For Marx, Bakunin, and their followers, the modern liberal state was (and is) the cause of great injustice and oppression. As a consequence, they both denied the legitimacy of the modern liberal state, but for different reasons as I will explain. They both see exploitation as characterising the system in which we live; for Marx this is modern capitalism, for Bakunin the very notion of a state itself.
Marx characterised the modern liberal state as almost entirely shaped by economics. For him, economics was at the heart of everything, and was the base element facilitating all higher social (superstructure) elements such as art, culture and politics (Barker, 2008, p.55). He believed economics was a force that could determine social conditions, and in the capitalist system of modern liberal states saw exactly that occurring. The capitalist system, characterising the liberal state in its supposed facilitation of individual liberty, was for Marx, an insidious device of state exploitation. Capitalism was a system of oppression, enforced by the capitalist owners of production at the expense of the worker class (Pavkovic, 2011, Lecture9 p.4), but always under pretence of prosperity and justice.
In Marx’s view, the capitalist system enforced a condition of alienation and slavery upon the worker. Prior to the industrial revolution, workers could and would complete a job from start to finish. They would bestow art and craft upon the fruits of their labour, and would bring specialised skill to any endeavour. When machinery facilitated mass production, and the worker was reduced to performing only a small repetitive part of a larger process, the worker became a commodity. No longer were specialised or individualising skills a requirement for labour, every man now became of equal utility in the eyes of capitalist employers. The workers were now equal to one another, but inferior to the capitalist ruling classes. Workers were equal and in direct competition with one another. They had become alienated from one another by the very fact of their need to compete for work and money to survive. Further, they had become alienated from the products of their labour, and their ability to be creative in their work (Marx, 1975, p.490). They had lost a fundamental value of human existence and were now just a means to the capitalist end.
Marx’s ‘theory of surplus value’ explains one of fundamental reasons why he believed capitalism to be so unjust. In his critique of capitalism, Marx notes that it is based on the need to make profit or capital; the need to create value out of nothing. To do this, the capitalist employs workers to create commodities, and to give raw materials their value. However to make a profit, the capitalist must give the workers back less than the value of their product. All the capitalist ever gives back is the minimum amount required to survive and everything else is pocketed as profit (Fine/Saad-Filho, 2004, pp.39-44). The workers, as commodities, cannot afford to protest in case they are replaced. They need this minimum amount to survive, and are thus stuck in a system of exploitation and (in Marx’s view) slavery (Marx, 1975, p.490). As soon as the workers are finished being exploited at work, they are then further exploited by the capitalists to whom they owe money – landlords, shopkeepers and so on (Marx, 1975, p.491).
It was this never-ending cycle of repression and exploitation by the capitalist state economic system that led Marx to exclaim its illegitimacy. The state was not working for the people - it was ruled by and working for the capitalists. Capitalism was sold as a system of free enterprise, but in reality was a system that excluded the workers from ever achieving anything more than the minimum. It was a system of free enterprise only for those who already held power, and in reality, injustice in motion. The only solution for Marx was communist revolution. He felt it was an inevitable consequence of the capitalist system that the working class would rise up in their numbers and overpower the capitalists. Local uprisings would become national uprisings, until eventually nation-states fall as working classes across the globe unite in revolution (Marx, 1975, p.493). The capitalists would be no more. Private property would be abolished, and with it the modern capitalist state.
In contrast, for an anarchist, abolishing private property and forming a communist state was simply not enough - the state itself required abolishment (Bakunin, 1972, p.136). Anarchism is a theory based on the idea of equality, and the subsequent injustice of exclusion. For Proudhon, ‘property is theft’ because the act of possessing something excludes others from also possessing it (Pavkovic, 2011, Lecture9 p.8). For Bakunin, the social contract, and the notion of a contained state, is enough to exclude those outside the state and social contract (foreigners) from its supposed benefits (Bakunin, 1972, p.132). In each case it creates a notion of ‘the other’, where ‘the other’ is deprived of its natural equality. ‘The other’ is excluded from what is available to those who ‘own’ property or are members of a particular state. Bakunin was vociferous in his dissent for any system based on a social contract, claiming it a “negation of humanity” (Bakunin, 1972, p.133). Part of the evil in this system, he claims, is that every state fears every ‘other’. It is an international version of Hobbes’ state of nature and the war of all against all (Hobbes, 2008, p.94), in which every state wishes to become all-powerful and to conquer everyone else (Bakunin, 1972, p.137). Perhaps short-sightedly he claimed this situation had no solution (Bakunin, 1972, p.133) and that here could never be an international law. This has been at least partially proven incorrect.
The liberal state was illegitimate for Bakunin because it was not in fact liberal. He believed that in the modern state, the ‘good’ imparted by the social contract is not liberty, but the restriction of liberty (Bakunin, 1972, p.138). When the state claims humans are incapable of incapable of anything but evil in the state of nature, it means that to be good, citizens must relinquish their liberty to act freely. In contrast, anarchists believe the masses are capable of governing themselves and do not need the state. They feel the state’s authority lies only in its false wisdom that people cannot govern themselves (Bakunin, 1972, p.142), and amounts to nothing more than glorified slavery. The people, as wage earners, are reduced to modern slaves and subjugated by social and political institutions, says Bakunin (Bakunin, 1972, p.137), although he never appears to qualify this claim.
It is therefore the case that Marx, Bakunin, and their followers deny the legitimacy of the modern liberal state on the basis of it being the primary source of human exploitation. It allows those with power to dominate those without, always working behind the facade of a higher ideological purpose. The problem with Marx’s case however, is that all he wished to do is replace the current system with another. While he hopes for, and foresees, the collapse of the nation-state system, his plan (initially at least) is to centralise power and government. What he desires is not absence of centralised authority, as Bakunin and other anarchists do, but the absence of illegitimate capitalist authority, and this is a subtle but important difference. Marx feels only a communist state power can be legitimate, while Bakunin thinks no state power can be legitimate. For Marx the source of exploitation and illegitimacy is the capitalist state system, for Bakunin and his followers the source of exploitation and illegitimacy is in the state system itself. Despite anarchism’s flaws (a feasible system of order would be a good start), and the counterintuitive nature of my view, this in essence gives anarchists more weight and room for manoeuvre than Marxists, because in essence it provides an adaptability and abstractness that is missing from Marx’s communist ideal. It does not rely on a purely economic solution, nor one which can be, and many would argue has been proved to be just as exploitative and illegitimate as Marx claimed capitalism to be. It allows freedom from the constraints that both liberal and non-liberal governments place upon people. No social contract exists without relinquishing some right, and government by definition implies some manipulation of will.
Marxists and anarchists both argue for the abolition of the modern liberal state. It is exploitative and illegitimate, and for this reason must be brought down. For Marxists this is limited to the structure of its economic system, for anarchists this includes the very fabric of its being. Neither propose an alternative that I feel offers a solution, but at least the anarchists leave room to refine and build upon their utopian solution. For now, we may have to wait for the end of history, unless Fukuyama has it right (Fukuyama, 2006).
REFERENCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY
· Barker, C (2008), Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, 3rd edition, SAGE, London.
· Bakunin, M; Dolgoff, S (1972), ‘Federalism, socialism, anti-theologism – extracts’, Bakunin on Anarchy: Selected Works by the Activist-Founder of World Anarchism, Bakunin, Mikhail; Dolgoff, Sam, pp.102-103, 132-143.
· Fine, B; Saad-Filho, A. (2004), ‘Capital and exploitation’ Marx's Capital, Fine, Ben; Saad-Filho, Alfredo, pp.31-50.
· Fukuyama, F, (2006), The End of History and the Last Man, Free Press, New York.
· Hobbes, T 2008, ‘Leviathan’, eds. M Oakeshott, Touchstone, New York, p.94.
· Locke, J (2009), Two Treatises of Government, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
· Pavkovic, A (2011), ‘Lecture 3: Consent and the Right to Political Power – Hobbes’ Social Contract Theory’, PLT220: Power and Legitimacy in Modern Political Thought, Macquarie University, Sydney.
· Pavkovic, A (2011), ‘Lecture 4: Political Power Restricted by a Social Contract – Lock’s Argument for Natural rights’, PLT220: Power and Legitimacy in Modern Political Thought, Macquarie University, Sydney.
· Pavkovic, A (2011), ‘Lecture 5: How to Remain Free and Yet Live in a State – Rousseau’s Proposal’, PLT220: Power and Legitimacy in Modern Political Thought, Macquarie University, Sydney.
· Pavkovic, A (2011), ‘Lecture 9: The Liberal State – Illegitimate and Inconsistent?’, PLT220: Power and Legitimacy in Modern Political Thought, Macquarie University, Sydney.
· Marx, K (1975), "Manifesto of the Communist Party (extracts)", Collected Works of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Marx, Karl, pp.486-493, 498-506, 518-519.
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