To me, this article was mostly about the moral dilemma that comes from following laws. How plundering became such a big thing when discussing the type of governments as well as how different governments view plundering. Another point made in the article is how laws and rules change a people such as those who were viewed as savage turning to accept the rules and thus falling into the society. Another point made was the meaning of liberty and how we as people accept and get what we define as liberty. But the overarching theme of this reading had everything to do with how people choose a form of government.
When I was reading this article the big thing that I thought was surprising was how it was written, the whole thing is written in legal jargon which as someone with dyslexia is absolutely not my favorite thing, in fact, I read it twice and both times found different things sticking out to me. I wasn’t sure if it was the authors chose to write a chapter titled “Law” to be written this way, but even though the jargon is a tad annoying I somewhat found myself enjoying the fact that it was written in a way that tied it to the topic it was discussing.
The first part of this reading was heavily focussed on the moral dilemma that comes when dealing with the law on any plane. This article states that when it comes to the law there is always a moral dilemma that comes into play in two distinct ways. The first of those is a law that is not particularly moral and having a person with a straight moral compass. Because these two things clash the issue lies in leaving the individual with a sense of failure when they follow laws that contradict what they align with as morally correct. On the other side we deal with people who do not feel any moral regret and instead the only thing stopping them from committing atrocities is the fact that they would get in trouble. Both of these two situations can create conflict when we are dealing with laws that our homes have put in place, but for very different reasons.
The next thing that I took away from this article and want to discuss is the whole culture behind plundering. As stated in the text the plundering I will be discussing is defined as “by seizing and appropriating the productions of the faculties of his fellow men.”(53) Looking at this we can establish that when the article mentions plundering, and it does many many times, it is referring to essentially stealing, which I think this is very strange because this article speaks of plundering as something that helped build the world we know today, but I can not think of it as anything besides bad. After all, I don’t know any moral or legal code that would say stealing is an acceptable practice. The thing that I found interesting about this portion of the article was how big of a role plundering played in shaping our laws of today, this practice was not deemed good but it was deemed essential for forming how our world works today. Because without those of the past plundering their neighbors or other lands we most likely would be dealing with a much larger issue in the current times. I thought this was interesting because it just goes to show that even if something at the time can seem negative it could help shape the world for the better.
The last thing I want to discuss is how the article went into detail that we are allowed to come up with how we define liberty and how bringing such concepts to new peoples we can alter their existences. To me personally, I think this was a rather ironic section as when people have different definitions for things they tend to get complex and want everyone to agree that they are right and this can lead to the problem of people trying to push their views on others. And as we can see with the crusades this is not accepted with open arms. But it also just comes black on the fact that human nature is always to prove that it is superior.
To me, the main thing that this article was getting at was the fact that how we deal with laws eventually leads to how we set up our societies and our governments. This is interesting for the fact because it makes it seem as if the people have the power when in reality only a select few do because people born a certain way are hardly ever going to try for something out of their comfort zone. And I think this relates to entrepreneurship because the people who pursue their own goals are usually the ones who are not afraid to take that leap into something new.
Works Cited
Kanopiadmin. (2014, August 18). The Bastiat collection: Claude Frédéric Bastiat. Mises Institute. Retrieved February 5, 2023, from https://mises.org/library/bastiat-collection
Hi @marshbella , I enjoyed reading your insight on these weekly readings and the points you stated. I agree with you that one of the major points in the article was the discussion on liberty. In my opinion, liberty, as explained in the context of this article, is defined as being the person with the power to establish laws, make decisions within the government, and is the one with the most freedom. This is shown throughout the article with Bastait’s view on laws. It was interesting how the author believed that the laws were made by the government, but liberty was obtained by the people. For the most part, the people within the government were the lawmakers so they were primarily choosing laws that gave themselves the most liberty. You also mentioned the fact that these articles were written in legal jargon, which is an interesting point and one that I did not realize. It helps to explain why this article was hard for me to read and understand, given that it was written using so many terms of legal context. Lastly, you defined the word “plundering,” which is emphasized throughout the article. I was having a challenging time defining this word myself, but the way you explained it made so much more sense. In my mind, the author was referencing plundering as something being done to people because of the laws set up and the legal system enforcing them. But now I see, as you mentioned, that in the article “plundering” was defined as,
Because of this quote, we now know that plundering is referred to as stealing liberty from society. However, as you mentioned, the article used the word several times to express how our society is built, in such a way that the laws are enforced to help some while inadvertently hurting others. Overall, I do agree with you on how the article talks about laws, the government, and the use of labor, as well as how some individuals create the laws to help themselves but not so much that they do not have the liberty to still live their life.
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