” (Bastiat, 98). This stops the troubles and enjoyments from being in their natural state by causing all of the troubles to go to one person or one set of people and all of the enjoyments to go to another person or another group of people. This is how slavery or war or other things of that nature come from.
Oppression should be resisted, but the original inclination to divide people into two categories, throwing the trouble to others and keeping the enjoyment to themselves, remains. Now, though, the oppressors have gotten sneakier about it and no longer oppress directly or with their own powers on the victims. The oppression has gotten more discreet, but the tyrant and victim are still there. There is an intermediate between the tyrant and victim, and that is the government. The oppressors use the government to silence the complaints and overcome any resistance. Bastiat states that the government is “that great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” (Bastiat, 99). The people put their trust into the government, but the government is made up of men who will always seize every opportunity to increase their own wealth and influence. The government is quick to use the advantages it gets from being trusted by the public. It is happy to be in control so it can take a lot and keep a large share for itself and give itself more and more privileges. Even while it does all of this, the public remains blind to it somehow.
The French constitution starts with “France has constituted itself a republic for the purpose of raising all the citizens to an ever-increasing degree of morality, enlightenment, and well-being”. Bastiat says that this is too abstract for a constitution and that it is kind of crazy to expect everything to be solved for you and from an energy that is not your own. It is saying that there is an enlightened, rich, and virtuous being independent of the French that they rely upon for its benefits. He states that there is little value of an axiom if the subject and the attribute can change places without any problems. Then he talks about the American constitution and how it is better worded. There is no abstraction from which the people can demand everything. They don’t expect anything except what they can do from themselves and with their own energy. The deification of the government from how it is worded in the French constitution has been the source of big problems in the past and will be in the future again. There are two sides, the public and the government, and “the latter is bound to bestow upon the former, and the former having the right to claim from the latter, all imaginable human benefits” (Bastiat, 102). That is not the best combination of powers for the two groups.
