New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1909-06-30
Industrial Individualism
And the Limit Of Government Regulation and Control
BY Andrew Alexander Bruce
College Of Law Of the University Of North Dakota

Professor Dicely, in speaking OF the
influence of public opinion upon the
law Of England, recently remarked
that if you desired to find socialist
all you had to do was to scratch an
Englishman. Recent events have
perhaps led many to the same conclu-
sion in America. But am inclined
to believe that in fact the average
American is anarchistic, rather than
soclalistic; Is an individualist, rather
than a collectivist. Anarchism is ex-
treme individualism. 1t is disbelief
in all law and in the necessity for any
law. Socialism is belief in the
government ownership and control of
all agencies of production. 1t is the
antlpodes of anarchism; it is all law
as opposed to no law.
The American law of to-day, and
the social system which it represents,
may fairly be said to be a compromise
between these two opposites of indi-
vidualism and of collectivism, of
anarchism and of socialism. But
there are several kinds of individual
lism. There is the individualism of
the nonresistant anarchist, there is the
individualism of the militant Saxon
or Norseman and there is the indi-
vilualism of Jeremy Bentham. When
we speak of anarchism and of the
anarchist, it will be noted that we are
speaking of the scientific, nonresisting
anarchist, of the anarchism of Tolstoi
and of Proudhom, not of the anar-
chism of the terrorist, nor of the
anarchism of Bakunin. "What is the
use of law" says Tolstoi: "Are
there criminal statutes, are there
prisons, in, the family? Is not society,
is not the nation, but larger family?
Is it not love which is after all
supreme?'
This is hardly the individualism of
the AngloSaxon, or of the Norseman,
or of the Nineteenth century COM
mercialist. Theirs was of the self
assertive, acquisitive kind. The
Anglo-Saxon and Morse warriors,
who laid the foundation of the English
state, were individualists, because
they themselves were strong. They
believed in the private and unre-
strained right to property, because
they had won it by the sword. They
believed in personal liberty, because
they felt able to assert it. They did
not admit the need of the govern
mental protection of the weak. Even
their kings were at first merely war
lords. They had no conception of the
brotherhood of man, nor of the
solidarity that there is in all mankind.
A saner and more healthy indi-
vidualism than that Of either of these
classes or schools was the individual
lism of Jeremy Bentham. 1t was
founded on the theory of the greatest
good for the greatest number. It in
sisted on the premise that the primary
end of existence is happiness, and
that every person is in the main and
as general rule the best judge of
his own happiness. Legislation,
therefore, it's author maintained,
should aim at the removal of all
restrictions on the free action of the
individual which are not necessary
for securing the like freedom GA the
part of his neighbors. It differed
from scientific, nonresistant anarchy
in conceding that some restraint and
some law was necessary to keep men
from encroaching upon the rights of
others. 1t differed from the collectiv-
ism which followed it in England, and
from what we believe to be the dom
inant and wiser thought of to-day,
merely in failing to admit that in
numerous cases the individual needs
Legislative help to enable him to COM
pete on terms ofeven seeming equality
with others, and that by the rendering
of this aid the welfare of the state
itself IS subserved. It laid the foun-
dation for an intelligent collectivlsm.
In emphasizing the dignity of the in
dividual, and in seeking to remove
the numerous legal obstacles which
had been cast around the struggling
worker by the feudal system and by
the class interests and selfshness of
generations, it paved the way for
further steps in advance. Its fault
was merely that it did not go far
enough. It failed to recognize the
fact that the removal of restrictions
is not always enough, and that in a
competitive world the weak must
sometimes be protected and made able
to compete.
The collectivism which followed