Home
Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
Latest activity
Members
Current visitors
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Home
Forums
Brown Cafe Community Center
Current Events
What to do if Neo-Con Is Found In Load
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="SeniorGeek" data-source="post: 203418" data-attributes="member: 4823"><p>I do not recall seeing that post. I think the translation in your link is more recent than the one I read when I was an Economics major...long ago. It was a pamphlet when it was written, but today's attention span is not long enough to endure it. It is amazing how many of his thoughts can be turned into modern sound bites....</p><p> </p><p>I searched for other translations, and found there have been quite a few. I remember Reagan mentioning Bastiat, and I wondered if he had really understood how "socialism" was defined (as he took us into record deficits I thought could never be surpassed). I find many people are using Bastiat's arguments against "socialism" without paying attention to how <u>he</u> defined "socialism". (Lots of people use Bastiat to say, "This tells us what is wrong with the Democrats" - even though The Republicans also fit his definition of socialists - or "This is why the 2004 Highway bill is wrong", or "Stop taxing...me".) </p><p> </p><p>I think this has been difficult to translate - or there were those who wanted to translate it with their own bias. I found one translator's complaint that the people who hired him specified how he should translate (trans<u>literate</u>) a list of particular words, and the resulting loss of meaning. </p><p> </p><p>The main attractions of Bastiat are consistency and simplicity/clarity. The main problem is that his ideas are high-level, and some details are ignored. How can a Corporation fit within Bastiat's law? Is it an organization that can plunder, using its size to advantage? Or is it simply a collection of individuals making a business arrangement? </p><p> </p><p>The one thing I took away from reading this (about 30 years ago), and I still see <u>The Law</u> as a statement of warning about the direction <em>all</em> institutions will take - government, big businesses, unions, political parties, etc. We all have seen evidence that these institutions end up putting most of their effort into perpetuating themselves. </p><p> </p><p>One could make a case that Bastiat's ideal world (especially if taken to an anarcho-capitalist extreme) would eventually turn into the exact mess we have today, or some other mess, because of the human behavior he warns about.</p><p> </p><p>So here we are.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="SeniorGeek, post: 203418, member: 4823"] I do not recall seeing that post. I think the translation in your link is more recent than the one I read when I was an Economics major...long ago. It was a pamphlet when it was written, but today's attention span is not long enough to endure it. It is amazing how many of his thoughts can be turned into modern sound bites.... I searched for other translations, and found there have been quite a few. I remember Reagan mentioning Bastiat, and I wondered if he had really understood how "socialism" was defined (as he took us into record deficits I thought could never be surpassed). I find many people are using Bastiat's arguments against "socialism" without paying attention to how [U]he[/U] defined "socialism". (Lots of people use Bastiat to say, "This tells us what is wrong with the Democrats" - even though The Republicans also fit his definition of socialists - or "This is why the 2004 Highway bill is wrong", or "Stop taxing...me".) I think this has been difficult to translate - or there were those who wanted to translate it with their own bias. I found one translator's complaint that the people who hired him specified how he should translate (trans[U]literate[/U]) a list of particular words, and the resulting loss of meaning. The main attractions of Bastiat are consistency and simplicity/clarity. The main problem is that his ideas are high-level, and some details are ignored. How can a Corporation fit within Bastiat's law? Is it an organization that can plunder, using its size to advantage? Or is it simply a collection of individuals making a business arrangement? The one thing I took away from reading this (about 30 years ago), and I still see [U]The Law[/U] as a statement of warning about the direction [I]all[/I] institutions will take - government, big businesses, unions, political parties, etc. We all have seen evidence that these institutions end up putting most of their effort into perpetuating themselves. One could make a case that Bastiat's ideal world (especially if taken to an anarcho-capitalist extreme) would eventually turn into the exact mess we have today, or some other mess, because of the human behavior he warns about. So here we are. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Home
Forums
Brown Cafe Community Center
Current Events
What to do if Neo-Con Is Found In Load
Top