Bakunin on Rosseau

Posted on April 29, 2008

I re-posted my essay Anarchism as an IR Theory the other day in my post On Anarchism. It’s my own personal attempt at a succinct primer on anarchist thought and theory from a non-sectarian viewpoint. One of my favorite sections – and likely the most controversial among the “anarchy means I can do whatever I want!” crowd – is the section on Social Contracts & Law in a Stateless society and the difference between Natural Law and State law. That section was written with some reference to Goldman and others, but mostly from my own thoughts. So I was pleasantly surprised today when I was reading through some of Bakunin’s work and found his essay on Rousseau and Social Contact Theory. Mikhael doesn’t agree with me on everything, of course, but I wanted to repost his essay here for ya’ll. Read more