…one could apply to a conspicuous part of contemporary legislation the definition that the German theorist Clausewitz applied to war, namely, that it is a means of attaining those ends that it is no longer possible to attain by way of customary bargaining. It is this prevailing concept of the law as an instrument for sectional purposes that suggested, a century ago, to Bastiat his famous definition of the state: “L’État, la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s’efforce de vivre au dépens de tout le monde” (“that great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else”). We must admit that this definition holds good also in our own time.

An aggressive concept of legislation to serve sectional interest has subverted the ideal of political society as a homogeneous entity, nay, as a society at all. Minorities constrained to accept the results of legislation they would never agree to under other conditions feel unjustly treated and accept their situation only in order to avoid worse or consider it as an excuse for obtaining on their behalf other laws that in turn injure still other people.

via Online Library of Liberty – 7: Freedom and the Common Will – Freedom and the Law (LF ed.).

FREEDOM AND THE LAW by Bruno Leoni