Plunder Quotes

• When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Life, Money, Men

  "Economic Sophisms". Book by Frédéric Bastiat, Second series, 1848.

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• Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Judging, Police

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.16, Cosimo, Inc.

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• There are two ways to aquire the niceties of life:
  1) To produce them or
  2) To plunder them.
  When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

  Paul Valery

  Men, Two, Together

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• The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital.

  Murray Bookchin

  Earth, Libertarian, Spirit

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• When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Doe, Painful, Dangerous

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.9, Cosimo, Inc.

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• To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace.

  Tacitus

  Peace, War, Empires

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• The poor man wishes to conceal his poverty, and the rich man his wealth: the former fears lest he be despised, the latter lest he be plundered.

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

  Men, Wish, Poverty

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• It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Government, Evil

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.10, Cosimo, Inc.

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• No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Justice, Principles

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.19, Cosimo, Inc.

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• To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Class, Community, Protection

  Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield) (1886). “Wit and Wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield: Collected from His Writings and Speeches”

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• The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Evil, Liberty, Libertarian

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.27, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• 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.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Pain, Men, Doe

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.9, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even thought the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect property.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Acting, May

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• As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose - that it may violate property instead of protecting it - then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Long, Use

  "La Loi (The Law)". Book by Frederic Bastiat, 1850.

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• Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Encouragement, Jobs, School

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.17, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.

  Horace

  Time, Years, One Thing

  Horace (1903). “Horace for English Readers: Being a Translation of the Poems of Quintus Horatius Flaccus Into English Prose”

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• No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate).

  Frederic Bastiat

  Order, Justice, Liberty

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.19, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Peace, Government, Hands

  Cynic's Word Book (1906) p. 16

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• The law commit legal plunder by violating liberty and property.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Voting, Liberty

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.25, Cosimo, Inc.

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• But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. 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.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Government, Giving

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.18, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• No empire intoxicated with the red wine of power and the plunder of weaker races has yet lived long in this world.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Wine, Power, Race

  Mahatma Gandhi (1962). “The Essential Gandhi: His Life, Work, and Ideas : an Anthology”, Vintage

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• In every society where property exists there will ever be a struggle between rich and poor. Mixed in one assembly, equal laws can never be expected; they will either be made by the member to plunder the few who are rich, or by the influence to fleece the many who are poor.

  John Adams

  Struggle, Law, Influence

  John Adams, George A. Peek, Jr. (2003). “The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections”, p.158, Hackett Publishing

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• An elite class that is free to operate without limits - whether limits imposed by the rule of law or fear of the responses from those harmed by their behavior - is an elite class that will plunder, degrade, and cheat at will, and act endlessly to fortify its own power.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Law, Class, Limits

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• If government goes beyond securing liberty and instead violates it through regulation, redistribution, and planning, then citizens are victims of legal plunder.

  Richard Ebeling

  Government, Liberty, Citizens

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• They're counting on your patriotism to distract you from their plunder. They're counting on you to be standing at attention with your hand over your heart, pledging allegiance to the flag, while they pick your pocket!

  Bill Moyers

  Heart, Hands, Over You

  "This Isn't the Speech I Expected to Give Today". Bill Moyers' Address to the Environmental Grantmakers Association, Brainerd, MN, www.commondreams.org. October 16, 2001.

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