Describe Bastiat’s concept of the politics of plunder. According to Wikipedia “Claude-Frédéric Bastiat was a French economist, writer and a prominent member of the French Liberal School.” He was born on June 30, 1801 in Bayonne, France, and died on December 24, 1850 in Rome, Italy. 

When Fredrick Bastiat was a member of the French National Assembly he introduced the parable of the broken window. According to Wikipedia “The parable of the broken window was introduced by French economist Frédéric Bastiat in his 1850 essay “That Which We See and That Which We Do Not See” (“Ce qu’on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas“) to illustrate why destruction, and the money spent to recover from destruction, is not actually a net benefit to society.” He also wrote many other things including The Law and Taxes. According to Wikipedia “The Law  is an 1850 book by Frédéric Bastiat. It was written at Mugron two years after the third French Revolution and a few months before his death of tuberculosis at age 49. The essay was influenced by John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government and in turn influenced Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. It is the work for which Bastiat is most famous, followed by the candlemaker’s petition and the parable of the broken window.”

Describe Bastiat’s concept of the politics of plunder. According to OLL, “The basis for Bastiat’s theory of class was the notion of plunder which he defined as the taking of another person’s property without their consent by force or fraud. Those who lived by plunder constituted “les spoliateurs” (the plunderers) or “la classe spoliatrice” (the plundering class).” Plunder is taking someone else’s property by force. Bastiat observes that a society where plundering is practiced, soon it will become legal.