… is from pages 244-245 of Volume 2 (“The Law,” “The State,” and Other Political Writings, 2012) of Liberty Fund’s The Collected Works of Frédéric Bastiat, brilliantly edited by David Hart; specifically, it’s a passage from Bastiat’s January 1849 essay “Protectionism and Communism“ (“Protectionisme et communisme”):
It seems as though intervention by the state reconciles us with plunder by attributing responsibility for it to everyone, that is to say, to no one, with the result that people can enjoy the property of others with a perfectly clear conscience.
