Plunder Quotes

When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

Frederic Bastiat

Life, Money, Men

"Economic Sophisms". Book by Frédéric Bastiat, Second series, 1848.

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Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal.

Frederic Bastiat

Law, Judging, Police

Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.16, Cosimo, Inc.

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When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.

Frederic Bastiat

Doe, Painful, Dangerous

Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.9, Cosimo, Inc.

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There are two ways to aquire the niceties of life:
1) To produce them or
2) To plunder them.
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

Paul Valery

Men, Two, Together

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The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital.

Murray Bookchin

Earth, Libertarian, Spirit

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To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace.

Tacitus

Peace, War, Empires

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What have we to offer the world beside the superabundant loot which we recklessly plunder from the earth under the maniacal delusion that this insane activity represents progress and enlightenment?

Henry Miller

Progress, Insane, Enlightenment

Henry Miller (1970). “The Air-Conditioned Nightmare”, p.20, New Directions Publishing

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The poor man wishes to conceal his poverty, and the rich man his wealth: the former fears lest he be despised, the latter lest he be plundered.

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Men, Wish, Poverty

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But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Frederic Bastiat

Law, Government, Giving

Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.18, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder.

Frederic Bastiat

Evil, Liberty, Libertarian

Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.27, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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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.

Frederic Bastiat

Law, Government, Evil

Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.10, Cosimo, Inc.

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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.

Frederic Bastiat

Pain, Men, Doe

Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.9, Cosimo, Inc.

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As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose - that it may violate property instead of protecting it - then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder.

Frederic Bastiat

Law, Long, Use

"La Loi (The Law)". Book by Frederic Bastiat, 1850.

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To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.

Benjamin Disraeli

Class, Community, Protection

Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield) (1886). “Wit and Wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield: Collected from His Writings and Speeches”

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No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice.

Frederic Bastiat

Law, Justice, Principles

Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.19, Cosimo, Inc.

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Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on.

Frederic Bastiat

Encouragement, Jobs, School

Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.17, Cosimo, Inc.

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I think in a sense this is a house that was built on a bad foundation. And the foundation was the Americans coming here and allowing the sacking, burning and plunder of Baghdad, for whatever reason.

Jon Lee Anderson

Thinking, House, Foundation

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If government goes beyond securing liberty and instead violates it through regulation, redistribution, and planning, then citizens are victims of legal plunder.

Richard Ebeling

Government, Liberty, Citizens

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Exploitation and oppression is not a matter of race. It is the system, the apparatus of world-wide brigandage called imperialism, which made the Powers behave the way they did. I have no illusions on this score, nor do I believe that any Asian nation or African nation, in the same state of dominance, and with the same system of colonial profit-amassing and plunder, would have behaved otherwise.

Han Suyin

Believe, Race, Dominance

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They're counting on your patriotism to distract you from their plunder. They're counting on you to be standing at attention with your hand over your heart, pledging allegiance to the flag, while they pick your pocket!

Bill Moyers

Heart, Hands, Over You

"This Isn't the Speech I Expected to Give Today". Bill Moyers' Address to the Environmental Grantmakers Association, Brainerd, MN, www.commondreams.org. October 16, 2001.

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The mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even thought the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect property.

Frederic Bastiat

Law, Acting, May

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In every society where property exists there will ever be a struggle between rich and poor. Mixed in one assembly, equal laws can never be expected; they will either be made by the member to plunder the few who are rich, or by the influence to fleece the many who are poor.

John Adams

Struggle, Law, Influence

John Adams, George A. Peek, Jr. (2003). “The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections”, p.158, Hackett Publishing

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An elite class that is free to operate without limits - whether limits imposed by the rule of law or fear of the responses from those harmed by their behavior - is an elite class that will plunder, degrade, and cheat at will, and act endlessly to fortify its own power.

Glenn Greenwald

Law, Class, Limits

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Praise is declaration, a victory cry, proclaiming faith to stand firm in the place God has given you. Praise is a proclamation that the enemy's intent to plunder you will not rock you. Praise declares that you will not be moved by the enemy's attempt to snatch you away.

Darlene Zschech

Faith, Christian, Religious

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No empire intoxicated with the red wine of power and the plunder of weaker races has yet lived long in this world.

Mahatma Gandhi

Wine, Power, Race

Mahatma Gandhi (1962). “The Essential Gandhi: His Life, Work, and Ideas : an Anthology”, Vintage

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