From Paul A Cleveland's The Life and Work of Frederic Bastiat: One Man's Call for Liberty:
"...Given this understanding of the proper function of the law [the purpose of government is to punish wrongdoers; that is, it is the collective use of force to protect the endowed natural rights of each individual] Bastiat explored the reasons why unconstrained democracy tended toward socialistic policies, as was the case in France during his life. He gave two reasons for this situation: greed and false philanthropy. The first reason is easy to understand. Greed is a powerful passion in the human heart. It leads people bound by its grip to participate in the act of stealing the property of others. Using the power of government to plunder one's neighbor is a very effective means of theft. When an individual is successful at gaining political power so that the collective force is used to seize his neighbor's property he no longer need fear retribution. That is, the thief no longer need worry about being punished for his crime for it has been artificially legitimized. As a result, stealing goes on with impunity. Unfortunately, this situation tends to blur people's vision of the true meaning of justice.
The second reason for the rise of democratic socialism is more subtle. It flows from the individual's desire to have compassion on others. As such, there is an abiding temptation to use the resources one voluntarily controls to lobby legislatures so as to tap into the larger means available in the public treasury. If the efforts are successful, then the individual will be able to control the flow of far more resources for his "good" cause. Ruinously though, such efforts will be at the expense of justice since it perverts the very basis and purpose of the law and allows people to seize property from others by the use of force."
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