Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin, Research Paper Example

Introduction

According to socialist historian Ann Robertson, German philosopher Karl Marx (1818 to 1883), best-known for The Communist Manifesto of 1848, and Russian revolutionary anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (1814 to 1876), author of God and the State (1882), were deeply involved in a conflict of “intellectual engagement” for many years which after decades of research by political academicians were both “struggling for identical goals,” namely, that the political/economic system of capitalism was based upon the “exploitation of workers” (i.e., the proletariat) by capitalists or those who sought profit at the expense of the less fortunate and disadvantaged, and for the complete abolishment of all economic social classes in which “individuals would have the opportunity to develop all of their creative capabilities” for the betterment of society as a whole. Thus, the main goal of socialism as opposed to capitalism was to do away with the divisions of labor, both mental and manual. In essence, the work process had to be “transformed so that all workers could take an active role in the organization, design, and implementation” of a socialists system” (Robertson, 2003).  For Marx and Bakunin, the only feasible way to accomplish this rather daunting task was to liberate every citizen as stand-alone individuals within an international arena as opposed to a Nation-State which served as an “instrument of class oppression.” The basic model for this was the 1871 Paris Commune, a political and economic uprising against the government of France shortly after the Franco-German War and the culmination of Napoleon III’s Second Empire, circa 1852 to 1870 (Price, 2014, p. 174).

As intellectual revolutionaries, Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin were highly influential in relation to properly analyzing the nature and function of the State. However, Marx was in favor of a series of stages between moving from a capitalistic State to a pure communistic society with an intermittent stage with the proletariat in complete control. In contrast, Bakunin “adamantly rejected the establishment of any kind of a State” which included one controlled by the workers. In other words, Bakunin was in favor of anarchy which he defined as a situation without a central government (Robertson, 2013).

In addition, Marx openly supported all attempts by the proletariat to “pursue their own class interests by pressing for reforms found within the bourgeois State,” especially related to working hours which he felt would encourage class consciousness or the desire to express concern for how a given society operates. However, Bakunin was solidly against any type of “perversion of the revolutionary movement,” such as the inclusion of the bourgeois political arena (Robertson, 2013). Lastly, Bakunin supported the existence of “secret societies” that would serve as foundations for revolutionary activities; conversely, Marx was solidly against this idea. As for the peasants, Bakunin supported some type of major role for them in this “utopia,” while Marx “designated the proletariat as the exclusive, leading revolutionary” entity (Robertson, 2013).

Marx and Bakunin: The Industrial Revolution

As a philosopher and historian, Karl Marx was fascinated by the Industrial Revolution of the 1840’s, especially as it developed in Great Britain. Although not the first, Marx fully recognized and appreciated how the world about him would be changed forever via the introduction of mechanization. This fascination led Marx to formulate several important theories about the Industrial Revolution, such as recognizing that it would determine the historical development of man and society for the next one hundred years and beyond. Marx was also cognizant of the fact that the Industrial Revolution would dictate the way that human beings produce and divide wealth via the “conflict between the exploiters (i.e., the merchants and manufacturers) and the exploited” or the common worker. In effect, this viewpoint helped to shape Marx’s laws associated with economics and the rise of political leaders (Marxism: The Theory That Split the World, 2014).

As for Bakunin, the Industrial Revolution provided enormous wealth, power, and influence for the bourgeois at the cost of the common laborer. As Bakunin once described it, the Industrial Revolution made it possible for capitalists and property owners, supported by the State, “the power and right. . . to live without working.” It also gave the “power and the right to live by exploiting the work of someone else; the right to exploit the work of those who possess neither property nor capital, and who thus are forced to sell their productive power to the lucky owners of both.” In basic terms, Bakunin saw the Industrial Revolution as a way for the bourgeois to “live at the expense of the proletariat” or the common worker as found in Britain’s factories and manufacturing centers (Marxism: The Theory That Split the World, 2014).

Marx, Bakunin and the PerfectState

In The Communist Manifesto (1848), Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels discuss a wide variety of ideas related to their perception of what constitutes a so-called PerfectState. First of all, Marx and Engels refer to “relative scarcity,” meaning that regardless of how much material goods are produced, it is simply insufficient for everyone related to basic survival. Relative scarcity, as they see it, is a “condition in which the productivity of labor enables a group of people to produce a surplus. . . that is more than enough to enable them to survive, yet not enough to allow everyone to live in true abundance” (Tabor, 2014). This group of people are of course, the bourgeois; thus, when productivity attains this state of relative scarcity, society becomes divided into two unequal classes–those that live in luxury and those that live on the edge as common workers who receive as their reward a living wage. Therefore, the State becomes a haven for the wealthy and prosperous who exploit the common laborer. Economically, the State ends up being controlled by the luxury class which as a consequence maintains control and dominance over the lesser class. In essence then, if such a situation is reversed or eradicated, the State is viewed as reaching for perfectibility.

Secondly, since the bourgeois is the dominant class, it is also politically dominant which allows it to suppress and exploit the other class, i.e., the oppressed majority. Therefore, as a modern representative entity, the State serves as an “instrument of exploitation of wage labour by capital,” meaning that the State holds all of the proverbial cards, a stacked deck as it were because it owns and controls the majority of assets (Tabor, 2014). Ideally for Marx, all of the assets should be shared equally between the masses which in effect would eliminate class distinction and warfare.

Similarly, the State is the “superstructure” or keystone which is supported by the “instruments of production” that came about due to the Industrial Revolution. This superstructure is composed of  all political and cultural institutions and serves as the foundation for “ideational realms” (Tabor, 2014). Conversely, the base or substructure is composed of the working classes who toil to support the keystone of the superstructure. Thus, Marx’s PerfectState would be a combination of the superstructure and the substructure, both of which could not exist without the other. Thus, in our modern world, the “executive” or ruling elite is “essentially a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie” (Tabor, 2014).

As previously mentioned, Bakunin’s in his God and the State firmly rejected the idea of the creation of any kind of State which includes a State controlled by the common worker. As Ann Robertson points out, Bakunin’s rejection was and remains to this day “the defining principle of the school of anarchism” which by definition refers to a society without any form of government, i.e., a system that lacks authoritarian figures with the power to influence the common people. Thus, Bakunin openly advocated a “fully mature communistic society distinguished by the absence of a State,” a position which ironically often led him to State-controlled incarceration (Robertson, 2003). Therefore, Bakunin’s Perfect State would be composed of a society that is governed by natural laws, forever “inherent in the body social. . . independent of the thinking and the will of the men composing the society” (Robertson, 2003).

In addition, in Bakunin’s Perfect State, the idea of personal freedom is quite Utopian, for he declares that freedom or the ability to act freely “means, above all,

acting “naturally” or according to one’s natural impulses which logically equates with goodness, fairness, and ordinary human decency. As Bakunin explains it, “The liberty of man consists solely. . . 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” (Robertson, 2003).

What this extraordinary statement implies is that human beings must exist in an equal “Perfect” society that is without exploitation. This approach also equates with the old adage of laissez-faire in which all humans are allowed to live “naturally and freely” without infringing upon another’s freedom and liberty. As contrasted with the ideals of Marx in relation to the Perfect State, Bakunin’s ideals are truly Utopian; in fact, they are so Utopian that if they were to come to pass, any given State would certainly become Dystopian.

References

Bakunin, M. (2011). The capitalist system. Retrieved from http://zabalaza.net/category/zabalazas-anarchist-library/the-bakunin-archive/

Marxism: The theory that split the world. Retrieved from http://cla.calpoly.edu/~mriedlsp/History315/marxism.html

Price, R. (2014). A concise history of France. 3rd ed. UK: Cambridge University Press.

Robertson, A. (2003). The philosophical roots of the Marx-Bakunin conflict. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/bio/robertson-ann.htm

Tabor, R. (2014). The Marxist theory of the State. Retrieved from http://www.spunk.org/ texts/pubs/lr/sp001715/marxron.html