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very nature of man—in that primitive, universal, and insup-
pressible instinct that impels him to satisfy his desires with the
least possible pain.
Property and Plunder
Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor;
by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources.
This process is the origin of property.
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants
by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others.
This process is the origin of plunder.
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. It is evident, then,
that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collec-
tive force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to
work. All the measures of the law should protect property and
punish plunder.
But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of
men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and
support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to
those who make the laws.
This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in
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the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible
effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus
it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice,
becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to under-
stand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying
degrees among the rest of the people, their personal indepen-
dence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property
by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes
the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.
Victims of Lawful Plunder
Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are
victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of
those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow
to enter—by peaceful or revolutionary means—into the making
of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plun-
dered classes may propose one of two entirely different pur-
poses when they attempt to attain political power: Either they
may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.
Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails among
the mass victims of lawful plunder when they, in turn, seize the
power to make laws!
Until that happens, the few practice lawful plunder upon
the many, a common practice where the right to participate in
the making of law is limited to a few persons. But then, partici-
pation in the making of law becomes universal. And then, men
seek to balance their conflicting interests by universal plunder.
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Instead of rooting out the injustices found in society, they make
these injustices general. As soon as the plundered classes gain
political power, they establish a system of reprisals against other
classes. They do not abolish legal plunder. (This objective would
demand more enlightenment than they possess.) Instead, they
emulate their evil predecessors by participating in this legal
plunder, even though it is against their own interests.
It is as if it were necessary, before a reign of justice appears,
for everyone to suffer a cruel retribution—some for their evil-
ness, and some for their lack of understanding. 
The Results of Legal Plunder
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.
What are the consequences of such a perversion? It would
require volumes to describe them all. Thus we must content
ourselves with pointing out the most striking.
In the first place, it erases from everyone’s conscience the
distinction between justice and injustice.
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a cer-
tain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make
them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other,
the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral
sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of
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equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to
choose between them.
The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the
case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and
the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to
believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so
widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things
are “just” because law makes them so. Thus, in order to make
plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only
necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restric-
tions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who
profit from them but also among those who suffer from them.
The Fate of Non-Conformists
If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these institu-
tions, it is boldly said that “You are a dangerous innovator, a
utopian, a theorist, a subversive; you would shatter the founda-
tion  upon which society rests.”
If you lecture upon morality or upon political science, there
will be found official organizations petitioning the government
in this vein of thought: “That science no longer be taught exclu-
sively from the point of view of free trade (of liberty, of property,
and of justice) as has been the case until now, but also, in the
future, science is to be especially taught from the viewpoint of
the facts and laws that regulate French industry (facts and laws
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