In this division of the forces of social democracy into right and left groups over the question of organization and control, we have a significant demonstration of the inadequacy of that Marxian analysis which resolves all social conflict into the antagonism of economic classes. More profound than that antagonism, and in the order of time more ancient, is the unending warfare between those who believe in law and government for all, and those who believe in law and government for none. The more or less paradoxical character of the socialistic movement at the present moment is attributable to the circumstance that, for the time being, these antagonistic forces of socialism and anarchism are confronting a common enemy--the individualist, who believes in law and government for everybody but himself.
To describe, explain and estimate a phenomenon so complex as modern revolutionary syndicalism is a task from which the economist and the historian alike might well shrink. To understand it and to enable readers to understand it is an achievement. I think that I am not speaking in terms of exaggeration in saying that Dr. Levine has been more successful in this arduous undertaking than any predecessor. His pages tell us in a clear and dispassionate way what revolutionary syndicalism is, how it began, and how it has grown, what its informing ideas and purposes are, and by what methods it is forcing itself upon the serious attention of the civilized world. I think that it is a book which no student of affairs can afford to overlook, or to read in any other spirit than that of a sincere desire to know what account of the most profound social disturbance of our time is offered by a competent reporter of the facts.
THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN FRANCE TO THE COMMUNE (1789-1871)
The economic legislation of the French Revolution was guided by individualistic ideas which expressed the interests of the rising middle classes who felt a necessity of removing the obstacles in the way of economic initiative and of personal effort. These interests and ideas dictated the law of March 2-17, 1791, which abolished the guilds and inaugurated the era of competition in France (_Liberté du Travail_). The law declared that henceforth everybody was "free to do such business, exercise such profession, art, or trade, as he may choose."[2]