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Father of Social Ecology and Anarcho-Communalism
: Growing up in the era of traditional proletarian socialism, with its working-class insurrections and struggles against classical fascism, as an adult he helped start the ecology movement, embraced the feminist movement as antihierarchical, and developed his own democratic, communalist politics. (From: Anarchy Archives.)
• "Or will ecology groups and the Greens turn the entire ecology movement into a starry-eyed religion decorated by gods, goddesses, woodsprites, and organized around sedating rituals that reduce militant activist groups to self-indulgent encounter groups?" (From: "The Crisis in the Ecology Movement," by Murray Bo....)
• "...a market economy based on dog-eat-dog as a law of survival and 'progress' has penetrated every aspect of society..." (From: "The Crisis in the Ecology Movement," by Murray Bo....)
• "...Proudhon here appears as a supporter of direct democracy and assembly self- management on a clearly civic level, a form of social organization well worth fighting for in an era of centralization and oligarchy." (From: "The Ghost of Anarcho-Syndicalism," by Murray Book....)
List of Sources
1. An Ecological Society
Decentralization: Selected from Our Synthetic Environment, under the
pseudonym Lewis Herber (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), pp.
237–45. The British edition of this book was published by Jonathan
Cape (London, 1963 ); a revised paperback edition was published by
Harper Colophon Books, under the name Murray Bookchin (New
York, 1974).
Anarchism and Ecology: From “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought,” under the pseudonym Lewis Herber, Comment [NY] (1964). This essay was republished in Anarchy [UK] 69, vol. 6 (1966); and in Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism (San Francisco: Ramparts Books, 1971; London: Wildwood House, 1974; and Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1986). This selection comes from Post-Scarcity Anarchism, pp. 76–82.
The New Technology and the Human Scale: From “Towards a Liberatory Technology,” in Comment [N.Y.] (1965). Republished in Anarchy [UK] 78, vol. 7 (1967) and in Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971, 1974, 1986), from which this selection comes, pp. 106–12. I have removed most of the (often dated) technical material from this and the following selection.
Ecological Technology: From ibid., pp. 113–30.
Social Ecology: From Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom (Palo Alto, CA: Cheshire Books, 1982), pp. 20–5. Second edition published by Black Rose Books (Montreal, 1991).
2. Nature, First and Second
Images of First Nature: From “What Is Social Ecology?” in Murray
Bookchin, The Modern Crisis (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers,
1986; and Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1987), pp. 52, 55–62. This
essay was originally a seminar lecture presented at the University of
Frankfurt (Germany) in 1984.
Participatory Evolution: From “Freedom and Necessity in Nature,” in Murray Bookchin, The Philosophy of Social Ecology, revised edition (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1995), pp. 77–81. This essay was originally published in Alternatives, val. 13, no. 4 (November 1986); it was heavily revised for the 1995 edition of The Philosophy of Social Ecology.
Society as Second Nature: From Murray Bookchin, Remaking Society: Pathways to a Green Future (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1989; Boston: South End Press, 1990), pp. 25–30, 35–9.
On Biocentrism: From Murray Bookchin, Re-enchanting Humanity (London: Cassell, 1995), pp. 100–4.
3. Organic Society
Usufruct, Complementarity, and the Irreducible Minimum: From The Ecology of Freedom (1982), pp. 48–9, 50–2, and 143–5.
Romanticizing Organic Society: From “Twenty Years Later ... ,“the introduction to the revised edition of The Ecology of Freedom ( 1991 ), pp. xvii-xix, xxxviii, xxxix-xliv, xlv-xlvii, xlviii, il-li.
4. The Legacy of Domination
The Emergence of Hierarchy: From The Ecology of Freedom ( 1982),
pp. 74–87.
The Rise of the State: From Murray Bookchin, The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1987), pp. 138–46. Republished in Canada as Urbanization Without Cities by Black Rose Books (Montreal, 1992); and republished with revisions as From Urbanization to Cities by Cassell (London, 1995). This selection is taken from pp. 129–36 of the latter edition.
The Rise of Capitalism: From Urbanization (1987 and 1992), pp. 201–7; in the 1995 Cassell edition, pp. 181–6.
The Market Society: From The Ecology of Freedom (1982), pp. 135–9.
5. Scarcity and Post-Scarcity
Conditions of Freedom: From “Post-Scarcity Anarchism” (1967), in
Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), pp. 33–5, 37–40.
The Problem of Want and Work: From “Toward a Liberatory Technology” (1965), in Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), pp. 89–94.
Cybernation and Automation: From “Toward a Liberatory Technology” (1965), in Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), pp. 95–105.
Technology for Life: From “Toward a Liberatory Technology” (1965), in Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), pp. 130 — 9.
The Fetishization of Needs: From The Ecology of Freedom (1982), pp. 67–72.
6. Marxism
Marxism and Domination: This selection combines excerpts from The Ecology of Freedom (1982), pp. 64–5, and from “Marxism as
Bourgeois Sociology” Comment [ns], vol. 1, no. 2 (Feb. 1979).
Republished in Toward an Ecological Society (Montreal: Black Rose
Books, 1980), pp. 203–6.
Marxism and Leninism: From “Listen, Marxist!” (1969), in PostScarcity Anarchism (1971), pp. 181–5, 198–208.
7. Anarchism
The Two Traditions — Anarchism: From “Listen, Marxist!” (1969), in
Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), pp. 208–20.
Anarchy and Libertarian Utopias: From Remaking Society (1989, 1990), pp. 117–22, 124–6.
Cultures of Revolt: From From Urbanization to Cities (1987), pp. 211–15; in the 1995 Cassell edition, pp. 189–92.
Spanish Anarchism — The Collectives: This selection combines excerpts from “Overview of the Spanish Libertarian Movement” (1974) and “After Fifty Years” (1985), both in Murray Bookchin, To Remember Spain (Edinburgh and San Francisco: A.K. Press, 1995), pp. 9–14,26–7, 43–4. “Overview” was originally published as “Reflections on Spanish Anarchism” in Our Generation, vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring 1974); it was republished (in part) as the introductory essay to Sam Dolgoff, The Anarchist Collectives: Workers Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution 1936–39 (New York: Free Life Editions, and Montreal: Black Rose Books, both 1974). “After Fifty Years” was originally published as “The Spanish Civil War, 1936,” in New Politics 1 (Spring 1986).
Critique of Lifestyle Anarchism: From “Social Anarchism versus Lifestyle Anarchism,” in Murray Bookchin Social Anarchism versus Lifestyle Anarchism (Edinburgh and San Francisco: A.K. Press, 1995), pp. 8–9,49–54,56–61.
8. Libertarian Municipalism
The New Municipal Agenda: This selection comes primarily from
Chapter 8 of Urbanization (1987, 1992, 1995), passim; with some
interpolations from “Radical Politics in an Era of Advanced
Capitalism,” Green Perspectives, no. 18 (November 1989); “The
Meaning of Confederalism,” Green Perspectives, no. 20 (November
1990); and “Libertarian Municipalism: An Overview,” Green Perspectives, no. 24 (October 1991). On some occasions, such as while
writing Urbanization, Bookchin referred to his political ideas as
“confederal municipalism” rather than as “libertarian municipalism.”
In this selection, at his request, I have changed “confederal
municipalism” to his preferred “libertarian municipalism.”
9. Dialectical Naturalism
Objectively Grounded Ethics: From “Rethinking Ethics, Nature, and
Society” (written in 1985), in The Modern Crisis (1986), pp. 7–13.
A Philosophical Naturalism: From the introduction to The Philosophy of Social Ecology, revised edition (1995), pp. 3–11, 13–15, 16–24, 26–7, 28–33.
Ecologizing the Dialectic: From “Thinking Ecologically: A Dialectical Approach,” in The Philosophy of Social Ecology, revised edition (1995), pp. 119, 120, 124, 125–6, 127–31, 133–6, 140–1. This article was originally published in Our Generation, vol. 18, no. 2 (Spring-Summer 1987).
10. Reason and History
History, Civilization, and Progress: From “History, Civilization, and
Progress: Outline for a Criticism of Modern Relativism,” in The Philosophy of Social Ecology, revised edition (1995), pp. 147–8,
157–79. Originally published in Green Perspectives, no. 29 (March
1994).
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
A.K. Press: “Overview of the Spanish Libertarian Movement,” in To Remember Spain (1995); “After Fifty Years,” in To Remember Spain (1995); and “Social Anarchism versus Lifestyle Anarchism,” in Social Anarchism versus Lifestyle Anarchism (1995). Reprinted by permission of A.K. Press.
Black Rose Books: “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought,” “PostScarcity Anarchism,” “Toward a Liberatory Technology,” and “Listen, Marxist!” in Post-Scarcity Anarchism ( 1986 rpt.); The Ecology of Freedom, second edition (1991 rpt.); “Twenty Years Later ... ,” introduction to the revised edition of The Ecology of Freedom (1991); “What Is Social Ecology?” and “Rethinking Ethics, Nature, and Society,” in The Modern Crisis (1986); Remaking Society (1989); “Marxism as Bourgeois Sociology,” in Toward an Ecological Society (1980); “The New Municipal Agenda,” in Urbanization Against Cities (1992 rpt.); “Freedom and Necessity in Nature,” “A Philosophical Naturalism,” “Thinking Ecologically,” and “History, Civilization, and Progress,” in The Philosophy of Social Ecology, revised edition ( 1994 ). Reprinted by permission of Black Rose Books.
Cassell: “Biocentrism” in Re-enchanting Humanity (1995); “The New Municipal Agenda,” in From Urbanization to Cities, revised edition (1995 rpt). Reprinted by permission of Cassell.
New Society Publishers: “What Is Social Ecology?” and “Rethinking Ethics, Nature, and Society,” in The Modern Crisis (1986). Reprinted by permission of New Society Publishers.
South End Press: Remaking Society (1990). Reprinted by permission of South End Press.
[1] Murray Bookchin, “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought,” 1964; as reprinted in Anarchy 69, val. 6 (1966), p. 18. The section “Observations on Classical Anarchism” appeared in the original essay, as it was published in Comment in 1964 and in Anarchy in 1966, but it was cut from the reprinting in PostScarcity Anarchism (San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1971; Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1977).
[2] Ibid., pp. 18, 21.
[3] Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Washington, DC and Covelo, CA: Island Press, 1993), p. 83; Nolan is quoted on p. 37.
[4] Lewis Herber (pseud. for Murray Bookchin), “The Problem of Chemicals in Food,” Contemporary Issues, val. 3, no. 12 (June-August 1952), p. 235.
[5] Ibid., pp. 206, 211.
[6] Ibid., p. 209.
[7] Ibid., p. 240.
[8] Lewis Herber (pseud. for Murray Bookchin), Our Synthetic Environment (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962). For a comparison with Silent Spring, see Yaakov Garb, “Change and Continuity in Environmental World-View,” in Minding Nature: The Philosophers of Ecology, edited by David Macauley (New York: Guilford, 1996), pp. 246–7.
[9] “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought,” in Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 62.
[10] Ibid., p. 74–5.
[11] “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought,” as it appeared in Anarchy, p. 5. Some of the words from this passage were cut when the essay was republished in Post-Scarcity Anarchism; see p. 60 of that book.
[12] Arne Naess, “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement,” Inquiry, val. 16 (1973), pp. 95–100.
[13] Murray Bookchin, “Spontaneity and Organization,” lecture delivered at Telos conference, Buffalo, NY, 1971; published in Anarchos, no. 4 (1973) and in Liberation (March 1972); republished in Toward an Ecological Society (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1980), where this quotation is on pp. 270–1.
[14] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964 ), p. 64.
[15] Friedrich Engels, Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science (Anti-Dühring), trans. Emile Burns (New York: International Publishers, 1939), pp. 323–4.
[16] E. A. Gutkind, The Expanding Environment (London: Freedom Press, rul.); later incorporated into The Twilight of Cities (Glencoe, NY: Free Pre·;s, 1962), pp. 55–144.
[17] Herbert Read, “The Philosophy of Anarchism,” in Anarchy and Order: Essays in Politics (1954; Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), p. 37.
[18] H.D.F. Kitto, The Greeks (Chicago: Aldine, 1951), p. 16.
[19] Eric W. Leaver and John J. Brown, “Machines Without Men,” Fortune (November 1946).
[20] Charles Gide, introduction to F.M.C. founer, Selections from the Works of Fourier (London: S. Sonnenschein and Co., 1901), p. 14.
[21] In his earlier writings Bookchin often refers to first nature simply as “nature,” following convention. But because the meanings of the word nature are so numerous and varied, in his more recent writings he no longer uses the word unmodified.
[22] Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom (Palo Alto, CA: Cheshire Books, 1982), pp. 315–16.
[23] William Trager, Symbiosis (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1970), p. vii.
[24] Robert Briffault, “The Evolution of the Human Species,” in The Making of Man, edited by V. F. Calverton (New York: Modern Library, 1931), pp. 765–6.
[25] Bill Devall and George Sessions, Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered (Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, 1985), p. 67, emphases added.
[26] Robyn Eckersley, “Divining Evolution: The Ecological Ethics of Murray Bookchin,” Environmental Ethics, vol. 11 (Summer 1989), p. 115.
[27] Devall and Sessions, Deep Ecology, p. 66. Actually, this quotation from Fox comes from a criticism of deep ecology in The Ecologist, val. 14, no. 5–6 (1984), pp. 194–200 and 201–4, which does not prevent Devall and Sessions from bringing it to the service of deep ecology.
[28] Devall and Sessions, Deep Ecology, p. 68.
[29] Richard Watson, “Eco-Ethics: Challenging the Underlying Dogmas of Environmentalism,” Whole Earth Review (March 1985), pp. 5–13.
[30] Harold Fromm, “Ecology and Ideology,” Hudson Review (Spring 1992), p. 30.
[31] Murray Bookchin, “Twenty Years Later ... ,” introduction to the second edition of The Ecology of Freedom (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1991 ), pp. xiv-xv.
[32] Stephen J. Pyne, Fire in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 71.
[33] Alston Chase, Playing God in Yellowstone: The Destruction of America’s First National Park (New York: Harvest/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986, 1987), p. 104.
[34] Murray Bookchin, Remaking Society (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1989), p. 32.
[35] See Immanuel Wallerstein, Historical Capitalism (London: Verso Editions, 1983).
[36] Murray Bookchin, introduction to Post Scarcity Anarchism (San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1971; reprinted by Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1977), p. 9.
[37] Owen quoted in G.D.H. Cole, A History of Socialist Thought, vol. 1, Socialist Thought: The Forerunners, 1789–1850 (London: Macmillan, 1962), p. 94.
[38] Students for a Democratic Society, “America and the New Era” (1963), in Massimo Teodori, ed., The New Left: A Documentary History (Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), p. 174.
[39] Mario Savio, “An End to History” (1964), in Teodori, ed., New Left, p. 159.
[40] Ibid., p. 11.
[41] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What Is Property? (London: Bellamy Library, n.d.), vol. 1, p. 135.
[42] Vannevar Bush quoted in US Congress, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Automation and Technological Change: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization, 84th cong., 1st sess. (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 19 55), p. 81.
[43] Alice Mary Hilton, “Cyberculture,” Fellowship for Reconciliation paper (Berkeley, CA, 1964 ), p. 8.
[44] Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1934), pp. 69–70.
[45] Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution (New York: Modern Library, n.d.), p. 593.
[46] Murray Bookchin, “Thinking Ecologically,” in The Philosophy of Social Ecology, seconded., rev. (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1995), p. 142, note 2.
[47] Quoted in Leon Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1932), vol. 1, p. 144.
[48] V.I. Lenin, “The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government” (April1918); in Selected Works, vol. 7 (New York: International Publishers, 1943), p. 342.
[49] V. V. Osinsky, “On the Building of Socialism,” Kommunist, no. 2 (April 1918), quoted in R. V. Daniels, The Conscience of the Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 85–6.
[50] Robert G. Wesson, Soviet Communes (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963 ), p. 110.
[51] Daniels, Conscience, p. 145.
[52] Moshe Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle (New York: Pantheon, 1958), p. 122.
[53] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Correspondence (New York: International Publishers, 1942), p. 292.
[54] Friedrich Engels, Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science (Anti-Dühring) (New York: International Publishers, 1939), p. 323.
[55] George Woodcock, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (Cleveland and New York: World Publishing Co., 1962), p. 468.
[56] Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992), p. 602.
[57] Gerald Brenan, The Spanish Labyrinth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 273.
[58] BBC-Granada Ltd., The Spanish Civil War, a six-part documentary, especially part 5, “Inside the Revolution.”
[59] Ibid.
[60] Quoted in The New York Times, May 7, 1995.
[61] Max Stirner, The Ego and His Own, ed. James J. Martin, trans. Steven T. Byington (New York: Libertarian Book Club, 1963), part 2, chap. 4, sec. C, “My Self-Engagement,” p. 352, emphasis added.
[62] Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense” (1873; fragment), in The Portable Nietzsche, edited and translated by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Viking Portable Library, 1959), pp. 46–7.
[63] Friedrich Nietzsche, fragment 481 (1883–8), The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 267.
[64] James J. Martin, editor’s introduction to Stirner, Ego and His Own, p. xviii.
[65] Max Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 135.
[66] Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958), p. 80.
[67] George Woodcock, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (Cleveland and New York: World Publishing Co., 1962, 1969), p. 33.
[68] Lester Brown et al., State of the World: 1995 (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Co., 1995), pp. 60–70.
[69] Ibid., p. 67.
[70] G.W.F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, trans. Baillie (New York: Humanities Press, 1910), p. 79.
[71] G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, vol. 1, trans. E. S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson (New York: Humanities Press, 1955), p. 22.
[72] Ibid. (emphasis added).
[73] See James Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).
[74] See Murray Bookchin, Re-enchanting Humanity (London: Cassell, 1995).
[75] See Chapter 11 of Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom (1982; reprinted by Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1991).
[76] G.W.F. Hegel, “Reason as Lawgiver,” in Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 252–6.
From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org
Father of Social Ecology and Anarcho-Communalism
: Growing up in the era of traditional proletarian socialism, with its working-class insurrections and struggles against classical fascism, as an adult he helped start the ecology movement, embraced the feminist movement as antihierarchical, and developed his own democratic, communalist politics. (From: Anarchy Archives.)
• "The historic opposition of anarchists to oppression of all kinds, be it that of serfs, peasants, craftspeople, or workers, inevitably led them to oppose exploitation in the newly emerging factory system as well. Much earlier than we are often led to imagine, syndicalism- - essentially a rather inchoate but radical form of trade unionism- - became a vehicle by which many anarchists reached out to the industrial working class of the 1830s and 1840s." (From: "The Ghost of Anarcho-Syndicalism," by Murray Book....)
• "...a market economy based on dog-eat-dog as a law of survival and 'progress' has penetrated every aspect of society..." (From: "The Crisis in the Ecology Movement," by Murray Bo....)
• "...real growth occurs exactly when people have different views and confront each other in order to creatively arrive at more advanced levels of truth -- not adopt a low common denominator of ideas that is 'acceptable' to everyone but actually satisfies no one in the long run. Truth is achieved through dialogue and, yes, harsh disputes -- not by a deadening homogeneity and a bleak silence that ultimately turns bland 'ideas' into rigid dogmas." (From: "The Crisis in the Ecology Movement," by Murray Bo....)
Janet Biehl (born September 4, 1953) is an American political writer who is the author of numerous books and articles associated with social ecology, the body of ideas developed and publicized by Murray Bookchin. Formerly an advocate of his antistatist political program, she broke with it publicly in 2011. She works as a freelance copy editor for book publishers in New York. She currently focuses as well on translating, journalism, and artmaking. (From: Wikipedia.org.)
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