In short, it would take a state to force some people to supply the "rights" (properly: benefits) referred to in point H. As Ayn Rand said, "There is no such thing as the right to enslave." Bakunin is usually given some blame for the terroristic violence which occurred in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He wrote in Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis that "we must spread our principles, not with words but with deeds, for this is the most popular, the most potent, and the most irresistible form of propaganda." Thus, while Bakunin was an eloquent critic of the state, his economics was crude and his support for "propaganda of the deed" (terrorism) probably did more harm than good for anarchism as a movement. Bakunin is the originator of collectivist anarchism and revolutionary anarchism. While the previous anarchists we've examined have favored an evolutionary approach, with means such as education and moral suasion and building freedom through creation of parallel structures, Bakunin believed that violent and sudden revolution could create a free society. The Russian Revolution would discredit that notion; that and other experiences demonstrate quite convincingly that people, after a revolution, will act according to their experience and simply set up another state. After the Russian Revolution, the Reds simply killed the bothersome anarchists and blithely set up their dictatorship. This does not mean that a revolution can never work, but it indicates that, unless enough people have rejected the paradigm of statism and are able to self-govern, it is unlikely to have the desired result of statelessness. And if people have rejected the legitimacy of state and are already utilizing voluntary alternatives, violent revolution is unnecessary. The state has already withered away without major violence, by people "merely willing to be free" as la Boétie put it - and letting it topple on its own. |
Against Authority | page 75 |
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