Property and spoliation is one of the the works by Bastiat recollected in the Spanish edition of Selected writings by Franciso Cabrillo. Here, Bastiat defends property and liberty as both just and promoters of progress, correcting errors that emerge from both British economists as well as from socialists.
This work consists of letters, which function as chapters. They address arguments concerning the right to work, which, as proposed, goes against the right to property, as argued by Louis Blanc, Proudhon, and Considérant. Each presents different arguments, and they also draw on the words of important economists: Adam Smith, MacCulloch, Buchanan, Ricardo, Scrope, and Senior. Bastiat aims to reconcile the concepts of his antagonists with his concept of services and to demonstrate that property is just and brings progress with it. Moreover, he argues that the right to property is essentially democratic, whereas opposition to it is aristocratic and monarchical.
Bastiat begins by summarizing Considérant’s view on the usufruct of land. Considérant, a socialist of the Fourier kind, acknowledges the landowner’s right to what they specifically create through their activity but denies the right to monopolistically own something as free as land, which he believes should be common to humanity.
Thus, Considérant proposes that landowners should compensate others with the equivalent of what savages obtain from virgin nature through fishing, hunting, or gathering. Since property deprives them of this, such compensation would legitimize land ownership, which he sees as necessary to ensure that land can be cultivated, preventing everyone from remaining in a state of wild nature. This would thus offset the restriction on each person’s natural right to work with nature.
Since, approximately, one square league of land would be necessary per savage, Bastiat sarcastically remarks that French landowners would only need to elevate 30 or 40 thousand people to the level of the Eskimos, which, in the end, turns out to be quite inexpensive.
Bastiat concludes the letter by saying:
[242] I dare to hope that from this demonstration will emerge a clear vision of certain harmonies, capable of satisfying intelligence and appeasing the claims of all economic, socialist, and even communist schools.
In the second letter, he reiterates the issue that seems to arise from the English school of economics regarding land rent and begins by pointing out that, when taken to its logical conclusion, land is not the only thing from which unjust rent is derived by exploiting nature.
[243]Just as it was previously said to the farmer:The law of plant life cannot be property and generate profit," the same could be said to the cloth manufacturer regarding gravity, to the linen fabric producer regarding the law of steam elasticity, to the blacksmith regarding the law of combustion, and to the sailor regarding the law of hydrostatics. Likewise, it could be said to the carpenter, the cabinetmaker, and the lumberjack: "You use saws, axes, and hammers, taking advantage of the hardness of bodies and the resistance of materials for your work. These laws belong to everyone and should not generate profit.
Just as in his Economic Sophisms he accuses metaphor of being the enemy of economic science, he now does the same against metonymy—naming one thing by the name of another with which it has some relation. Although in the passages cited and the parts omitted, the explanation of value and service is not entirely clear, the examples he provides make it evident.
If everyone had a water source beside them, each person would fetch their own water, and water would be free. If they had to travel to get it, they would incur an inconvenience to procure that service for themselves. Alternatively, they could ask someone else to take on that inconvenience and bring them the water. Although one might then say, "Water costs X amount of money," this is a figurative way of speaking: what costs X money is the service of fetching and delivering it, but the water itself remains free. It has utility, but no value.
Similarly, the air we breathe is free. However, if a diver needs air to be pumped to them from the surface, for which they pay, they are not paying for the air—it remains free—but for the service of having it pumped.
Likewise, the natural resources used by the farmer are and remain free. It is the agricultural service that is paid for, and Bastiat wonders why all economists from the English school have fallen into the error of believing that the price of cultivated products includes a monetary cost for using nature when such a thing cannot be true.
[245] Nature’s liberality cannot become a monopoly except by force.
If a price seems excessive, it is because competition is lacking, and competition is the equalizer of the value of services.
[247] Thus, the great law of the economist is this: services are exchanged for services.
Do ut des; do ut facias; facio ut des; facio ut facias—do this for me, and I will do that for you. All of this is very trivial, very commonplace. And yet, it is the principle, the means, and the end of the science.
In the third letter, he further explores this great law and also defends, though only in a footnote, the legitimacy of rent and interest. He argues that if someone lends something and, at the end of the loan period, only recovers exactly what was lent, this means they have provided a service without receiving one in return. Interest is the remuneration given in exchange for the loan, determined by the law of supply and demand. If one has enough to lend, they can legitimately live off interest, meaning the return of services for loans.
And, as he states in the fourth letter, progress is made by increasing the contribution of nature’s free resources to human labor. Machines "grasp" and harness the laws of nature so that people can make greater use of them.
[258] Now, it is evident that every saved remuneration means a gain, not for the one providing the service, but for the one receiving it—that is, for humanity.
After establishing this principle, where he concludes outlining his key concepts, he addresses the different schools of thought. First, he summarizes them:
[258] All schools are summarized in an axiom.
- Economic axiom: Laissez-faire, laissez-passer.
- Egalitarian axiom: Mutuality of services.
- Saint-Simonian axiom: To each according to their capacity, to each capacity according to its works.
- Socialist axiom: Fair distribution among capital, talent, and labor.
- Communist axiom: Community of goods.
Bastiat believes that the ideas he has presented fulfill the aspirations of these different schools, which he explains afterward.
Finally, the fifth letter is dedicated to spoliation, particularly the most severe form—legal spoliation. Just as self-interest drives people to improve their living conditions, it also makes them realize that they can avoid effort and inconvenience by expropriating others. The greatest spoliators are those who legalize their spoliation through the state (and Bastiat also briefly mentions religious fraud as another form of spoliation.)
Translated with Chatgpt from Spanish