796 THE INDUSTRIAL GROUP 



It appears in the fact that the laborer is assigned to his position by 

 the entrepreneur through stress of hunger; it appears in the humiliat- 

 ing subordination under the command of an entrepreneur. It often 

 assumes a medieval form when the factory-owner regards himself as 

 the " patriarch " of his people and seeks to guide and determine their 

 lives. It reaches out into the sphere of political right when the 

 capitalist classes use their power in order to limit the participation 

 of the wage-earners in the activity of the state. 



Apparently these are the causes of the proletarian criticism of the 

 existing organization of society, yet we must attend to some other 

 special conditions of life among the modern laboring classes in order 

 to understand the peculiar current of ideas which we continually 

 meet with in all clamors for the " emancipation " of the proletariat. 

 These might be distinguished on the one hand as a tendency toward 

 communistic dreams, and on the other as a love for the masses. 



The love of the masses and regard for the masses follows imme- 

 diately from the association of each individual wage-earner with his 

 thousands of fellow workers, all of whom are united by no other tie 

 than their common labor in the service of the entrepreneur. They 

 are grouped together without distinction, like grains in a heap of 

 sand, and outside the factory undertake no higher social activity 

 than some sort of union. What capitalism has tossed together, in 

 crowds, in great cities and centres of industry, is, as we say, an 

 inarticulate mass of individuals who have completely broken with 

 the past, who have cut themselves loose from all communal ties, 

 from home, village, and kindred, beginning life anew with a complete 

 destruction of their old ideals. The laborer's only support is the 

 comrade of his fate, who signifies as little as he, and who like himself 

 does not belong to any historic community. With this individual he 

 allies himself, and becomes his confederate. Hence arises a host of 

 confederates who are distinguished by one thing above all others, not 

 by individuality, not by common tradition, but by their mass, their 

 massiveness. Never in the history of the world have so many 

 individuals stood together for united action. Never in history has 

 the impetus of mass-action so characterized any movement as has 

 this of the proletariat. Everywhere we hear " the heavy tramp of 

 the labor battalion " with which Lassalle sought to frighten his 

 opponents. And if we would picture to ourselves the social move- 

 ment of our day, it invariably appears to us as an inexhaustible 

 stream of men hardly one of whom stands out clearly, flowing over 

 the whole land as far as the eye can see, to the farthest horizon where 

 the last of them roll away into the darkness. Translated into 

 psychological terms, it signifies that there has grown up in the indi- 

 vidual a tremendous strengthening of the consciousness of combined 

 power, and a strong mass-ethical feeling to conflict with class-ethical 



