[derrida]

Note how Rand concieves of the role of the police or military only in a reactive context:

"The basic principle is that no man has the right to seek values from others by means of physical force. No man or group has the right to initiate the use of force against others. We do, however, have the right to use force in self-defense, though only to those who initiate its use."

The problem that arises is such: Where can one draw the line between reaction and initiation?

To Rand, it is the syndicalists attempting to gain control of the factory who have "initiated" the use of force, and are thus met with "just" violence on the part of the police.

When one looks beyond the logic of Rand a different perspective begins to congeal. The syndicalists are reacting against a different kind of force- the physical reality imposed upon the proletariat by capitalism: biological survival through the sale of one's time.


"The property-owners wish a fatal illness upon me for having said that property, alone and of itself, is theft; as if property did not derive the whole of its value from traffic in products and thus were not dependent upon a phenomenon higher than itself, the collective strength and solidarity of labor." -Pierre J. Proudhon