It is necessary to assess the root cause of the disease, and it would be childish to demand that the human heart be different from how nature created it.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 232 to 234 (in French)
La République française, March 5th, 1848

In this article, Frédéric Bastiat notes that the whole press is pointing at the scramble for the spoils occurring at the town hall further to all the institutional changes in progress to implement the second republic. According to him, the source is to be found in the French mistake that consists in granting undue power to the government and the lack of gratitude towards, or even the contempt for entrepreneurial freedom. Indeed, “is it not obvious that the scramble for the spoils is and will always be proportionate to the spoils offered to those who get them?”

Today’s quote is immediately reminiscent to that of Bossuet who wrote: “God laughs at the prayers he receives against the public curse when the faithful does nothing against the cause that attracts the curse”. Thus, he is exposing the press who is up in arms against the scramble for the spoils on one hand but demands always more government intervention on the other.