This is a contentious book. It contends that anarchism impedes significant social change, that men can be forced to be free, that tolerance ought not always to be tolerated, that revolution can only be the work of common men who speak for the majority. Its contentiousness is rooted in the first-order contention that man is a creative being who participates in the making of his own future. It presupposes and expresses the conviction that what a man thinks, proposes, intends, and conceives necessarily influences what he does.
Perceiving in politics an activity issuing out of human consciousness whose character reflects choices and intentions, it rejects the notion that language and reason merely rationalize behavior conditioned by forces beyond the conscious control of man.