So, I'm one day late on this. In part because I didn't think this was going to be a big deal, so I wasn't going to bother with a post.
...But, after reading today that everyone on twitter has opinions about Karl Marx's 200 birthday, I thought I'd chime in myself.
I usually place myself on the Bakunin side of the famous Marx/ Bakunin 1872 schism.
Bakunin's warnings in 1872 against Marx's vision of the future seem very prescient now in light of the 20th century.
We believe power corrupts those who wield it as much as those who are forced to obey it. Under its influence, some become greedy and ambitious tyrants, exploiting society in their own interest, or in that of their class, while others are turned into abject slaves. Intellectuals, positivists, doctrinaires, all those who put science before life…defend the idea of the state and its authority as being the only possible salvation of society--quite logically, since from their false premises that thought comes before life, that only abstract theory can form the starting-point of social practice…they draw the inevitable conclusion that since such theoretical knowledge is at present possessed by very few, these few must be put in control of social life, not only to inspire, but to direct all popular movements, and that no sooner is the revolution over than a new social organization must be at once be set up; not a free association of popular bodies…working in accordance with the needs and instincts of the people but a centralized dictatorial power concentrated in the hands of this academic minority, as if they really expressed the popular will….The difference between such revolutionary dictatorship and the modern State is only one of external trappings. In substance both are a tyranny of the minority over the majority in the name of the people-in the name of the stupidity of the many and the superior wisdom of the few-and so they are equally reactionary, devising to secure political and economic privilege to the ruling minority, and the…enslavement of the masses, to destroy the present order only to erect their own rigid dictatorship on its ruins.Full Text HERE.
But was Bakunin making a strawman? Was Marx himself really such an authoritarian?
I've read several books on Marx, and it's hard for me to get a handle on it. Some authors portray him as an authoritarian, others as a democrat.
I've never really been able to make up my mind as to what exactly his legacy is.
But I have found him fascinating, and have read now several books about Marx or by Marx. And reviewed them on this blog.
* The Communist Manifesto
* Karl Marx: The First International and After; Political Writings Volume 3
* Karl Marx: His Life and Environment by Isaiah Berlin
* Karl Marx: An Intimate Biography by Saul Padover
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