What is the main conflict in The Promise of American Life by Herbert Croly?

In his discussion of the class struggles of his time, Croly claims that a laissez-faire government promotes class conflict in a society through its nonintervention. He notes that equal rights must be promoted through governmental controls; if these controls are not put in place, bickering and strife will ensue. He believes that if equality is not legislated, people will become suspicious of the privileges and opportunities of others:

The principle of equal rights encourages mutual suspicion and disloyalty. It tends to attribute individual and social ills for which general moral, economic and social causes are usually in large measure responsible, to individual wrong-doing; and in this way it arouses and intensifies that personal and class hatred, which never in any society lies far below the surface.