Bastiat starts off saying that the basic gifts man has from God are: life, liberty, and property. It is appropriate and correct to defend yourself, your liberty, and your property. "The Law" was created to ensure that individuals in society were allowed to use these gifts.
Bastiat says that unfortunately "The Law" is abused by the greed and false philanthropy of man. There are two basic ways of getting ahead in life, the first is to work hard and produce, the second is to plunder from others. When trade off and risks for plunder are better than labor, many people will turn to plunder. It is very tempting for those who make laws to use the law to plunder. Bastiat says "legal plunder" is to use the law to take property, which if was done without the benefit of the law would have been considered a crime.
He has some fairly pointed barbs at socialists. He says many of the writers at his time seem to view people as raw material, to be formed or controlled. He says that most socialists see mankind as evil, while they (the socialists) are good. This leads the socialists to feeling justified in using "The Law" to make mankind be good. Bastiat asks why so many people in government feel that mankind makes too many mistakes, but that they in government are nobler and will make better choices.
This is short, and because the original format was a pamphlet, Bastiat acknowledges that it is not complete. So many of his points and arguments are brief.
This is a good call to action, to encourage people to be more informed about their government, and to work to limit the government. So much of what Bastiat said long ago is still true.
It is amazing to read Bastiat's (he was a French economist) dire warnings about socialism and compare those warnings to what is happening in modern day France. France faces high unemployment, its economic growth is non-existant and it is a welfare state where the 35 hour work week recently led to 35,000 deaths during a heat wave because doctors on vacation refused to return to treat the sick.
I recognize that capitalism has its problems as well, and I would have loved to see Bastiat deal more with the problem of the poor in capitalist societies, but I suppose that is a topic for another book. I suspect that Bastiat would have supported private charities to support the poor as this would not have conflicted with his notion of "forced charity" and the degradation of liberty.
In sum, "The Law" is a magnificent thesis on the importance of liberty. It is genius in its simplicity and compelling in its argument. This book will help you understand why Patrick Henry proudly proclaimed hundreds of years ago: "Give me liberty or give me death!"
I must say that Frederic Bastiat was able to pack more fascinating analysis into a short space than any other writer I have ever seen. He was definitely cast in the same mold as the founding fathers of the United States, with his belief that life, liberty and property are the unalienable gifts of God. He persuasively argues for the defense of these rights, and shows what happens when a people decide to trample upon them.
If you are interested in the philosophy that produced the United States of America, then I highly recommend that you read this fascinating and thought-provoking book!