Mikhail Bakunin
1814–1876 · Libertarian Socialism · Prominent
Bakunin was a Russian revolutionary and a militant atheist who wrote that if God existed it would be necessary to abolish him. No authority had a claim on a person, divine or political, so he wanted the lot torn down, church and state together. Freedom gets built upward from the commune: workers holding land and tools in common, then joining with other communes by choice. Collectivist anarchism as a movement starts with him.
Signature
The position Bakunin is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Order
- leans Horizontal
- Government
- Anarchy / Communal Order
Positions on the 13 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Mechanistic (9 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- mildly between Collectivism and Individualism (44 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- strongly leans Brain Only (7 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- Universals
- leans Nominalism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- leans Constructed (13 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (84 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Immanence (0 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Sublation (16 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Polity
- strongly leans Liberalism (94 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- War
- mildly leans Militarism (65 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (25 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Global (79 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
7 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Bakunin refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Atheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Anarchy / Communal Order
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Freedom
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Natural Emergence
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Open Future
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience / Naturalism
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Beginning of Things
- Eternal Cosmos
What is the origin of reality? - Economy
- Cooperative Commonwealth
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Self-Sovereignty / Collective Will
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Paradox
- Dialectical Sublation
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Revolutionary
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Annihilation
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Evolved Animal
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Class / Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?