"First let me dispel the delusion that "class strife" is identical with civil war, with petroleum, dynamite, the stiletto, and the barricades. The forms of class strife are many. Every trade union, every social-democratic election, every strike, is a manifestation of this strife. And it seems to me that such internal struggle, such conflict of different interests and ideas, is not only without danger to our civilisation, but on the contrary will be the source of much that is desirable. I think that the old proverb is true as applied even to social strife, "Πόλεμος πατὴρ πάντων." It is only through struggle that the most beautiful flowers of human existence bloom. It is only struggle that raises the great masses of the common people to a higher level of humanity. Whatever of culture is now forced upon the masses comes to them through struggle; the only warrant for the hope that they can be developed into new and higher forms of culture lies in the fact that they must rise through their efforts, that step by step they must fight for their rights. It is struggle alone that builds character and arouses enthusiasm, for nations as for classes. Let me remind you of a beautiful saying of Kant's, that expresses the same thought: "Thanks to nature for intolerance, for envious and emulous self-seeking, for the insatiable desire to have and to rule! Without this, all the desirable qualities of humanity would lie eternally undeveloped. Man wants peace, but Nature knows better what is necessary for him; she wants strife"."
Werner Sombart - Socialism and the Social Movement in the 19th Century
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