Reflections on Violence

Reflections on Violence, published in 1908, is a book by the French revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel on class struggle and revolution. Sorel argues that political revolution depends on the proletariat organizing violent uprisings and strikes to institute syndicalism, an economic system in which self-organizing groups of proletarians represent the needs of the working class, and controversially claims that violence could save the world from barbarism, equating violence with life, creativity and virtue. In the book he contends that myths are important as expressions of the will to act, and supports the creation of an economic system run by and for the interest of workers.