What is law? The secular functional tests. (1 reply)
■ 🕑 1. What is law? The secular functional tests. Below is a practical checklist of Bastiat-style tests you can apply to any policy to decide whether, by his criteria, it is **law‑ful** or **un‑law‑ful**, expressed in secular and functional terms.
YES LL BECAUSE I LITERATE, LOSERS ---
## 1. Rights-Protection Test
**Question:** Does this policy exist primarily to protect individuals against violations of their basic rights—**life, liberty, and property**—or is it trying to do something else?
- **Law-ful if:** - It prevents or punishes physical aggression, theft, fraud, or coercion. - It organizes common defense (police, courts, basic security) so that individuals don’t have to carry out private retaliation. - **Un-law-ful if:** - Its main purpose is to manage outcomes (e.g., set prices, guarantee jobs, provide benefits) rather than stop rights violations. - It uses the state’s force to promote particular lifestyles, moral codes, or economic patterns.
**Functional idea:** Law is a **defensive mechanism**, not a tool for shaping society’s positive goals.
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## 2. Non-Aggression / Negative-Law Test
**Question:** Does the policy only **forbid aggression and protect against harm**, or does it **compel** people to do things they have not chosen?
- **Law-ful if:** - It is “negative” in nature: it says, “You may not assault, steal from, defraud, or otherwise violate others’ rights.” - It uses force only in response to prior or imminent rights violations. - **Un-law-ful if:** - It is “positive” in nature: it says, “You must participate, fund, or behave in certain ways, even if you are not harming anyone.” - It compels actions like mandatory charity, compulsory membership in state schemes, or forced participation in “public” projects that go beyond self-defense.
**Functional idea:** Legitimate law **stops** injustice; it does not **command** virtue, generosity, or social cooperation by force.
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## 3. Legal Plunder Test
**Core principle:** Bastiat’s key criterion for un-law-fulness is **legal plunder**: when the law is used to take from some to give to others.
**Question:** Does the policy **take wealth or advantage from one group and transfer it to another** by force, under the color of law?
- **Law-ful if:** - Any taking (e.g., taxation) is strictly confined to funding the protection of everyone’s life, liberty, and property. - It does not favor specific industries, classes, regions, or interest groups. - **Un-law-ful if:** - It grants subsidies, special protections, or benefits to some at others’ expense. - It uses instruments such as targeted tariffs, industry-specific protections, forced welfare transfers, “guaranteed” income/jobs, or other schemes that forcibly redistribute resources.
**Functional idea:** If a private individual doing the same thing would be called **theft or extortion**, then the state doing it via policy is **legal plunder** and un‑law‑ful in Bastiat’s sense.
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## 4. Universality and Impartiality Test
**Question:** Is the policy **truly general**—the same rules, applied to everyone equally—or does it **privilege or burden** particular groups?
- **Law-ful if:** - It is **universal in scope** and **non-discriminatory**: the same protections and the same restrictions apply to all individuals. - It does not create legal categories with special rights or exemptions. - **Un-law-ful if:** - It treats groups differently, giving some legal privilege (e.g., monopolies, protections, exemptions) or placing special burdens on disfavored groups. - It is effectively written “for” or “against” specific classes, professions, or interests.
**Functional idea:** Legitimate law is a neutral set of **general rules**; once it becomes a tool for “our group vs. their group,” it is perverted.
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## 5. Scope and Social-Engineering Test
**Question:** Does the policy **confine itself** to preventing and punishing rights violations, or does it **organize** and **direct** areas like education, religion, charity, or economic life?
- **Law-ful if:** - It leaves decisions about education, charity, religion, work, and lifestyle to individuals and voluntary associations. - It only intervenes when there is actual or imminent rights-violation (e.g., abuse, fraud, coercion). - **Un-law-ful if:** - It sets up compulsory schooling systems, official moral or religious codes, mandatory welfare schemes, or economic plans that people must support or obey regardless of consent. - It tries to “engineer” social outcomes (e.g., equality of material conditions, uniformity of beliefs) by force.
**Functional idea:** Law should **protect free choices**, not replace them with a legislator’s blueprint for how people should live.
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## 6. Consent and Self-Ownership Test
**Question:** Does the policy **respect each person’s self-ownership** and the fruits of their labor, or does it treat individuals as resources to be directed?
- **Law-ful if:** - It assumes individuals own their bodies, time, and legitimately acquired property. - It does not commandeer their labor or resources for purposes other than common defense and justice. - **Un-law-ful if:** - It obliges people to fund or participate in endeavors they would not voluntarily support, when those endeavors go beyond protecting rights. - It presumes that a portion of everyone’s labor and property is available to be allocated according to some social plan.
**Functional idea:** Individuals are not means to collective ends; policies that treat them as such are un‑law‑ful in Bastiat’s framework.
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## 7. Systemic Consequences Test
**Question:** If generalized, does this policy tend toward a system of **universal legal plunder** and conflict, or toward **stable justice** and peaceful cooperation?
- **Law-ful if:** - Its generalization leads to a society where people mostly interact by voluntary exchange, under equal protection of rights. - It tends to reduce conflict by giving everyone a clear, limited framework of protection. - **Un-law-ful if:** - Its pattern—“use law to get benefits for my group”—would push every group to fight for control of the state, leading to permanent conflict and widespread plunder. - It blurs the line between justice and injustice, encouraging people to see whatever is legal as automatically right.
**Functional idea:** A law‑ful framework **stabilizes** expectations and cooperation; systemic legal plunder makes politics a war of all against all.
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## How to Use These Tests in Practice
When evaluating a specific policy (tax, subsidy, regulation, welfare program, education law, etc.), walk through these questions:
1. **Rights-Protection:** - What concrete rights-violations does this policy prevent or punish? - If none, why is force being used?
2. **Non-Aggression / Negative-Law:** - Is the policy only stopping harm, or is it commanding positive behaviors?
3. **Legal Plunder:** - Who pays, who gains? - Would the same transfer be wrongful if done by a private person?
4. **Universality:** - Does the rule apply identically to everyone, regardless of class or category?
5. **Scope / Social Engineering:** - Is this about defense of rights, or about shaping how people live, believe, work, or trade?
6. **Consent / Self-Ownership:** - Could individuals reasonably opt out if they disagree, or is participation coerced? - Does it override individuals’ control of their own labor and property for non-defensive ends?
7. **Systemic Effects:** - If all groups used law this way, would we get general justice or general plunder?
- If a policy **passes all or almost all** of these tests, Bastiat would likely consider it **law‑ful** (legitimate law). - If it **fails one or more key tests**—especially the **legal plunder** and **scope** tests—he would classify it as a **perversion of law**, i.e., **un‑law‑ful**, even if it is formally enacted and widely approved.