Religious Views
Collectivist Anarchism
"On its most fundamental level, Bakunin's political philosophy was an argument against the institutionalization of social authority. He attacked every form of official authority on the grounds that it was neither politically legitimate nor socially efficacious"
Anarchism is often mistaken for left-wing thinking or the advocacy of anarchy. It is neither. If anything, the libertarian strain in anarchism makes it closer to the right. Anarchism is an umbrella term covering disparate social and political theories - among them classic or cooperative anarchism (postulated by William Godwin and, later, Pierre Joseph Proudhon), radical individualism (Max Stirner), religious anarchism (Leo Tolstoy), anarcho-communism (Kropotkin) and anarcho-syndicalism, educational anarchism (Paul Goodman), and communitarian anarchism (Daniel Guerin).
Political Views
Mischief and Mayhem
Bakunin believed that one would be able to achieve full and complete freedom through following the natural order and rejecting the dictated order of the state. Bakunin further believed that one did not have complete free will in the sense that one thinks of, because one is inevitably under the sociological law. But Bakunin asserts, "The negation of freewill...does not connote the negation of freedom. On the contrary, freedom represents the corollary, the direct result of natural and social necessity"
Bakunin stated that in a capitalist society, the wealthy elite controlled the mental capital and used it against the working class to further exploit them. They did this through means of controlling the education system: "Education is a force, and however bad, superficial or distorted the education of the higher classes may be, there is no doubt that...it contributes mightily toward the retaining of power in the hands of a privileged minority"
