66 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
66 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
Power Corrupts the Best
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by Michael Bakunin (1867)
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The State is nothing else but this domination and exploitation regularised
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and systemised. We shall attempt to demonstrate ut by examining the
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consequence of the government of the masses of the people by a minority,
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at first as intelligent and as devoted as you like, in an ideal State,
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founded on a free contract.
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Suppose the government to be confined only to the best citizens. At
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first these citizens are privileged not by right, but by fact. They
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have been elected by the people because they are the most intelligent,
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clever, wise, and courageous and devoted. Taken from the mass of the
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citizens, who are regarded as all equal, they do not yet form a class
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apart, but a group of men privileged only by nature and for that reason
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singled ouit for election by the people. Their number is necessarily
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very limited, for in all times and countries the number of men endowed
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with qualities so remarkable that they automatically command the
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unanimous respect of a nation is, as experience teaches us, very small.
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Therefore, under pain of making a bad choice, the people will always
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be forced to choose its rulers from amongst them.
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Here, then, is society divided into two categories, if not yet to say
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two classes, of which one, composed of the immense majority of the
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citizens, submits freely to the government of its elected leaders, the
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other, formed of a small number of privileged natures, recognised and
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accepted as such by the people, and charged by them to govern them.
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Dependent on popular election, they are at first distinguished from the
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mass of the citizens only by the very qualities which recommended them
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to their choice and are naturally, the most devoted and useful of all.
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They do not yet assume to themselves any privilege, any particular right,
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except that of exercising, insofar as the people wish it, the special
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functions with which they have been charged. For the rest, by their
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manner of life, by the conditions and means of their existence, they do
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not separate themselves in any way from all the others, so that a perfect
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equality continues to reign among all. Can this equality be long maintained?
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We claim that it cannot and nothing is easier to prive it.
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Nothing is more dangerous for man's private morality than the habit of
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command. The best man, the most intelligent, disinterested, generous,
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pure, will infallibly and always be spoiled at this trade. Two sentiments
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inherent in power never fail to produce this demoralisation; they are:
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contempt for the masses and the overestimation of one's own merits.
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"The masses" a man says to himself, " recognising their incapacity to
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govern on their own account, have elected me their chief. By that act
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they have publicly proclaimed their inferiority and my superiority. Among
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this crowd of men, recognising hardly any equals of myself, I am alone
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capable of directing public affairs. The people have need of me; they
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cannot do without my services, while I, on the contrary, can get along
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all right by myself; they, therefore, must obey me for their own security,
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and in condescending to obey them, I am doing them a good turn.
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Is there not something in all that to make a man lose his head and his
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heart as well, and become mad with pride? It is thus that power and
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the habit of command become for even the most intelligent and virtuous
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men, a source of aberration, both intellectual and moral.
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(TBD)
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