Philosopher views

Bibliography

Murray Bookchin, DEFENDING THE EARTH: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MURRAY BOOKCHIN

AND DAVE FOREMAN, Boston: South End Press, 1991.
Murray Bookchin, THE ECOLOGY OF FREEDOM, Cheshire Books, 1982.
Murray Bookchin, POST-SCARCITY ANARCHISM, Black Rose Books, 1977.
Murray Bookchin, WHICH WAY FOR THE ECOLOGY MOVEMENT? Boston: South End Press, 1994.
Charles Crute, FREEDOM MAGAZINE, 13th June 1992
Peter Marshall, DEMANDING THE IMPOSSIBLE, London: Harper Collins, 1992.

CRISIS AND THE RESULTING SOCIAL SHIFT IS INEVITABLE

1. THE CRISIS AND CHANGE IS INEVITABLE: THE ONLY QUESTION IS CO-OPTATION

Murray Bookchin, Philosopher, former Professor at many Universities, Director Emeritus of the Institute

for Social Ecology, DEFENDING THE EARTH, 1991, page 76.

In the face of such a crisis, efforts for change are inevitable. Ordinary people all over the globe are becoming active in campaigns to eliminate nuclear power plants and weapons, to preserve clean air and water, to limit the use of pesticides and food additives, to reduce vehicular traffic in streets and on highways, to make cities more wholesome physically, to prevent radioactive wastes from seeping into the environment, to guard and expand wilderness areas and domains for wildlife, to defend animal species from human depredation. The single most important question before the ecology movement today, however, is whether these efforts will be co-opted and contained within the institutional bounds of “reasonable “ dissent and reformism or whether these efforts will mature into a powerful movement that can create fundamental, indeed revolutionary, changes in our society and our way of looking at the world.
2. THE REVOLUTIONARY IMPULSE CANNOT BE CONTAINED

Murray Bookchin, Philosopher, former Professor at many Universities, Director Emeritus of the Institute for Social Ecology, POST-SCARCITY ANARCHISM, 1977, page 61.

The Eros-driven impulses in man can be repressed and sublimated, but they can never be eliminated. They are renewed with every birth of a human being and with every generation of youth. It is not surprising today that the young, more than any economic class or stratum, articulate the life-impulses in humanity’s nature--the urgings of desire, sensuousness, and the lure of the marvelous. Thus, the biological matrix, from which hierarchical society emerged ages ago, reappears at a new level with the era that marks the end of hierarchy, only now this matrix is saturated with social phenomena. Short of manipulating humanity ‘s germ plasma, the life-impulses can be annulled only with the annihilation of man himself.
3. DESTRUCTION OF THE STATE STRUCTURE IS INEVITABLE AND OVERDUE

Murray Bookchin, Philosopher, former Professor at many Universities, Director Emeritus of the Institute for Social Ecology, POST-SCARCITY ANARCHISM, 1977, page 26.

The decay of the American institutional structure results not from any mystical “failure of nerve” or from imperialist adventures in the Third World, but primarily from the overripeness of America’s technological potential. like the hanging fruit whose seeds have matured fully, the structure may fall from the lightest blow. The blow may come from the Third World, from major economic dislocations, even from premature political repression, but fall the structure must, owing to its ripeness and decay.
4. CO-OPTATION CAN DELAY BUT NOT STOP THE CRISIS AND REVOLUTION

Murray Bookchin, Philosopher, former Professor at many Universities, Director Emeritus of the Institute for Social Ecology, POST-SCARCITY ANARCHISM, 1977, page 26.

True, a great deal of the pursuit of this discontent can be diverted into established institutional channels for a time. But only for a time. The social crisis is too deep and world-historical for the established institutions to contain it.

CO-OPTATION THROUGH REFORMS IS THE BIGGEST DANGER

1. ONLY REVOLUTION IS EFFECTIVE: ALL OTHER ACTIONS PRESERVE THE BAD SYSTEM

Murray Bookchin, Philosopher, former Professor at many Universities, Director Emeritus of the Institute

for Social Ecology, DEFENDING THE EARTH, 1991, page 78.

I have long argued that we delude ourselves if we believe that a life-oriented world can be developed or even partially achieved in a profoundly death-oriented society. U.S. society, as it is constituted today, is riddled with patriarchy and racism and sits astride the entire world, not only as a consumer of its wealth and resources, but as an obstacle to all attempts at self-determination at home and abroad. Its inherent aims are production for the sake of production, the preservation of hierarchy and toil on a world scale, mass control and manipulation by centralized, state institutions. This kind of society is inexorably counterposed to a life-oriented world. If the ecology movement does not ultimately direct its main efforts toward a revolution in all areas of life--social as well as natural, political as well as personal, economic as well as cultural--then the movement will gradually degenerate into a safety-valve for the established order.
2. REFORMS CAN NEVER STOP THE SYSTEM’S HORRORS: THEY DELAY REAL ACTIONS

Murray Bookchin, Philosopher, former Professor at many Universities, Director Emeritus of the Institute for Social Ecology, DEFENDING THE EARTH, 1991, page 77.

Conventional reform efforts, at their best, can only slow down but they cannot arrest the overwhelming momentum toward destruction within our society. At their worst, they lull people into a false sense of security. Our institutional social order plays games with us to foster this passivity. It grants long-delayed, piecemeal, and woefully inadequate reforms to deflect our energies and attention from larger acts of destruction. Such reform measures hide the rotten core of the apple behind an appealing and artificially red-dyed skin.
3. IMPROVING LIFE WITHIN THE CURRENT SYSTEM LEADS TO CO-OPTATION

Murray Bookchin, Philosopher, former Professor at many Universities, Director Emeritus of the Institute for Social Ecology, DEFENDING THE EARTH, 1991, page 81.

To be sure, moving from today’s capitalist society--based on giant industrial and urban belts, a highly chemical agribusiness, centralized and bureaucratic power, a staggering armaments economy, massive pollution and exploited labor--toward the ecological society that I have only begun to describe here will require a complex and difficult transition strategy I have no pat formulas for making such a revolution. A few things seem clear, however. A new politics must be created that eschew the snares of co-optation within the system that is destroying social and ecological life. We need a social movement that can effectively resist and ultimately replace the nation-state and corporate capitalism; not one that limits its sights to “improving * the current system.
4. NO COMPROMISES ARE GOOD: MUST AVOID CO-OPTATION AT ALL COSTS

Murray Bookchin, Philosopher, former Professor at many Universities, Director Emeritus of the Institute for Social Ecology, DEFENDING THE EARTH, 1991, page 78-9.

It does mean, however, that the immediate goals we seek and the means we use to achieve them should orient us toward the radical fundamental changes that are needed instead of towards co-optation and containment within the existing, hopelessly destructive system. I am convinced that we will fail to keep our political bearings and avoid co-optation unless we develop a bold and uncompromising vision of a truly ecological future. The highest form of realism today can only be attained by looking beyond a given state of affairs to a constructive vision of what should be. It is not good enough to merely look at what could be within the normal institutional limits of today’s predatory societies. This will not yield a vision that is either desirable or sufficient. We cannot afford to be content with such inherently compromised programs.

Our solutions must be commensurate with the scope of the problems. We need to muster the courage to entertain radical visions which will, at first glance, appear “utopian “ to our cowed and domesticated political imaginations.