BAKUNIN NAILS IT

I was watching the Netflix series ‘The Alienist’ last night, in which one of the late nineteenth century characters asked another, facetiously, what the difference between capitalism and socialism was, before supplying the answer: capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, but in socialism it’s the other way around. An old joke, but still funny.

By chance I became reacquainted with this great quote today from a real nineteenth century person, the anarchist thinker Mikhail Bakunin (1814-76), which strikes me as both veracious and prophetic:

“Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice, but socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.”