Agriculture is a form of culture. The cultivation of food is a social and cultural phenomenon unique to humanity. Among animals, anything that could remotely be described as food cultivation appear ephemerally, if at all; and even among humans, agriculture developed little more than ten thousand years ago. Yet, in an epoch when food cultivation is reduced to a mere industrial technique, it becomes especially important to dwell on the cultural implications of "modern" agriculture—to indicate their impact not only on public health, but also on humanity's relationship to nature and the relationship of human to human.
The contrast between early and modern agricultural practices is dramatic. Indeed, it would be very difficult to und... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) This article appears in Anarchy Archives with the permission of the author.
RADICALIZING DEMOCRACY by Murray Bookchin (a timely interview with Murray Bookchin conducted by the editors of Kick It Over magazine) [place tree image here] includes: on the cybernetic revolution
towards a new philosophical paradigm
the contradictions of the German Greens
building a movement for radical democracy For more copies or further information, please contact: Green Program Project P. O. Box 111, Burlington, Vermont O5401
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? K.I.O. Interviews Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin is the author of numerous boo (From: Anarchy Archives.) This article appears in Anarchy Archives with the permission of the author.
GREEN PERSPECTIVES
Price:$1.00
A LEFT GREEN PUBLICATION Number 18 November 1989
P.O. Box 111 Burlington, VT 05402
Radical Politics in an Era of Advanced Capitalism
by Murray Bookchin
Defying all the theoretical predictions of the 1930s, capitalism has restabilized itself with a vengeance and acquired extraordinary flexibility in the decades since World War II. In fact, we have yet to clearly determine what constitutes capitalism in its most "mature" form, not to speak of its social trajectory in the years to come. But what is clear, I would argue, is that capitalism has transformed itself from an economy surrounded by many... (From: Anarchy Archives.) Prologue
This book deals with one of the most troubling conditions that afflicts society at the present time: a sweeping failure of nerve. I am speaking of a deep-seated cultural malaise that reflects a waning belief in our species’ creative abilities. In a very real sense, we seem to be afraid of ourselves — of our uniquely human attributes. We seem to be suffering from a decline in human self-confidence and in our ability to create ethically meaningful lives that enrich humanity and the non-human world.
This decline in human self-confidence, to be sure, is not new. The ancient Mediterranean world fell into a period of declining moral stamina and self-worth that contributed to the onset of the so-called ‘Dark Ages&rsq... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Murray Bookchin's "Recovering Evolution: A Reply to Eckersley and Fox", Environmental Ethics, vol. 12, Fall, 1990 appears in Anarchy Archives with the permission of the author.
Recovering Evolution: A Reply to Eckersley and Fox
by Murray Bookchin*
Robyn Eckersley claims erroneously that I believe humanity is currently
equipped to take over the "helm" of natural evolution. In addition,
she provides a misleading treatment of my discussion of the relationship
of first nature (biological evolution) and second nature (social
evolution). I argue that her positivistic methodology is inappropriate
in dealing with my processual approach and that her Manichean contrast
between biocentrism and anthropocentrism virtually exclud... (From: Anarchy Archives.) Turning Points in History
I have tried to show how far we must go and how deeply we must enter into the most everyday aspects of our lives in order to root out the notion of dominating nature.
In so doing, I have tried to emphasize the extent to which the domination of human by human precedes the notion of dominating nature, indeed, even precedes the emergence of classes and the State. I have asked — and tried to answer — how hierarchies emerged, why they emerged, and the way they became increasingly differentiated into initially temporary and, later, firmly based status groups, and, finally, classes and the State.
My purpose has been to let these trends unfold from their own inner logic and examine all their nuanced forms ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Dear 5th May Group,
Sometime last year the comrades at Kaos Yayinlari wrote to me, asking me to write an preface for their translation of “Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism.” Based on their assessment of the Turkish situation from their vantage point in Istanbul, they had determined that a translation of this book into Turkish was needed. Since I had little knowledge of Turkish anarchism, I had asked them what points they would like me, in my preface, to emphasize.
I wrote:
“I’m somewhat perplexed by how I could make [a preface] relevant to an anarchist culture--yours--that, judging from your description, doesn’t seem to have lifestyle anarchists. Or does it? ... I would be gratef... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Dear Comrades,
Thank you for sending me a copy of your review of my pamphlet, Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism. This was a courtesy I seldom encounter on the so-called ‘Left’ in the U.S. and U.K. You have my sincere respect for your probity and for the comradely way in which you examine my work. You may be right that I am “ignorant of the Anarchist movement in Ireland and Britain”. I do not receive any periodicals from either country, and alas, my limited income at the age of seventy-five does not allow me to subscribe to overseas periodicals. Hence my failure to deal with the situations in your countries. If comrades in Britain, Ireland, Scotland and Wales would care to send me their periodicals, I wou... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Note: Murray Bookchin submitted the following resolution to the Second Continental Conference of the Left Green Network on July 1st, 1990. It was adopted by a vote of 24 -- yes; 16 -- no; 6 - Abstain.
Resolution: "On Gubernatorial Races"
Libertarian municipalism is premised on developing a dual power --
grassroots in the fullest sense in that its politics rests on the most
immediate popular institutions in the political realm namely the
municipality, and confederal relationships between municipalities in
which the coordination of power is vested in confederal councils whose
authority diminishes as the confederal structure is raised to encompass
ever-wider political jurisdictions.
State power functions on precisely the opp... (From: Anarchy Archives.) I tried last week to create some sense, first of all, of what social ecology was and what its premises were. And when it came down to working out or heading toward developing what you would call an ethics, I went through a great deal of natural evolution as you’ll remember, and tried to show what meaning there was in the organic evolutionary process.
What I would like to do today is continue that to some extent (and perhaps go into other issues as well given time) and examine the social process that emerges out of this biological process. Both the continuities and discontinuities that exist between what can be called natural evolution and social evolution. And what meaning can be given to social evolution.
The meaning th... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm
by Murray Bookchin
For some two centuries, anarchism -- a very ecumenical body of
anti-authoritarian ideas -- developed in the tension between two basically
contradictory tendencies: a personalistic commitment to individual autonomy
and a collectivist commitment to social freedom. These tendencies have by no
means been reconciled in the history of libertarian thought. Indeed, for
much of the last century, they simply coexisted within anarchism as a
minimalist credo of opposition to the State rather than as a maximalist
credo that articulated the kind of new society that had to be created in its
place.
Which is not to say that various schools of anarchism did ... (From: Anarchy Archives.) What is Social Ecology?
Social ecology is based on the conviction that nearly all of our present ecological problems originate in deep-seated social problems. It follows, from this view, that these ecological problems cannot be understood, let alone solved, without a careful understanding of our existing society and the irrationalities that dominate it. To make this point more concrete: economic, ethnic, cultural, and gender conflicts, among many others, lie at the core of the most serious ecological dislocations we face today — apart, to be sure, from those that are produced by natural catastrophes.
If this approach seems a bit too sociological for those environmentalists who identify the primary ecological problem as being the p... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 5. Reber Apo is a Permaculturalist — Permaculture and Political Transformation in North East Syria
By Viyan Qerecox
If Reber Apo, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdish liberation movement, was a gardener, I would expect his garden to be colorful and wild, spilling out beyond its borders, a glorious mixture of vegetables, trees, flowers and vines. Drawing on his writings on political transformation, I imagine him to be a permaculturalist, creating gardens based on the wisdom of nature. Permaculture is a design system that strives to make ecological spaces sustainable and productive. But the approach is also geared towards other kinds of design, whether it’s architecture, urban planning, organizational structures or even politi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Social Ecology versus Deep Ecology:
A Challenge for the Ecology Movement
by Murray Bookchin
[Originally published in Green Perspectives: Newsletter of the Green Program Project, nos. 4-5 (summer 1987). In the original, the term deep ecology appeared in quotation marks; they have been removed in this online posting.]
The environmental movement has traveled a long way since those early Earth Day festivals when millions of school kids were ritualistically mobilized to clean up streets, while Arthur Godfrey, Barry Commoner, Paul Ehrlich, and a bouquet of manipulative legislators scolded their parents for littering the landscape with cans, newspapers, and bottles.
The movement has gone beyond a naïve belief that patchwo... (From: Anarchy Archives.) SOCIETY AND ECOLOGY
The problems which many people face today in "defining" themselves, in knowing "who they are"--problems that feed a vast psychotherapy industry--are by no means personal ones. These problems exist not only for private individuals; they exist for modern society as a whole. Socially, we live in desperate uncertainty about how people relate to each other. We suffer not only as individuals from alienation and confusion over our identities and goals; our entire society, conceived as a single entity, seems unclear about its own nature and sense of direction. If earlier societies tried to foster a belief in the virtues of cooperation and caring, thereby giving an ethical meaning to social life, modern society fosters a beli... (From: Spunk.org.) I
The interface between nature and society has been a haunting philosophical, ethical, and cultural problem for thousands of years. Indeed, that it constitutes the stuff from which naïve myths and thoughtful moral credos have been formed for ages is a fact we are seldom permitted to forget, if only in a fashion that is patronizing to presumably less “sophisticated" cultures. After all, were not the earliest religions “mere” nature religions and the earliest philosophies “mere” nature philosophies? As far back as we can search into humanity’s rich reservoir of intuitions and rational formulas, our relationship to nature – indeed, humanity’s place in nature – has been a central... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) El Bienio Negro
The parliamentary elections of November 19, 1933, brought an overwhelming victory to the right and ushered in what the Spanish labor movement was to call el bienio negro—the two black years. Yet despite this harsh characterization, the period generally fell far short of the fearful prognoses advanced by the labor movement. Newly organized fascist groups such as the JONS and the Falange, the latter led by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the dictator’s charismatic son, had supported the right. They supplied it with a sufficient amount of street thuggery to arouse fears that Spain was following the same path that had just brought the Nazis to power in Germany. But the Falange, even after it had absorbed the fas... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The problems of the social system in Russia have often been compared with those created by revolutionary France more than a century and a half ago. An understanding of both, it is said, requires perspective. Historians are reminded that the years have dissolved the acrimony heaped on the events of the Great French Revolution — that more 'good' than 'harm' was done. Much the same is implied for Russia. Supporters, even mild critics, of the Stalin regime tell us that so 'new' a phenomenon requires the test of many generations, that the judgment nourished by immediate events, by 'passing' abuses, must be suspended until lasting outlines appear. In place of the years and of abuses engendered by 'expediency', a vast theoretical corpus has ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) PART VI. THE BARRICADES OF PARIS
Chapter 25. The Revolution of February 1848
The French Revolution of 1830 sent shock waves throughout Europe. In Britain, Belgium, Portugal, and Spain, as well as a number of states in the German Confederation, movements for the reform of dynasties or monarchies flared up, sometimes taking the form of insurrections. But most of these reforms were nationalist in character, or liberal—seeking to broaden political rights—or both, rather than social uprisings, in which the masses fought for a radically new economic as well as political dispensation. In time, nagging problems of national unification were resolved, not by popular insurgencies but by forceful statesmen, such as Cavour in Italy... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Age, chronic illnesses, and the summer heat oblige me to remain at home—hence I am very sorry that I cannot participate in your conference on libertarian municipalism. I would like, however—thanks to Janet Biehl, who will read these remarks—to welcome you to Vermont and to wish you well during the course of your discussions over the next three days.
Some issues have recently arisen in discussions of libertarian municipalism, and I would like to offer my views on them. One of the most important involves the distinction that should be drawn between libertarian municipalism and communitarianism, a distinction that is often lost in discussions of politics.
Communitarianism
By communitarianism, I refer to movem... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) After Fifty Years:
The Spanish Civil War
Between myth and reality there lies a precarious zone of transition that occasionally captures the truth of each. Spain, caught in a world-historic revolution fifty years ago, was exactly such an occasion -- a rare moment when the most generous, almost mythic dreams of freedom seemed suddenly to become real for millions of Spanish workers, peasants, and intellectuals. For this brief period of time, this shimmering moment, as it were, the world stood breathlessly still, while the red banners of revolutionary socialism and the red-and-black banners of revolutionary anarchosyndicalism floated over most of Spain's major cities and thousands of her villages.
Taken together with the massive, spontaneous... (From: Spunk.org.) There is an urgent need for a new radical approach to adequately address the new economic, ecological, technological, and cultural challenges of contemporary society; it must be one of theory and action, one that will draw on features from classical Marxism, socialism, and anarchism, yet go beyond their historical and theoretical limitations.
Conceived as they all were in the socially tumultuous era of industrial revolution, the ideologies of communism, socialism, and the more social versions of anarchism responded with a reasonable degree of adequacy to the challenges of the oppressive and exploitative circumstances and contexts in which they took form.
In Marx’s hands, communism provided a philosophy, a theory of histo... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Toward an Ecological Society
The problem of environmental degradation seems to be falling into a curious focus. Despite massive public support for environmentalist measures-as witness the positive public response in recent state referendums on such issues — we are being warned about a backlash against “extremists” who are raising radical demands for arresting environmental degra- dat’on. Much of this “backlash” seems to be generated by industry and by the White House, where Mr. Nixon complacently assures us that “America is well on the way to winning the war against environmental degradation; well on the way to making our peace with nature.” This rhetoric is suspiciously familiar; presumabl... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) This article appears in Anarchy Archives with the permission of the author.
GREEN PERSPECTIVES Newsletter of the Green Program Project P.O. Box 111 Burlington, VT 05402 No. 1 January 1986
THE GREENING OF POLITICS: Toward a New Kind of Political Practice by Murray Bookchin There are two ways to look at the word " politics." The first -- and most conventional -- is to describe politics as a fairly exclusive, generally professional ized system of power interactions in which specialists whom we call "politicians" formulate decisions that affect our lives and administer these decisions through governmental agencies and bureaucrats.
These "politicians" and their "politics" are generally regarded with... (From: Anarchy Archives.) This article appears in Anarchy Archives with the permission of the author. Originally, this article was a statement for the fourth faction active in SDS during its final days. This faction is often overlooked by historians, who typically only emphasize the other three factions (i.e., Progressive Labor Party, RYM I and RYM II.
Toward a post-scarcity society: the American perspective and the SDS*
Radical Decentralist Project, Resolution No. I
The twentieth century is the heir of human history - the legatee of man's age-old effort to free himself from drudgery and material insecurity. For the first time in the long succession of centuries, this century has elevated mankind to an entirely new level of technological achievement and to ... (From: Anarchy Archives.) Lewis Herber [Murray Bookchin]
Note: This is the final part of a two-part article on the technological bases of freedom. The first part (Anarchos n. 2) examined the technological limitations of the previous century and their influence on revolutionary theory. An economy anchored technologically in scarcity, it was shown, circumscribed the range of social ideas and tended to subvert revolutionary concepts of freedom. These limitations were compared with the potentialities of technology today -- the substitution of invention by design, the open end in technological development, the emergence of cybernetic devices, the prospect of reducing toil to a near vanishing point. The article examined the possibility of making qualitative changes in... (From: Anarchy Archives.) Turning Up the Stones
A Reply to Clark's October 13 Message
Murray Bookchin
The May 5th Group's posting on this list (June 13, 1998), and the various subsequent exchanges, have finally led John Clark to attack me and my views with his by-now-typical malevolence (October 13, 1998; at this writing Clark's posting does not appear on the RA List archives). I am only too delighted to have this opportunity, once and for all, to expose his ongoing campaign to defame me. Virtually unrestrained by moral standards, Clark has an indefatigable capacity to slander a critic and distort his or her views, through outrageous gossip, surreptitious character assassination, and falsification. I have had enough of it, and it is time to turn up the s... (From: Anarchy Archives.) The Twilight Comes Early
by Murray Bookchin
The twilight comes early, as it should in the autumn of the seasons and in the autumn of life. Every part of my body announces the eternity that must soon follow --- the growing pain that fatal diseases colonize my body, the failure of my organs, the loss of energy, the desire for death. Even society seems to be dying, to desert me, to bid its farewell. To those who are near to death, this is as it should be. To those who are still young, I feel nothing but sorrow. How sad that my children should be faced with a full lifetime of sterility and fear.
Three days have passed since Bush was reelected. History threatens to roll back an epoch! What held my life together was socialism. ... (From: Anarchy Archives.) I
Recently I have begun to encounter, especially among young people, individuals who call themselves “leftists” but who have little or no awareness of the most basic features of the Left’s longstanding analysis of capitalism, or of the history of the revolutionary movements that have stood in fundamental opposition to bourgeois society. It distresses me that the ideological contours that have long defined capitalism and the Left are being forgotten today, as well as the most critical insights of libertarian socialism and revolutionary anarchism. Given this spreading social amnesia, I find that before I can summarize my political and social ideals, I must briefly outline the trajectory of capitalist society and the r... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) {1} George Orwell: 1984 (New York: Signet; 1950), p. 156.
{2} James Melaart: Çatal Hüyük (London: Thames and Hudson; 1967), pg. 58.
{3} Ferd Wendorf, Romuald Schied, and Angela E. Close: “An Ancient Harvest on the Nile,” Science 82, November, 1982, pg. 68.
{4} Ibid., p. 73.
{5} Karl Polanyi: Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economics: Essays of Karl Polanyi, George Dalton, ed. (Boston: Beacon Press; 1968), p. 81.
{6} Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract (New York: Everyman Edition; 1950), p. 15.
{7} Aristotle: Politics (London: Loeb Classical Library; 1932), 1326a30- 40. Translation modified by author.
{8} Ibid., 1280a-1280b.
{9} Aristotle, op. cit., 1252a3. Translation modified by author.
{10} Lilly... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
