"Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it."
- Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin - "Man, Society and Freedom" 1871
Good quote. Unfortunately Bakunin was a proponent of Socialism / Collectivism and he thought it should (and would) come about naturally in society without the coercive power of the State. I will say you've got to love the delicious irony of a Socialist having his property confiscated by the Russian government.
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Actually... When Socialism/Collectivism comes about as a function of individuals choosing it, as an outgrowth of their own desire to get along together, with people concerned with each other, with producing just because they enjoy what they do, and all the other things that the Socialism dream desires, then it will work.
We'd have some form of Utopia that we wouldn't even recognize, and the humans that would create this society would be nearly unrecognizable as well. It would require a total change in human nature.
Bakunin was an anarchist and a lifelong proponent of armed workers insurrection as well as Marx's main opponent in that movement's main revolutionary organization, the First International. He predicted, correctly I think, that Marx's brand of state communism would lead to a brutal 'red bureaucracy' and he opposed it.
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