i

TITLE PAGE

STUDY OF MIKHAIL BAKUNIN’S CONCEPT OF POWER AND

AUTHORITY

A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF

PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA IN

PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT

FOR THE AWARD OF A MASTER OF ARTS

(MA) DEGREE IN PHILOSOPHY

BY

IJI PAUL IJI

PG/MA/06/41372

SUPERVISOR

DR. J.O. ENEH

FEBRUARY 2009

ii

DEDICATION

To Almighty God; to my beloved wife Mrs Nina Iji and the entire Iji Awugo Paul‘s family

with love.

iii

CERTIFICATION

Iji, Paul Iji, a Master of Arts student in the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of the Social

Sciences, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, with Registration Number: PG/MA/06/41372, has

satisfactorily completed the requirements (course work and dissertation) for the award of

Master of Arts Degree (M.A) in philosophy.

The dissertation is original and has not been submitted in part or in full for any other

degree of this or any other University.

--------------------------------- -------------------------------

IJI PAUL IJI DR. J.O ENEH

PG/MA/06/41372 SUPERVISOR

---------------------------

Prof. J.C.A. Agbakoba

(Ag. Head of Department)

iv

APPROVAL PAGE

This dissertation has been approved for the Department of Philosophy, University of

Nigeria Nsukka, in partial fulfillment for the award of Master of Arts (M.A) Degree in

Philosophy.

By

-------------------------- -----------------------------

Dr. J. O. Eneh Internal Examiner

(Supervisor)

--------------------------- -----------------------------

Prof. J.C.A. Agbakoba External Examiner

(Ag. Head of Department)

-----------------------------------

Dean of the Faculty.

v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I sincerely express my profound gratitude to all who in one way or another have

contributed to the completion of this work. May God Almighty reward them abundantly. I am

particularly grateful to Prof. J.C.A. Agbakoba and Dr. Joseph O. Eneh, my supervisors, for

their patience and acceptance to supervise this work as well as for their helpful suggestions. I

am also thankful to all my lecturers in the Department of Philosophy, University of Nigeria

among whom are Prof. F.U. Okafor, Prof. Egbeke Aja, Dr F.O.C. Njoku, Dr. B.O. Eboh and

Dr. Chukwu Elube for their advice, assistance and contributions in making this work a

success.

I am specially grateful to my late father, Iji I Obu, late Mother, Otelahu Iji, Nee

Ogbike, who are not alive to see their son graduated to this level of my academic. I am

grateful to entire Iji Obu‘s family brothers and sisters for their support, prayers and

cooperation. I am grateful to Rev. Dr. J.O. Ikoni, Rev. Dr. N. Chuka, Dr. P.O. Agogo, Rev.

Mrs. Lady Shande M., Mr. Onah Ode, Mr. Ituen Ebong Bassey, my Elder sister, Comfort Ire

Agbike, my late father in-law J.H. Dzungwe, for their tireless financial support in the course

of my studies. May God reward them abundantly. My gratitude also goes to Mr. Daniel

Nyamgee, Chuka Okoye, Philip Idachaba, Ichaba Amos, Ogaba Solomon and to all my class

mates who have proven to be good friends and companion for this programme. Finally, my

thanks go to my room mates; Paul Haaga, Okpanachi Anthony Okpanachi Idoko. I am

grateful to Miss Eze, Rita who did the typesetting of this work and to all my friends who gave

me moral support during this work. May God bless you all.

vi

ABSTRACT

The work centres on the study of Mikhail Bakunin’s concept of Power and Authority. Power

and Authority are so central in the organisation of any society. No society can thrive in a

situation where nobody is in control. Philosophers all through the ages have advocated for

one form of power and Authority or another. In this work, Mikhail Bakunin presents his own

concept of power and authority that will enable the society to attain the end or purpose of its

existence. Bakunin is seen as an anarchist by some scholars. However, in this work,

Bakunins’ concept of power and authority is viewed in what Bakunin identified as secret

dictatorship. What this means is that machinery will be put in motion to carry out a broadly

based propaganda. By the power of this propaganda, and also by organisation among

people themselves then join together separate popular forces in a mighty strength capable of

demolishing the state. Invariably, what Bakunin is advocating is a stateless society without

any hierarchy or government and every citizen is equal. This work will X-ray in a critical

manner the merits and demerits of Bakunins’ view. The work concludes that no society can

function well without Power and Authority.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page..................................…………………………………………………... …………i

Dedication ………………………………………………………………………………..ii

Certification Page…………………………………………………………………………....iii

Approval Page ……………………………………………………………………………….iv

Acknowledgement ………………………………………………………………………..v

Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………….vi

Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………………vii

Chapter One: Introduction ……………………………………………………………..…1

1.1 Background of the Study ………………………………………………………………..1

1.2 Statement of the Problem ………………………………………………………………..2

1.3 Purpose of the Study ………………………………………………………………..2

1.4 Significance of the Study ………………………………………………………………..3

1.5 Scope of the Study ………………………………………………………………..3

1.5 Methodology of the Study ………………………………………………………..3

Chapter Two: Literature Review ……………………………………………………..…5

2.1 Review of Related Literature ……………………………………………………..…5

Chapter Three: Power And Authority in Mikhail Bakunin…………………………….22

3.1 Life and Times of Mikhail Bakunin ………………………………………………22

3.2 Bakunin's Maxian Point of Departure……. ………………………………………23

3.3 Power and Authority in Politics . ………………………………………………25

3.4 Anthropological/Ontological Foundations of Bakunin's Philosophy ………………26

3.5 The Concept of Liberty ………………………………………………………………29

3.6 Natural Law and the Law of Nature ………………………………………………30

3.7 Liberty and Authority in Mikhail ………………………………………………………34

3.8 Man Society and Freedom ………………………………………………………35

3.9 The theory of the State ………………………………………………………………37

3.10 The Ideal Political Arrangement For Bakunin: Influence, not Power ………………38

Chapter Four: Evaluating The Philosophy of Mikhail Bakunin ………………………44

4.1 Preamble ………………………………………………………………………………44

4.2 The Defect of the Anthropological and Ontological Foundations of Bakunin‘s

Philosophy ………………………………………………………………………44

4.3 Violence, Revolution and Invisible Dictatorship ………………………………………45

viii

4.4 Nationalism …………………………………………………………………..……46

4.5 Anti- Semitism ……………………………………………………………..…………47

4.6 Eurocentricism ………………………………………………………….…………….47

4.7 The Case for Vanguardism in Bakunin ……………………………….……………….48

4.8 The Marxist Critique of Left Anarchism …………………………….………………….51

Chapter Five: Summary and Conclusion …………………………. …………………….55

5.1 Summary ………………………………………………….…………………………….55

5.2 Conclusion ……………………………………...………………………………………..58

Bibliography …………………….………………………………………………….60

1

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

The issue of how best to manage authority in the state has been the concern of

social and political theorists through the history of social and political philosophy. How

best to balance authority with liberty has been the concern too. In the light of the above,

various traditions on the relationship between liberty and authority have emerged. There

are the libertarians who argue that there should be limited authority in the state,

upholding the superiority of liberty over authority. The authoritarians argue on the other

hand that, all authority should be given to the state and individuals and their liberty have

no place at all. The anarchists have the opinion that no authority is needed in the state,

that all authority in the state should be abolished.

It is in line with the anarchists that Bakunin presents his case for power and

authority. In his opinion,

―men are endowed with a natural instinct for power which has

its origin from the basic law of life making every individual…

to exercise a continuous struggle to ensure and maintain his

existence or…to assert his rights. The struggle for this power

began in a crude act of cannibalism and then proceeded

throughout the centuries under various religious banners.

From these, it moved successfully through all…forms of

slavery. Presently the struggle is taking place under the

double aspect of exploitation…of wage labour by capital,

political, judicial, civil, and military and police oppression by

the state, church and state officials‖1.

This instinct is universal to all men, and he writes,

―every man carries within himself the germs of this lust for

power, and every germ, as we know because of a basic law of

life necessary must grow if only it finds in its environment

favourable conditions. These conditions in human society are

the stupidity, apathy, indifference and service habits of the

masses‖2.

2

By implication, one may hold that it is the masses themselves who produce those

exploiters, oppressors, despots and executioners of humanity of whom they are victims.

Because of the evil tenets that go with power, Bakunin detests power in all

ramifications. He maintains that no one should be entrusted with power in as much as

anyone invested with authority must through the force of an immutable social law,

become an oppressor and exploiter of society. Power and authority, according to him,

corrupt those who exercise them as much as those who are compelled to submit to them.

They use this power and authority for their own benefit and at the detriment of others.

Basically, he presents the case that all authority should be abolished in the state. How

credible this position is, is what sets the background for this research.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

In Bakunin‘s opinion, all men possess a natural instinct for power and authority

which has its origin in the basic law of life. In line with this, he further states that men

began to understand their right and subsequently there arose the desire to abolish political

power. Based on the above, this work will deal with the following questions: How

possible is it that there can be a s state without authority? Is it the case that authority has

no place in the state? If it has, what is its extent? Furthermore, following his discourse on

the nature of man, can we really argue that man is perverse and leave him to guide

himself in the state? Will that not tantamount to enthroning anarchy in that state? When

these questions have been dealt with, this research will also try to consider the relevance

of Bakunin‘s ideas for our time.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

Based on the above, this work will try to demonstrate that Bakunin is not an

anarchist in the true sense of the word. This is why some scholars refer to his philosophy

as a ―closet dictatorship‖.

3

1.4 The Significance of the Study

This will try to show significantly that Bakunin does not advocate a dictatorship.

But rather that he appeals to the ‗socialist instinct‘ of the working class which when

reformed through education, should power a motion from instinct to thought, which

culminates in the ‗invisible dictatorship‘ or the ‗leadership of ideas‘.

1.5 The Scope of the Study

The research is concerned with the philosophical exposition of the meaning,

nature and problem of power and authority with specific reference to Bakunin‘s political

philosophy. The exposition is further limited by a focus on his work Scientific

Anarchism.

1.6 Research Methodology

In this research, we employ the expository method, for we shall expose the full

details of Bakunin‘s conception of power and authority. The historical method is used to

trace the history of the various conceptions of power and authority through the history of

social and political theory from ancient to contemporary times. We also employ the

analytical method to do an analysis, both evaluative and critical, of the facts in the

philosophy of Bakunin.

This too is basically a library research where data is sourced from library records,

journals, periodicals, biographies and even the internet.

4

Endnotes

1. Mikhail Bakunin, The Commune of Paris and Nation of the State, trans by G.P. H

Maximoff (Glencoe: Free Press, 1899) p. 158.

2. Mikhail Bakunin, Scientific Anarchism, trans by G.P Maximoff (Glencoe: Free

Press, 1901) p. 159.

5

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Review of related Literature

Many scholars of both Western and African origin have written exhaustively

about power and authority and how power and authority should be practiced in their

societies. It is very pertinent to review the works of some thinkers and how they affect

this research. In the book The Republic written by Plato, Plato states ―that unless …

either philosophers become kings and rulers to be sufficiently inspired with a genuine

desire for wisdom, unless, political power and … philosophy meet …there can be no rest

from troubles‖1. We can see in this work that political power rests on intellectual power;

wisdom must be the criterion for political power. He further tries to understand who the

philosopher is and states that the philosopher is the lover of wisdom and ―a lover is that

who loves the object of his affection as a whole and not merely in parts‖2. So the

philosopher, with his passion for wisdom ―will be he who desires all of wisdom, not only

some part of it‖3. The philosopher is the one who contemplates beauty itself and not

particular instances of beauty. ―The philosopher is one whose passion is to see the truth‖4.

The philosopher is the one ―who can apprehend the eternal and unchanging‖ and this

makes them exclusively capable of ruling the state as against those lost in the maze of

multiplicity and change. To this end the Republic makes a distinction between three

classes in the state: the guardians, soldiers and the artisan (spectators) and this distinction

corresponds to the three divisions in the soul: the rational, the spirited and appetitive

parts. As reason or the rational parts rules over all, so should the guardian or philosopher

king, who is not plagued by the maze of multiplicity and change rule the other classes in

the state. The work, argues for a connection between intellectual and political powers.

6

Further more, he asserts criticism of other forms of constitutions signifies those to

whom power should be given, i.e. Democracy is the rule of the mob, Plutocracy the

leadership by the rich and Aristocracy leadership by honour. In the ideal state, none of

these rules is upheld except the leadership by one endowed with knowledge. However,

the downside of this work is its advocating of communalism and its idealism, which

implies a common ownership.

The Politics by Aristotle also expounds on the theory of power and authority. First

this work presents a natural origin of the state and goes on to assert that the state has an

end in which he argues that ―every state is a partnership and every partnership is formed

in order to attain some good‖5. For him, he tries to establish the end for which the state

exists and this is the fact that the state exists for the good life. Thus, power and authority

rests on the person who can move the state to its end.

For him, he further argues that power can be exercised fully by either ―one person

as in a monarchy the leadership by a king, leadership by the few as in an aristocracy and

leadership by many, democracy. We could equally find a situation whereby one person

rules and thereby imposes himself on the people this person is referred to as a tyrant. ―A

situation where a few people rule well is called aristocracy, or where they misrule it is

called oligarchy where the many rule we have political polity and when they misrule we

experience democracy‖6. The orientation in this book brings out the realistic nature of

this work as against the idealistic nature of The Republic of Plato. In all, The Politics

argues that power and authority can be located anywhere (in one person, many or few)

provided the end of the state is guaranteed, which is the good life. Despite the above, one

problem this work possesses is the fact that the scope of its political prescriptions is

limited to just the polis, the city state. However, in the Hellenistic era, politics was

already going beyond the polis, towards the empire.

7

The quest for a universal authority for the empire is what necessitates The

Commonwealth written by Cicero. This work first expounds the three types of

government, namely; monarchy, aristocracy and democracy7. We discover that The

Commonwealth just like The Politics argues for the same types of government democracy

should be practice. This authority lies not in the person who posses authority but in the

law. Law, The Commonwealth argues, takes their root from reason. Thus, Cicero writes,

―since there is nothing better than reason and since it

exists both in man and God, the first common

possession of man and God is reason. But those who

have reason in common must also have right reason in

common. And since right reason is law, we must

believe that man must have law also in common with

the gods. Further those who share law must also share

justice, and those who share these are to be regarded as

members of the same commonwealth.‖8

For him, he tries to establish the rule of the universal sovereignty, ―Right reason‖.

This is the classical articulation of what we can refer to as the natural law doctrine. This

law

―applies to all men and is unchangeable and eternal. By

its commands this law summons men to the

performance of their duties, by its prohibition it

restrains them from doing wrong … Neither the senate

nor the people can absolve us from our obligation to

obey this law, and it requires … no Sextus Achies to

expound and interpret it; it will not lay down one rule at

Athens and another at Rome nor will it be one rule

today and another tomorrow‖9.

Therefore, The Commonwealth establishes the natural law as the sovereign that

empowers men and divests them of power and authority at the same time. The

Commonwealth coming from a pagan background fails to meet the needs of expanding

Christianity in the medieval era.

Coming from the above backdrop, Thomas Aquinas in The Summa Theologica

takes over and Christianizes the idea of right reason as discussed above. First, he

establishes the fact of the relationship between law and reason and this is premised on the

8

fact that ―the law is the rule and standard of human action.‖10

Furthermore The Summa

Theologica argues that ―since the law is the rule of human conduct ultimate end of which

is happiness, and indeed, the common happiness, it is necessarily always ordained for the

common good.‖11

Thus, we observe here the combination of the Aristotelian end of the

state, laws and authority and Cicero‘s idea of the law coming from reason. To further

buttress the universal nature of this law, he argues that ―since laws ordain the common

good, law can be created by reason, not of any individual but of the multitude, or of the

prince acting for the multitudes.‖12

These laws must be promulgated. The end of these

laws is not just for the good life, but for beatific vision.

Further more, the work of De Regime Principium discussed the nature and duties

of Royal authorities. The duty of this authority is to guard the state to its end, ―for a ship,

driven in various directions by the impulse of varying winds, would never reach her

destination when she is not guided to the part by the diligence of the helmsman‖13

. As

regards which form of government is the best, De Regime Principium argues that this can

be ascertained by considering the aim and purpose of government, so it holds that, ―the

aim of any ruler ought to be the security and the safety of that which he has undertaken to

rule.‖14

This aim can be achieved by one person rather than a multiple, ―for heat is

produced most effectively by a body or is in itself hot or a source of heat. Therefore the

rule of one man is more beneficial than the rule of many. Moreover, where several rulers

disagree completely they cannot control the multitudes‖15

, besides a kingdom ought to be

governed primarily with a view to creating happiness. From the general structure of these

works (The Summa Theologica and De Regime Principium), it subjects the state to the

church and this becomes a subsequent problem as regards power and authority in political

thought. This controversy of the church and the state relationships informs the rest of

social and political theory after Aquinas.

9

Niccolo Machiavelli in his work The Prince, holds that the prince should retain

power (absolute power) and authority or control of their territories. That he should

employ any means possible to accomplish this end, including deceit. According to him;

―a Prince does not necessarily need to possess all the good qualities, but he should

certainly appear to have them‖16

. This implies that rulers should use any available means

to achieve their goal hence the end justifies the means. The work was interested in

knowing what makes a government strong. It therefore focuses on the particular problems

a monarch faces while staying in power rather than more idealistic issues explaining the

foundation of political power. As such, it is an expression of government policy based on

retaining power rather than pursuing ideas.

Machiavelli‘s concept of power and authority can be understood from his analysis

of the state and his model of the prince. The work construed the art in which decisions

were being determined by political and religious, hence he shifted the base of political

thought away from the moral ground prepared by Thomas Aquinas theory of natural law

towards a new secular theory of the state. He construed the state ―as a single structure

closely knit and all controlling all of whose parts respond to the centre‖17

. The Prince

observed that the condition of the Italian state in his time was corrupt and vulnerable to

external aggression. There was corruption at the highest level of the rulers. He was

particularly struck by the general social decadence of Italy in his day. This fact of human

corruption was therefore the decisive starting point for Machiavelli‘s political thought.

For a corrupt state requires a strong government and preferably one in the hands of a

single man. He advocates power for the prince and absolute obedience from the subjects

because the focus was on a strong state that impose authority and unify the Italian state.

From the political structure of the work the subjects have no freedom as the prince

is expected to be all powerful. The freedom of the citizens for Machiavelli may likely

10

weaken the authority and power of the ruler and lead to dissension; hence, it is not

possible for complete liberty and complete authority to exist together. Therefore, liberty

must be severely limited for common good of the society. In summary this work The

Prince divests the church of all authority and gives it to the state as against the

postulations of Aquinas in the Summa Theologica.

In another development, Jean Bodin in his Six Books of the Commonwealth

further develops the idea of giving all authority to the state rather than the church. But the

most distinct contribution of this work to the theme of power and authority is its

definition of sovereignty. According to the work, ―sovereignty is the supreme power over

citizens or subjects, unrestrained by laws‖18

. Furthermore, the work observed that, every

member of the state participate in the governance of the state and its affairs. Though

sovereignty is here defined as the supreme and perpetual power of the state, it goes on to

buttress the fact that this power is supreme because it must be given to one or some

people but not perpetually but for a period of time. These cannot be called sovereign

rulers, rather they are custodians. The true sovereignty was with the people, for it is at

their pleasure that those who hold power operate or to whom they return their authority at

the expiration of the period designated. This power is always given to one person at a

time. According to Bodin he opines that the function of the sovereign is to give laws to

the citizens generally and individually.

The Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes is equally relevant at this juncture for the

supreme power of the sovereign that the work advocates. This work begins by

considering the state of man in nature (state of Nature). Here, man in the state of nature

was vicious and selfish and his only concern was the subject of his desire and this made

the state of nature a perpetual state of conflict. To this end, The Leviathan observes that

in the state of nature, ―the life of man was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short‖19

. The

11

above chaotic nature of the state of nature was what necessitated the social contract and

the product of this contact is the commonwealth and the The Leviathan. The Leviathan

takes charge over the commonwealth and therefore ensures that the laws are obeyed.

Justice springs from his will because the people made no contract with him, but made the

contract among themselves and decided to make him king. Thus, the work maintains ―for

it has been already shown that nothing the sovereign representative can do to a subject,

on what pretence so ever, can properly be called injustice or injury‖20

. Hobbes observed a

giving of excess power to the sovereign in The Leviathan. In another development, the

work observes that the sovereign needs a measure of harshness to operate. In line with

this Hobbes opines in regard to the power of the law that, ―and yet, as absurd as it is, this

is it they demand, not knowing that the laws are of no power to protect them, without a

sword in the hands of a man, or men, to cause those laws to be put in execution‖21

. Here,

we observe the level of absolutism which The Leviathan advocates. The problem then is

that The Leviathan is not just pessimistic about human nature, but also it has no place for

individual liberty, all is given to sovereign that his power and authority becomes

absolute.

The Two Treatise on Government by John Locke reacts to the absolutism of The

Leviathan. However, he begins by reconstructing human nature. Therefore, it argues that

―to understand political power rightly and to derive it

from its origin, we must consider what state all men were

naturally in, and that was a state of perfect freedom to

order their activities and dispose of their possession and

person as they think fit, within the bounds of the laws of

Nature, without asking or depending upon the will of any

other man‖22

.

Further more, Locke emphasizes that this state was not just a state of freedom, but was

also that of equality, where power and jurisdiction reciprocates, no one had more than

another. Though it is a state of freedom, it is not a state of license for it is a state where

12

the laws of nature rule ―that all men are naturally free in this state, and remain so till by

their own consent, they make themselves members of some political society‖23

. From the

above then power and authority rest in the consent of the people and the obvious

implication is that once this power has been given to anybody, the people should be

his/her prime responsibility. What then necessitates the giving of consent? Or what

degenerates this state of perfect freedom and equality?

Within the context of treating the above questions, this work discusses property

observing that all God has given in the abundance of nature belongs to all. We can

acquire property by appropriation that is, whatever we fix our labour to become ours. But

when men started to become self-centered and to gather much more than they need or can

be spoilt in their use, there was degeneration from the state of nature to that of war and

unrest. To resolve this problem, the civil society is created through the people‘s consent

for

―the only way whereby any one divests himself of his

natural liberty and put on the bound of civil society is by

agreeing with other men, to join and unite into a

community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable

living, in a secure enjoyment of their properties and a

greater security against any that are not safe. This any

member of men may do because it injures not the freedom

of the rest; because they are left as they were, in the liberty

of the state of nature‖24

.

By this consent, a community is made and has the power to act as one body, which is

only by the will and determination of the majority. Therefore the duty of the sovereign

here is not the arbitrary use of power, but the use of power within the bounds of the law.

To this end, the work advocates the separation of power between the legislative,

executive and judiciary arms of government and also advocates a revolution in case the

use of power becomes arbitrary. One feature of this work is its capitalist or liberal

orientation and it is from this background that Karl Marx comes.

13

The book, on the Social Contract written by Jean Jacques Rousseau, reacted to

Two Treatise of Government of Locke. The work upholds and prefers a Republic, or

government of laws guided by the general wills, for without the general will no regime is

legitimate. For this reason, the work denounces representative democracy as an

Oligarchical grant of law making power to a small body of individuals. Since power and

authority is unreliable, legislative power cannot be legitimately delegated to

representatives. It must be exercised continuously by the entire body of citizen or there is

no republic. The Social Contract supports the simplest mixed form of government

possible. The mix is composed of direct democracy in the legislature and delegation of

authority to the smaller executive branch to enforce the general will. The exact sort of

executive he recommended depends on the size of the community and how the citizens

close the administration.

In with the above, Jean Jacques Rousseau in his On the Social Contract upholds a

republican system of government or a government of laws guided by the general wills,

for without the general will no regime is legitimate. For this reason, the work denounces

representative democracy as an oligarchic, by its granting of law making powers to a

small body of individuals. Since power and authority inalienable, legislative power

cannot be legitimately delegated to representatives. It must be exercised continuously by

the entire body of the citizenry or there is no republic. The work supports the simplest

mixed form of government. The mix is composed of direct democracy in the legislature

and delegation of authority to the smaller executive branch to enforce the general will.

The exact sort of executive he recommends depends on the size of the community and

how the citizens close the administration.

The work considers either of two kinds of executive, both realistic and compatible

with a republic. Monarchy is best suited to large, wealthy states because the larger the

14

population, the stronger, relatively, must the government be, if it is to function

efficiently25

. Though inconsistent is its believe that, a monarch is the most vigorous of

chief executive. As for aristocracy, he regards the hereditary form as the worst and the

elective form as the best, if conditions allow for its installation. It is superior for states of

medium size population and wealth because of the honesty and wisdom of the rulers. To

be objective, if we take the term in strict sense, there never has been a real democracy

and there never will be. It is against the natural order for the many to govern and the few

to be governed. It is unimaginable, for the people to remain continually assembled to

devote their time to public affairs, and it is clear that they cannot set up commission for

this purpose without changing the form of administration.‖26

In another development, Marx in the Communist Manifesto advocates for a

classless and stateless society. This is because the capitalist orientation developed above

(particularly in Locke) leads to a class society, that is, a class of the bourgeoisie and the

proletariats; and this bourgeois class constantly exploits the proletariats and the

machinery through which the bourgeoisie arrive at this end is the state. Besides

capitalism possesses a crisis point where the preliterate revolts against the system and

enthrone the society that is both classless and stateless. This culminates in what the work

refers to as the ‗withering of the state‘. Here authority is considered detrimental to

emancipation.

Benito Mussolini‘s work, The Doctrine of Fascism reacts to the anarchic state of

affairs envisioned in the postulations of Marx. Here Mussolini argues that fascism is the

best government and this is ―the type of government where the authority is absolute‖27

. It

does not surrender any portion of its field to another moral or religious principle which

may interfere with the consciousness of the individual. The type of liberty this work

grants is the liberty of a whole people freely accepting the rule of a state, which they

15

should internalize and make the guiding principle of all their conduct. This work further

asserts that action is more important than movement. It advocates a movement, which not

only accepted violence but also rejected non-violence. It has no patience with

parliamentary or advocative methods of changing society. Thus we see that in this work

that in its quest for a strong state, it advocates fascism which is a government of strong

absolutism and is a situation where there is a strong and vibrant government where power

is in the hand of one man, individual liberty is undermined. To this fact H.L.A. Hart

reacts in his work: The Concept of Law. Hart construed that a leader or an authority is

―one appointed and certified according to the rules of recognition‖28

. An authority

commands obedience from others simply because the rules maintain so much. As such

obedience to the leader is reasonable on the basis of the fact that the rules recognizes and

regards him as being an authority. He has a legal authority and this may be quiet

independent of the fact whether or not he is a good person. His utterances present

themselves as authoritative legal reason for action so far as he rules according to the rules

of the system, he remains legally correct. Further more, the work observes that, certain

expectation of citizens is that the leader appointed under the condition set by the rules

directs accordingly. But who becomes the ruler where there is no provision for asserting

who is the leader? Or who becomes the ruler when rules are silent? This is the problem,

which is not clarified by the work‘s model of rules. Whether the law certifies, through the

appropriate means of legitimate leader, is the leader whether or not he is a good person.

Thus, in the absence of stipulated rules by the system the member of Hart‘s society will

be in lot of confusion coming from this background.

Hannah Arendit in her work, ―On Totalitarianism‖ argues that governmental

authority is very often authority under rules to issue instruction to others. The work

distinguished this from power and particularly from despotic or tyrannical power. The

16

later, the work argues in subject to no limits whereas this actually, because it is always

denied from rules must therefore, be limited or restrains by rules. But then this is dubious,

because the rules may confer as in the case of a sovereign legislator an unlimited power

on the sovereign authority to charge rules at will, which form a background.

Michael Foucault on the other vacillates between two positions in setting forth his

conception of power. In his earlier works particularly Civilization and its Madness and

Discipline and Punishment, he makes the case for the disindividualization of power. This

he does from two different points. In Discipline and Punishment he develops the terms

the ‗Panopticon model of power‘. Here he argues that the panopticon ―is an important

mechanism, for it automatizes and disindividualizes power. Power has its principle not so

much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, gazes;

in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the relation in which individuals

are caught up‖29

. The effect of this tendency to disindividualize power is the perception

that power resides in the machine itself (the ―panoptic machine‖; the ―technology‖ of

power) rather than in its operator. For this reason, one can finish reading Foucault's

Discipline and Punish with the paranoid feeling that we are powerless before such an

effective and diffuse form of social control.

But in The Subject and Power, he makes the case that individuals possess power

as well. Here he defines power as ―a way in which certain actions may structure the field

of other possible actions. What, therefore, would be proper to a relationship of power is

that it be a mode of action upon actions‖30

. This work further argues that it is true that

contemporary forms of disciplinary organization allow ever larger number of people to be

controlled by smaller numbers of ―specialists‖; however, as Foucault explains in ―The

Subject and Power‖, ―something called Power, with or without a capital letter, which is

assumed to exist universally in a concentrated or diffused form, does not exist. Power

17

exists only when it is put into action‖31

. By this token he brings in the concept of freedom

into power, and this makes his turn to the word government very important in

understanding his conception of power. As such power in his opinion can only be

exercised over free subjects.

Paul Ricoeur‘s view of selfhood in his On Oneself as Another, has it that we are

utterly reliant upon each other. While Ricoeur emphasizes the importance of the first

person perspective and the notion of personal responsibility, he is no philosopher of the

radical individual. He emphasizes that we are ―mutually vulnerable‖, and so the fate

(self-esteem) of each of us is tied up with the fate of others. This situation has a

normative dimension: ―we have an indebtedness to each other, a duty to care for each

other and to engender self-respect and justice, all of which are necessary to the creation

and preservation of self-esteem‖.32

It is upon this fundamental anthropology that he bases

his philosophy of power in politics. But in his Political Paradox then he also emphasizes

the ambivalence of political power, between political power in common and political

power that threatens violence. But in his opinion, the defining task for any defensible

politics is to learn what justice calls for and to establish and protect the institutions that

make justice effective. This is tantamount to saying that the ultimate objective of all

defensible political practice is to make power-in-common prevail as far as possible over

domination. But because dominations is never wholly eliminable, defensible politics is

inherently fragile.‖33

But in all he emphasizes that the focus should be developing the

power in common for this is the basis of reliable and reasonable politics.

Nwolise O.B.C. in his work, The Concept of Power And Defence In Political

Thought argues that in the day of Oba Ewuare, ―the Great‖, the kings word was law, only

subject to the influences of his chiefs and advisers to the extend that they are powerful

18

and he is willing to accept their control. This is to maintain, however, that much has

changed between those days of kingdoms and these days of states in the foundational

relationship between the citizen and his political organization. The kingdoms of those

days and the states of today in the word of Oba Ewuare ―the Greats‖ constitute ―a society

of individuals submitted, if necessary, by compulsion to a certain way of life‖34

. He

argues that today, every citizen of the modern world is the subject of a state. He is legally

bound to obey orders, and the continuous of his life are set by the norms that are

imposed.

These norms are the laws, and it is in the power to enforce them upon all who live

within its boundaries that the essence of the state is to be found35

. We must however bear

in mind the age-long dictum that the power of a ruler rests upon the consent of the

governed and warns autocrats, depots and dictators. Power that he holds is always a trust,

and it is always held upon conditions. The will of the state is subject to scrutiny of all

who come within the ambit of its decisions because it moulds the substance of their lives.

They have the right to pass judgment upon the quality of its efforts. They have indeed,

the duty so to pass judgment; for it is the plain lesson of the instruct record that they

wants of men will only secured recognition to the point that they are forcibly articulated.

The state is not ourselves save where we identify ourselves with what it does. It becomes

ourselves as it seeks to give expression to our wants and desire. It exerts power over us

that it may establish uniformities of behaviour, which make possible the environment of

our personality Broadly, that is to maintain, when we know the sources from which

governmental acts derive, we know the source of the states will the ruler exercise power

of the state, are to use such power to pursue the environment of the common life of the

citizens and this includes defence and security as well as welfare of the people.

19

The reviews of the literature of some political philosophers on this subject matter

recognized that individual freedom, (liberty) conflicts with the state power and authority

and that a balance has to be struck between them and the value.

20

Endnotes

1. Plato, The Republic, trans by Francis Macdonald Cornford. (London: Oxford

University Press, 1944) p. 179.

2. Plato, The Republic, p. 181.

3. Plato, The Republic, p. 182.

4. Plato, The Republic, p. 183

5. Aristotle, The Politics, trans by A.E. Wardman et al, (New York: American

Library 1963) p. 382.

6. Aristotle, Politics, p. 405

7. M. T. Cicero, On The Commonwealth, Trans by G.H. Sabin and B. Smith,

(Columbus, Ohio state University Press, 1939) Book II, Chapter XXVI.

8. M. T. Cicero, On The Commonwealth, Book IV, Chapter VIII.

9. M. T. Cicero, On The Commonwealth, Book IV, Chapter XXII.

10. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Complete American edition in three

volumes. Literally trans. by Fathers of the English Dominican province,(New

York: Benziger Brothers, Inc. 1947) Vol II; Chapter I; Question XC, article I

11. Thomas Aquinas, Summon Theologica, Vol. II: Chapter II; Question XC, article

II.

12. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Vol II; Chapter I; Question XC article III.

13. Aquinas, De Regime principum, in Opera Omma Vol. XXVII Pens 1871-1880

Book II chpt I.

14. Aquinas, De Regime Principum Book II chpt I

15. Aquinas, De Regime Principum Book II chpt I

16. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince trans. by George Bull (London Penguin books

1961) p 55.

17. Niccolo Machiavelli The Prince, p. 56.

18. Jean Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth, trans. by Knolls Richard (London:

Cambridge University Press, 1949) p. 140.

19. Jean Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth, p. 140

20. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan in Readings in Political Philosophy (ed.) by Francis

William Cook (New York Macmillan Press Ltd1938) p. 449.

21. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 447.

22. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 447.

21

23. John Locke, Two Treaties of Government in Readings in Political Philosophy,

(ed.) by Francis William Cook (New York Macmillan Press Ltd1938) p. 530.

24. Jean Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, Trans by Lowell Bair, (New

York, New American Library 1974) p. 127-36.

25. J. J. Rousseau, On the Social contract, p. 239

26. John Locke, Two Treaties of Government, p. 551

27. John Locke, Two Treaties of Government , p. 551

28. Herbart L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, (Great Britain Oxford University press

1961) p. 90.

29. Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan

Sheridan. (New York: Pantheon, 1977).p 202

30. Michael Foucault, "The Subject and Power." Michel Foucault: Beyond

Structuralism and Hermeneutics. 2nd edition. Ed. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul

Rabinow. (Chicago: University of Chicago) p. 208.

31. Michael Foucault, "The Subject and Power." Michel Foucault: Beyond

Structuralism and Hermeneutics, p. 219.

32. Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, trans. Kathleen Blamey. (Chicago: University

of Chicago Press, 1992) pp. 194-95

33. Paul Ricoeur ―The Political Paradox,‖ in History and Truth, trans. Charles A.

Kelbley. (Evanston: Northwestern University press. 1965) pp. 247-70.

34. O.B.C. Nwolise The Concept of Power and Defence in Political Thought of Oba

Ewuare” the Great”, Benin Kingdom. ( Ibadan: Presence publishers, 2004) p.

332.

35. O.B.C. Nwolise TheCconcept of Power and Defence in Political Thought, p. 333

22

CHAPTER THREE

POWER AND AUTHORITY IN MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

3.1 The Life and Times of Mikhail Bakunin

Mikhail Bakunin was born in Prgamukhino, Northwest of Moscow on 30 May

1814. Born from a family of Russian Nobles, Mikhail at the age of 14 left for St.

Petersburg where he received military training at the Artillery University. In 1832, he

completed his studies and in 1834, he was commissioned a junior officer in the Russian

Imperial Guard. Bakunin later in 1835, resigned his commission and proceeded to

Moscow to study philosophy. In Moscow, Mikhail became a friend to a group of former

University students where they engaged in the systematic study of idealist philosophy.

The philosophy of Immanuel Kant initially was very fundamental to him, later Bakunin

and his group were influenced by the ideas of Shelling, Fichte and Hegel. In the middle

of 1835, Bakunin thought of forming a philosophical circle in his hometown,

Prgamukhino. Moreover, early in 1836, Bakunin was back in Moscow where he

published translations of Fichte‘s work: ―Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar‘s

Vocation and the Way to Blessed Life which became his favorite book‖1. Bakunin was

increasingly influenced by Hegel and this provided the basis for the first Russian

translation of his work. He went to Berlin in 1840 where he conceived the idea of

becoming a University professor, but then, he recountered and joined some radical

students of the so-called Hegelian left‖ (a socialist movement) in Berhin. In 1842, he

wrote an essay, ―The Reaction in Germany‖ where he argued in favour of the

revolutionary role of negation as summed up. ―The passion for destruction is a creative

passion‖1.

While still in Berlin, Bakunin developed strong interest in socialism. He later

abandoned his academic career and promoted Revolution. This made the Russian

23

government to order him to return to Russia. With his refusal, his property was

confiscated. Instead, he went to Zurich, Switzerland. From Switzerland, he went to

Brussels, Dresden and Paris. Paris where he later went, was the centre for radicalism.

Here, he established contacts with Karl Marx and the Anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

who greatly impressed him. In December 1844 Emperor Nicholas issued a decree

denying Bakunin of his privileges and civil rights, confiscating his land and condemning

him to life long exile in Siberia. Bakunin wrote letters and organized revolt against the

emperor and looked forward to ―the definitive collapse of despotism in Russia‖2.

Consequently, Bakunin was expelled from France and went to Brussels. At Brussels, he

led a revolutionary movement of 1848 and was later compelled to go to Germany.

Bakunin nevertheless, played a leading role in the May 1849 uprising in Dressen. He was

arrested and held for thirteen months before being condemned to death by the

government of Saxony. After series of death sentence against him, Bakunin was later

handed over to the Russian Authorities.

Bakunin was imprisoned, he suffered from ill-health while still in prison and yet

he did not give up his radical writings. In the years between 1870 and 1876, he wrote

much of his seminar work such as Statism and anarchy‖ and ―God and the State‖. In spite

of his declining health, he attempted to take part in an insurrection in Bologria, but was

forced to return to Switzerland in disguise and settled in Lugano. Mikhail remained active

in the Radical movement of Europe until further health problems caused him to be moved

to a hospital in Berne Switzerland, where he died in 1876.

3.2 Bakunin’s Marxian Point of Departure

The dispute between Mikhail Bakunin and Karl Marx highlighted the differences

between anarchism and Marxism. Bakunin argued – against certain ideas of a number of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism

24

Marxists – that not all revolutions need be violent. He also strongly rejected Marx's

concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat", ―which Marx's adherents translate in

modern terms to mean a "workers democracy" but which also maintains the state in

existence during the transition to communism3 Bakunin, "who had now abandoned his

ideas of revolutionary dictatorship", insisted that revolutions must be led by the people

directly while any "enlightened elite" must only exert influence by remaining "invisible

not imposed on anyone [and] deprived of all official rights and significance". He held that

the state should be immediately abolished because all forms of government eventually

lead to oppression.

They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship—their

dictatorship, of course—can create the will of the people, while

our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but

that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the

people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that

is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free

organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up4.

While both social anarchists and Marxists share the same final goal, the creation of a free,

egalitarian society without social classes and government, they strongly disagree on how

to achieve this goal. Anarchists believe that the classless, stateless society should be

established by the direct action of the masses, culminating in social revolution, and refuse

any intermediate stage such as the dictatorship of the proletariat, on the basis that such a

dictatorship will become a self-perpetuating fundament. For Bakunin, the fundamental

contradiction is that for the Marxists, anarchism or freedom is the aim, while the state and

dictatorship is the means, and so, in order to free the masses, they have first to be

enslaved.5

However, Bakunin also wrote his experience of meeting Marx in 1844 that,

As far as learning was concerned, Marx was, and still is, incomparably more advanced than I. I knew nothing at that time of

political economy, I had not yet rid myself of my metaphysical

observations... He called me a sentimental idealist and he was

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_dictatorshiphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalitarianhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classlessnesshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_actionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_revolutionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat

25

right; I called him a vain man, perfidious and crafty, and I also was

right6.

Bakunin found Marx's economic analysis very useful and began the job of translating Das

Kapital into Russian. In turn Marx wrote of the rebels in the Dresden insurrection of 1848

that "in the Russian refugee Michael Bakunin they found a capable and cool headed

leader7."Marx wrote to Engels of his experience meeting Bakunin in 1864 after his

escape to Siberia saying "On the whole he is one of the few people whom I find not to

have retrogressed after 16 years, but to have developed further8.

Bakunin was perhaps the first theorist of the "new class", the intellectuals and

administrators forming the bureaucratic apparatus of the state. Bakunin argued that the

"State has always been the patrimony of some privileged class: a priestly class, an

aristocratic class, a bourgeois class. And finally, ―when all the other classes have

exhausted themselves, the State then becomes the patrimony of the bureaucratic class and

then falls—or, if you will, rises—to the position of a machine9‖

.

3.3 Power and Authority in Politics

Concepts like power and authority are fundamental in political analysis; power

and authority are therefore central to the concept of politics. A concept or content

analysis of the writing of great social and political theorists from Plato to Aristotle,

through Machieveli and Hobbes to the contemporary philosophers would no doubt reveal

the centrality of power and authority in political discourse.

Power is an ability to enforce obedience through the use of instrument of sanction

(force). Authority on the other hand is the ability of being able to get people to do things

or not do things they do not want, because they think the individual or group has the right

to tell them to do so. Politics is an authoritative allocation of values in a political system.

It could be defined to mean the struggle for power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapitalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapitalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapitalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_class

27

Bakunin maintains that power is a present means to secure some future apparent

good life, which invariably is a ceaseless search for power. He started his political inquiry

with analysis of human position. According to him, man is essentially selfish motivated

by desire and passion, not by intellect or reason. He maintains that because of this selfish

tendency motivated by desire and passion, the most ardent revolutionary once vested with

absolute power can within one year turn over to be the worst dictator. He argued that if

men should live without any common power and authority set over them, it will result to

a state of despots.

Bakunin maintains that politics encompasses power so as to subject men to take

order and generally to control his behaviour in the society. For him, authority is derived

from people given up so much of their natural rights so as to enable the state provide

security and solidarity of individual rights. Bakunin argued that power and authority is

needed to balance for an authoritative value to be allocated in the political sphere. He

remarks that ―due to the nature of man, a state that depends on authority alone may not be

able to give good life to the people‖10

. He concludes that the state therefore needs power

to enforce its will on the people for the common good of the society and its orderliness.

3.4 Anthropological/Ontological Foundations of Bakunin’s Philosophy

As we stated earlier that Bakunin‘s political inquiry was built on the analysis of

human condition, it will be pertinent to examine Bakunin‘s concept of ―man‖ and the

nature of ―man‖.

According to Bakunin, all men possess a natural instinct for power which has its

origin in the basic law of life enjoining every individual to wage a ceaseless struggle in

order to ensure his existence or assert his right. Inevitably, this cursed element is to be

found as natural instinct in every man.

29

He argues;

That everyone carries within himself the germ of this lust for

power and authority, and every germ, as we know because of a

very basic law of life necessarily must develop and grow, if

only it finds in its environment favourable conditions. No one

should be entrusted with power and authority inasmuch as any

one invested with authority must, through the force of an

immutable social law becomes an oppressor and exploiter of

society.11

For him, he bows authority of special men because it is imposed upon him by his own

reason. He maintains that he is conscious of his inability to grasp, in all its details and

positive developments any large portion of human knowledge. He questions himself

whether he should reject authority. He remarks:

―far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the

bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, railroads, I consult that of architect or engineer.

For such or such special knowledge, I apply to such a servant‖.12

However, in the above situation, he argues, he allows neither the bootmaker nor

the architect nor the servant to impose his authority upon him. What he does is that;

I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their

intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always

my incontestable right of criticisms and ensure that I do not

context myself with consulting authority in any special branch. I

consult several; I compare their opinions and choose that which

seems to me the soundest.13

For him, he does not recognise infallible authority whatever respect he may have for the

honesty and sincerity of such or such individual. He has no absolute faith in any absolute

person because such a faith would be fatal to his reason, to his liberty, and even to the

success of his undertaking. ―It would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an

instrument of the will and interest of others.‖14

In his opinion, the results for science as

well as for industry, the necessity of divisions and association of labour should be given

to human life. This situation would give rise to a situation where each directs and is

directed in his turn. The result is that there will be no fixed and constant authority, but a

30

continual exchange of mutual, temporary and above all, voluntary authority and

subordination. First because the agreement is to be understood, they are not obliged by

former agreement to anything repugnant here unto. This will lead to an instituted

community being thereby bound by government to own the actions and judgements of

one who cannot lawfully make a new agreement among themselves to be obedient to any

other in anything whatsoever without his permission. As a result of this, Bakunin argues

that those that are subject to a ruler cannot without leave cast off monarchy and return to

the confusion of a disunity multitude; nor transfer their person from him that beareth it, to

another man or other assembly of men.

For they are bound to everyman or other to own and be

reputed author of all that he that already is their authority or

sovereign power shall do, and judge fit to be done; so that any

one man dissenting, all the rest should break their agreement

made to that man, which is injustice; and they have also every

man given the power and authority to him bearing the person

and therefore if they depose him they take from him that

which is his own, and so again it is injustice.‖15

However, the problem with this agreement according to Bakunin is that because the right

of bearing the person of them all given to him, they make sovereign, they make sovereign

by agreement only if one to another, and not of him to any of them, there can happen no

breach of agreement on the part of power and authority of the sovereign; and

consequently, none of his subjects, by any pretence or forfeiture, can be free from his

subjection. For Bakunin, he who is made ruler as in power and authority make no

agreement with his subjects before hand, is manifest; either he must make do with the

whole multitude as one party to the agreement or he must make a several bidden with

everyone.

2

3.5 The Concept of Liberty

The liberty of man according to Bakunin consist Solely in that he obeys natural

laws because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been

externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective

or individual. For Bakunin ―all consenting parties are by nature fundamentally equal, all

legitimate acts of the power and authority (sovereignty) must be applied equally to every

member of the body politic‖15

. This includes liberty, which encompasses ―all those

things such as the right of commitment to govern be transferred‖ No sovereign, (Power

and authority) and no Law can repeal the Natural right of each individual to liberty of

life. This right is surrendered only conditionally, in exchange for a surer guarantee, when

people consent to be governed, its ultimate protection still rests with each person. Again

if we take liberty for an exemption from laws, it is no less absurd for men to demand for

that liberty by which all other men may be masters of their lives.

According to Bakunin, yet as absurd as it is, this is their demand (total freedom);

not knowing that laws are of no power to protect them, since the sovereign does not trust

no man. Without a sword(s) in the hands of a man, or men, to cause those Laws to be put

in execution. The liberty of a subject lies therefore only in those things which in

regulating their actions, the power and authority (sovereign) have permitted: to choose

their own abode, their own diet, since man have the liberty of doing what their own

reason shall suggest, to be the most profitable to themselves. The right to self-defence

may be activated if power and authority is no longer able to enforce the liberty by

maintaining the peace. If personal security is threatened, people are then, by definition,

back in a state of slavery with no other protection but their individual capacity for self-

defence. Since liberty consists in obeying natural law, let us now consider the interplay

between the law of nature and natural law in his philosophy.

3

3.6 Natural Law and the Law of Nature

Bakunin maintains that the great misfortune is that a large number of natural

laws, already established as such by science, remain unknown to the masses. Thanks to

the solicitous care of these tutelary governments that exist, as we know, only for the

good of the people. There also is another difficulty, according to Bakunin; namely, that

the greatest number of the natural laws inherent in the development of human society,

which are quite necessary, incurable, and inevitable as the laws which govern the

physical world, have not been recognized, and established by science itself. These laws

that regulate and govern the society have been recognized firstly by science and then by

means of an extensive system of popular education and instruction – once they have

become part and parcel of the general consciousness – the question of liberty will be

solved. Humanity is science, however, ―the ruler transform their action into policy for the

masses, using polices to regulate the laws of the society for their common selfish means

and using the course of hostility to the liberty of individual impose these laws upon the

system for their selfish end16

‖. Bakunin argues that the most recalcitrant authorities will

then need to admit henceforth that there will be no need of political organization,

administration, or legislation. These three things – whether emanating from the will of

the sovereign or issuing from the will of a parliament, elected by universal suffrage,

conforming to the system of natural laws (which has never happened and never will

happen) – are always painful and hostile to the liberty of the people because they impose

upon the latter a system of external and therefore despotic laws.

For Bakunin, the liberty of man consists solely in obeying natural laws

because he has not recognized that as such himself, and not because they have been

imposed on him by any external will whatever – divine or human, collective or

individual4. Bakunin queries; suppose a learned academy, composed of the most

4

illustrious representatives of science. Suppose this academy were charge with legislation

for, and the organization of, society, and that, they were inspired only by the purest love

for truth, it would come to nothing but laws in absolute conformity with the latest

discoveries of science. For him, he maintain that the legislation and that organization

would be monstrous and this for some reasons.

―First, human science is always and necessarily imperfect,

and comprising what it has discovered, we may say that it

is still in its cradle. This is true to the extent that was we

to force the practical life of men. Collective as well as

individual, into strict and exclusive conformity with the

latest dale of science would condemn society as well as

individuals to suffer martyrdom on a procrustean bed,

which will soon end by dislocating and stifling them, life

always remaining an infinitely greater thing than

science‖17

.

The second reason: according to Bakunin is that a society obeying legislation

emanating from a scientific academy not because it understood the reasonable of this

legislation (in which case the existence of that academy would become useless) but

because the legislation emanated from the academy and was imposed in the name of

science, which was venerated without being understood that society would be a society of

brutes and not of men.

Third reason, rendering such a government impossible this reason is that a

scientific academy invested, so to speak, with absolute sovereign power, even if it were

composed of the most illustrious men, would unavoidably and quickly end by becoming

morally and intellectually corrupted. Such has been the history of academies when

privileges allowed them were few and rare. For Bakunin,

―a scientific body entrusted with the government of society would

soon end by devoting itself no longer to science but to some other

effort. And this efforts as is the case with all established powers,

would be to try to perpetuate itself by rendering the society entrusted

to its care ever more stupid and consequently more in need of its

direction and government‖18

.

5

Bakunin maintains that, that which is true of scientific academic is equally

true of all constituent assemblies and legislative bodies even those elected on the basis of

universal suffrage. It is true that the make-up of those latter bodies can be changed, but

that does not prevent the formation in a few years time of a body of politicians, privileged

infact if not in law, and who, devoting themselves exclusively to the direction of the

public affairs of a country, end by forming a sort of political aristocracy or oligarchy.

Thus no external legislation and no authority are necessary, for that matter, one is

separable from the other, and both tend to enslave society and to degrade mentally the

legislators themselves.

In the good old times when the Christian faith, still unshaken and mainly

represented by the Roman catholic church, flourished in all its might, God had no

difficulty in designating his elect. It was understood that all the sovereigns, great and

small, reigned by the grace of God; if only they were not excommunicated, the nobility

itself-based its privileges upon benediction of the holy church even Protestanism which

contributed powerfully to the destruction of the faith against its will of course, left in this

respect at least, the Christian doctrine wholly intact

Arguing further, he asserts; ―for there is no power (it repeated the words of St.

Paul) but of God‖ Protestanism even reinforced the authority of the sovereign by

proclaiming that it proceeded directly from God, without needing the intervention of the

church, and by subjecting the latter to the power of the sovereign‖19

. Bakunin insists that

even since the philosophy even since the philosophy of the last century the eighteenth

acting in union with the bourgeois revolution, delivered a mortal blow to faith and

overthrew all the institution based on faith, the doctrine of authority has had a hard time

re-establishing itself in the consciousness of man. The present sovereign continue of

course to designate themselves as rulers ―by the grace, of God‖ but these words which

6

once possessed a meaning that was real, powerful, and palpitating with life, are now

considered by the educated classes and even by a section of the people itself, as an

absolute, banal, and essentially meaningless phrase. Napoleon III tried to rejuvenate it by

adding to it another phrase: ― and by the will of the people‖20

, which, added to the first

one, either annuls its meaning and thereby become annulled in turn, or signifies that God

wills whatever the people will.

What remains to be done is to ascertain the will of people and to find out

which political organ faith fully expresses that will. The Radical democrats for example,

imagine that it is an assembly election on the basis of universal suffrage that will prove to

be the most adequate organ for the purpose. Others for example even more radical

democrats, add to it the referendum, the direct voting of the whole people upon every

more or less important law. All of them – conservatives, liberals, moderates, and extreme

radicals – agree on one point, that the people should be governed, whether the people

themselves elect their rulers and masters, or such are impose upon them but rulers and

masters they should have. Devoid of intelligence, the people should let themselves be

guided by those who do possess such intelligence. Whereas in the past continues

authority was demanded in the name of God, now the doctrine is in the name of reason.

We recognize, then, the absolute authority of science, for science has for its

object only the mentally elaborated production, as systematic as possible, of the natural

laws inherent in the material, intellectual, and rural life of both the physical and social

worlds; ―the absolute authority science‖ for him should be the truly universal science that

would reproduce ideally, to its full extent and in all its infinite detail, the universe, the

system or the co-ordination of all the natural laws manifested by the incessant

development of worlds.‖21

7

3.7 Liberty and Authority in Mikhail

With a relevance to ensure freedom of the citizens, Mikhail solicited that power

and authority must be forever, undivided, and absolute, for to divide is to limit the

authority of the ruler. Since power and authority are there, liberty should not be hurt,

which is the freedom to do what a man ought to do and ought not: for to divide or limit

the authority of the sovereign, would lead to risk of anarchy, which he dreaded so much.

For him, such a situation would be illogical because it would be inconsistent with the

over thrown of the authority and the power of the ruler. The reason Mikhail solicited for

the unlimited power and authority of the ruler is that want of it, which is forever war of

every man against his fellow human being is worse than having it.‖ ―The safety of the

people is the supreme law‖22

and this required complete submission to an absolute power

and authority. This authority is the logical consequence of government by consent.

Bakunin maintains that, work maintains that, man by coming together to form a

civil society have limited their natural liberty ―but as men, for the attaining peace and

conservation of themselves thereby have made an artificial man, which we call a society‖

so have they made artificial chains. Mikhail believed that the liberty of people is

guaranteed only within the bound of the laws made by the power and authority, ―The

liberty of subjects lieth therefore, only in those things, which in regulating their actions,

the power and authority permitted. He insists that men by contracting to be under a

society have submitted both their obligation and liberty to him‖23

. As for other liberties

not prescribed by the authority or power, they depend on the silence of law. He drops the

unnecessary idea of civil disobedience as supported by John Locke, he noted that the

power and authority in virtue of the contract is justified in eliminating dissident citizens.

Mikhail, did not restrict citizen‘s liberties to a minute minimal level but of his search for

8

absolute peace and liberty in the society of which for him is possible only under an

absolute power and authority of the honest rulers.‖23

3.8 Man, Society and Freedom

According to Bakunin, the materialistic, realistic, and collective conception of

freedom, as opposed to the idealistic, is thus: man becomes conscious of himself and his

humanity only in society and only by the collective action of the whole society. He free

himself from the yoke of external nature only by collective and social labours, which

alone can transform the earth into an abode favourable to the development of humanity.

He asserts; ―Without such material emancipation the intellectual and moral emancipation

of the individual is impossible24

. He can emancipate himself from the yoke of his own

nature i.e subordinate his instinct and the movement of his body to the conscious

direction of his mind, the development of which is fostered by education and training.

But education and training are preeminently and exclusively social … hence the isolated

individual cannot possibly become conscious of his freedom. To be free… means to be

acknowledged and treated as such by all his fellowmen. Bakunin maintains that the

liberty of every individual is only the reflection of his own humanity or his right through

the conscience of all tree men, his brother and his equals.

He asserts,

―I can be free only in the presence of and in relationship with other

men. In the presence of an inferior species of animal I am neither free

nor a man, because this animal is incapable of conceiving and

consequent they recognizing my humanity. I am not myself free or

human until or unless I recognize the freedom and humanity of all my

fellowman only in respecting their human character do I respect my

own… I am truly free only when all human beings men and women,

are equal free.‖25

He argues that the freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my

freedom, is on the contrary, its necessity premises an affirmation.

9

According to Bakunin, ―My dignity as a man, my human right which

consists of refusing to obey any other mans and to determine my own acts in conformity

with my conviction is reflected by the equal freedom confirmed by the liberty of all,

extends to infinity‖26

. The materialistic conception of freedom is therefore a very

positive, very complex thing, and above all, eminently social because it can be realized

only in society and by the strictest equality and solidarity among all men. The first revolt

is against the supremely ranny of the theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we

have a master in heaven, we will be slave on earth. We must make a very precise

distinction between the official and consequently dictatorial prerogative of society

organized as a state and of the natural influence and action of the members of non-

official, non artificial society. The first ground is individualism. ―Man is by Nature a

social animal‖. Mikhail Bakunin was well aware of Aristotle dictum, and asked, in reply.

―Do the social animals quarrel among themselves over wealth or precedence? Do the

bees rebel against their queen? Do the wasps spend half their time making complicate

arrangements to sting each other? Do the ants lock up their houses when they take their

air?‖27

The obvious answers to these questions confirmed him in his belief that only fear

and cold calculation drive men into society and keep them there.

Bakunin holds that ―the entity so created is the commonwealth and that the

multitude so united in one person is on the common ground, they feel things can be

better. That moral God, to which we own under the immoral God our peace and our

defence‖28

. Man remains an artificial person even the environment remain polluted, since

he does not act in his capacity, as a Nature person. As the Name suggests, the power of

the authority is vast and enormous, such great power and authority is necessary to defend

men against each other and also against foreign attack since he bears their persons, and is

authorized to act on behalf, of their action his action are theirs. The power and authority

10

of the (sovereign) as the embodiment of the commonwealth is ―one person, of whose acts

a great multitude, by mutual covenants with o