Why Frederick Bastiat is important to the ideals of freedom: Frederick Bastiat showed how unscrupulous individuals or groups, in order to institutionalize and legalize plundering, could pervert the law through appeals to greed or false philanthropy. He specifically named socialism as legal plundering.
"But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense."
- Frederick Bastiat
rench political philosopher Fredrick Bastiat, best remembered for his book, The Law, was a popular essayist who understood and criticized socialism years before Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto. Bastiat argued that socialism, as a form of legalized plundering, would eventually lead to tyranny through perversion of the law. Although Bastiat's views on universal suffrage appears antithetical to modern readers, it must be remembered that he was a product of his times. Bastiat went on to found the free trade movement in France, which culminated after his death in free trade liberalization between France and England in 1860. F. A. Hayek considered Bastiat "a publicist of genius" and he influenced US President Ronald Reagan.