The Law by Bastiat is recommended by various Libertarian leaning folk such as EconLib. So I decided to read it. However, I was somewhat disappointed. Perhaps quoting from the start will help explain:
The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish! If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.
It is all rather polemical. His complaint is revealed in the section The Complete Perversion of the Law: that unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. I agree with pretty well all he says but don't find it to be helpfully well said; Hayek I think says such things better. But if you've never read H or his ilk, this might be interesting.
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