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.) Chapter 9: Re-enchanting humanity
To the extent that space and possibly the patience of the reader allow, I have tried to critically examine an historic shift away from the Enlightenment to an antihumanist oudook that incorporates a postmodernist celebration of mysticism and anti-rationalism, and very significantiy, a subsuming of any social issues, intellectual critique, and moral criteria by a crude biologism of one kind or another.
By no means is my account of this shift complete; diere are far too many antihumanisms abroad for me to include them all. Nor is it clear what forms this shift will take in the years ahead. As we have seen, major antihumanist tendencies seek in varying degrees to reduce human behavior to the morality of th... (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.) Defining the Revolutionary Project
The ideals of freedom, tainted as they have been, still exist in our midst. But rarely has the revolutionary project been more diluted by the “embourgeoisment” that Bakunin feared toward the end of his life. Nor have its terms been more ambiguous than they are today. Words like “radicalism” and “leftism” have become murky and they are in grave danger of being severely compromised. What passes for revolutionism, radicalism, and leftism, today, would have been dismissed a generation or two ago as reformism and political opportunism. Social thought has moved so deeply into the bowels of the present society that self-styled “leftists” — be they socialist... (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.) The Role of Social Ecology in a Period of Reaction
Social ecology developed out of important social and theoretical problems that faced the Left in the post-World War II period. The historical realities of the 1940s and the 1950s completely invalidated the perspectives of a proletarian revolution, of a “chronic economic crisis” that would bring capitalism to its knees, and of commitment to a centralistic workers’ party that would seize state power and, by dictatorial means, initiate a transition to socialism and communism. It became painfully evident in time that no such generalized crisis was in the offing; indeed, that the proletariat and any party — or labor confederation — that spoke in the name of the w... (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.) The Primo de Rivera Dictatorship
On September 13, 1923, General Miguel Primo de Rivera, the ^captain general of Catalonia (a post to which he had been appointed during the previous year), proclaimed himself military dictator of Spain, bringing to an end the parliamentary oligarchy Sagasta had labored to create in the 1870s.
The dictatorship was the culmination of a period of growing disenchantment with the army and with the role of the monarchy in the couritry’s political affairs. The army had proven itself grossly incompetent. Two years earlier, in June 1921, a large column in Spanish Morocco, advancing under the command of General Silvestre from Melilla to Alhucemas, was ambushed at Annual and virtually destroyed by a ... (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.) Chapter 8. Millenarian Sects and Cromwellian Governments
The waning influence and defeat of the Levelers did not bring the English Revolution to a complete end—but they did lead to a period that combined parody with pathos, absurdity with tragedy. Once the “Grandees” had firmly established themselves in power, they found themselves in a political cul-de-sac, much as the Jacobins would a century and a half later. Many goals that the parliamentary forces had long sought were fulfilled: the king was executed, and the monarchy and House of Lords were no more. Having accomplished these ends and created a Commonwealth, the “Grandees,” who were unwilling to fulfill more radical ones, could advance no further so... (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.) Preface
These essays are less an analysis of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War of 1936-39 than an evocation of the greatest proletarian and peasant revolution to occur over the past two centuries. Although they contain a general overview and evaluation of the Anarchist and Anarchosyndicalist movements (the two should be clearly distinguished) in the three-year struggle at the end of the 1930s, they are not intended to be a full account of those complex events.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Spanish Revolution was the farthest-reaching movement that the Left ever produced, for reasons the essays that follow will make clear. The Spanish proletariat and peasantry, led largely by Anarchist militants whose names will never be known t... (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.) Dedication
For Debbie, my daughter (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.) Chapter Five: Patterns of Civic Freedom
Although the city was the cultural center of the ancient world, its material base was extremely fragile. Hence the remarkable rise and fall of cities throughout antiquity. City life depended to a remarkable degree on the viability and the economy of agrarian communities and labor so that cities appear more as islands in a vast rural ocean than self-sustaining economic entities. Indeed, prudent estimates of the number of rural workers needed to sustain a single city dweller have been placed at a ratio of ten to one. Hence any serious agricultural catastrophe like a drought, floods, or pest infestation, not to speak of wars that devastated agriculture, could lead to the breakdown, indeed the complete... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
