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Review Summary: Poor quality publisher - find a different version! |
Date: 2008-10-03 |
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Details: If you want to read this book, I'd suggest finding a different publisher/version. The publisher clearly makes really poor quality books - and doesn't proof. I saw about one typo per page - pretty pathetic. For a book priced so high, the quality should be MUCH better - a rip-off. |
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Review Summary: Question |
Date: 2007-04-04 |
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Details: What I want to know is, how the heck did this guy end up on the same island as the survivors of Flight 815? Also, was he a pirate enthusiast? He had a patch after all. |
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Review Summary: Interesting Thesis |
Date: 2005-12-20 |
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Details: Bakunin's political beliefs rejected governing systems in every name and shape, from the idea of God downwards; and every form of external authority, whether emanating from the will of a sovereign or from universal suffrage. He wrote in his Dieu et l'Etat or God and the State (published posthumously in 1882):
"The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature, because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual."
Natural laws being thus recognized by every man for himself, Bakunin's reasoning went, an individual could not but obey them, for they would be the laws also of his own nature; and the need for political organization, administration and legislation would at once disappear.
Bakunin similarly rejected the notion of any privileged position or class, since "it is the peculiarity of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the intellect and heart of man. The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart."
Bakunin's methods of realizing his revolutionary program were no less purposeful than his principles. The revolutionist, as Bakunin described, would be a devoted man, who allowed no private interests or feelings, and no scruples of religion, patriotism or morality, to turn him aside from his mission, the aim of which is by all available means to overturn the existing society.
The dispute between Mikhail Bakunin and Karl Marx highlighted the difference between anarchism and communism: While both anarchists and communists share the same final goal (the creation of a free, egalitarian society with no social classes and no government), they strongly disagree on how to achieve this goal. Anarchists believe that the classless, stateless society should be established right away, as soon as possible. Communists believe that such a thing would be impossible and that the anarchists are too idealistic; the communists want a more gradual transition towards the classless and stateless society, involving a transitional stage of democratic government and planned economics, which they call "socialism".
His works are erudite and forceful and should be read by anyone interested in polictical science and/or philosophy. |
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Review Summary: If God existed, it would be necessary to abolish him. |
Date: 2005-09-22 |
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Details: Bakunin was a true activist. Spending little time writing, Mikhail Bakunin was a full time revolutionary and heavy critic of the existing movements of the time. In his only published work, God & the State, Bakunin lays out his arguments against "Gods and Masters" with great accuracy. He is truly a man to be admired (he once was a wealthy aristocrat but rejected this life for one of constant struggle.
Worth Reading, even if you don't agree with him. |
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Review Summary: Bakunin's Atheistic Priesthood |
Date: 2004-10-21 |
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Details: Mikhail Bakunin is often called the father of anarchism. To say the father of a theory, based on pure unrestricted freedom, is a man who has no belief but in socialism and the necessity to tear down religion/faith brings shame to anarchism. Many great quotes and thoughts can be taken from this book; on the other hand a multitude of delusion can be taken as well. To have the freedom of faith, to live as you choose; that is anarchism in its purest form. Bakunin's main attack against god(s) is their usefulness to the ruling party. A party that rules will pervert anything to keep that rule. So should a party use the name of anarchism, is that to say Anarchism is a tyrannical theory? Anarchism, faith, and religion are but words. The intention behind the belief is where a man should look. In Bakunin's world we would not have religion, or faith; we would not own property; we would work for the good of the whole at the expense of the individual. Our world would enter an atheistic priesthood, forfeit of all individual rights. Tyranny wears many masks. Bakunin's anarchy, his socialism, is nothing more than control. The greatest oppression an anarchist can ever force upon his/her person, is the belief that anarchism and socialism go hand in hand. In every theory, in every great thought for freedom, there will always be those who pervert a name, a word, a doctrine. I recommend this book as an example of such perversion. |
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out of 13 Reviews
