The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has … - Frédéric Bastiat

The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense...When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.

Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them.

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.

Legal plunder has two roots: one of them, as we have already seen, is in human greed; the other is in misconceived philanthropy.