The Law: a dangerous book

The Law (French original: La Loi) is a book by Frédéric Bastiat, published in 1850. The book was written in Mugron two years after the Third French Revolution and a few months before the author's death from tuberculosis at the age of 49.

The book, which takes the form of an essay, was influenced by the work of philosopher John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, and in turn influenced Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. It is one of Bastiat's best-known works, along with The Candlemaker's Petition and The Parable of the Broken Window.

In The Law, Bastiat states that "each of us has a natural right – from God – to defend his person, his liberty and his property". The state is "the substitute for the collective force" for protecting these rights. Law becomes perverted when it is used to violate the rights of individuals, when it punishes one person's right to defend himself against the collective attempt of others to enact legislation that essentially has the same effect as plunder.

The pamphlet The Law, published in about a million copies, continues to sell at a rate of 15 thousand copies per year. Every year, almost everywhere in the world, one or several books about it appear, as well as translations of his works.