And the political brawlers accused
authority, saying it was partial, ferocious, sold to monopoly,
etc. For my part, I declare that this way of viewing the acts of
authority seems to me scarcely philosophical, and I reject it
with all my energies. It is possible that they might have killed
fewer people, possible also that they might have killed more: the
fact to be noticed here is not the number of dead and wounded,
but the repression of the workers. Those who have criticised
authority would have done as it did, barring perhaps the
impatience of its bayonets and the accuracy of its aim: they
would have repressed, I say; they would not have been able to do
anything else. And the reason, which it would be vain to try to
brush aside, is that competition is legal, joint-stock
association is legal, supply and demand are legal, and all the
consequences which flow directly from competition, joint-stock
association, and free commerce are legal, whereas workingmen's
strikes are ILLEGAL. And it is not only the penal code which
says this, but the economic system, the necessity of the
established order.
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