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XI)
VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
arise from two diametrically opposed points of view.
One is at bottom anarchistic, and looks upon
all social
evils as the result of individual wrong-doing. The other
is at bottom socialistic, and looks upon
all social evils as
in the main the result of economic and social laws. To
those who believe there are good trusts and bad trusts,
good capitalists and bad capitalists,
and that this is an
adequate analysis of our economic ills, there is, of course,
after all, nothing left but hatred of individuals and, in
the extreme case, the desire to remove those individuals.
To those, on the other hand, who see in certain underly-
of our dis-
ing economic forces the source of nearly all
tressing social evils, individual hatred and malice can
make in reality no appeal. This volume, on its historical
side, as well as in its survey of the psychology of the
various elements in the labor movement, is a contribution
to the study of the reactions that affect various
minds and temperaments in the face of modern social
wrongs. If one's point of view is that of the anarchist,
he is led inevitably to make his war upon individuals.
The more sensitive and sincere he is, the more bitter
and implacable becomes that war. If one's point of view
is based on what is now called the economic interpretation
of history, one is emancipated, in so far as that is
possible for emotional beings, from all hatred of individuals,
and one sees before him only the necessity of
the economic basis of our common life in
readjusting
order to achieve a more nearly perfect social order.
In contrasting the temperaments, the points of view,
the philosophy, and the methods of these two antagonistic
minds, I have been forced to take two extremes, the
Bakouninist anarchist and the Marxian socialist. In the
case of the former, it has been necessary to present the
views of a particular school of anarchism, more or less