Murray Bookchin
153803
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2008-07-12T17:28:44Z
MasterPrac
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[[WP:UNDO|Undid]] revision 222981590 by [[Special:Contributions/Sunray|Sunray]] ([[User talk:Sunray|talk]]) We can get very picky here. Hegelian or not, you cannot understand Bookchin w/o dialectics.
{{Infobox_Philosopher |
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region = Western Philosophy |
era = [[20th-century philosophy|20th]] / [[21st-century philosophy]] |
color = #B0C4DE |
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image_name = MurrayBookchin.jpg |
image_size = 180px |
image_caption = |
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name = Murray Bookchin |
birth = [[January 14]], [[1921]] ([[New York City]], [[New York]]) |
death = [[July 30]], [[2006]] ([[Burlington]], [[Vermont]]) (age 85)|
school_tradition = founder of [[social ecology]] |
main_interests = [[Social ecology]], [[libertarian municipalism]], [[social hierarchy]], [[dialectics]], [[post-scarcity]] anarchism, [[libertarian socialism]], [[communalism]], [[ethics]], [[history]] of popular revolutionary movements |
influences = [[Aristotle]],<ref name=Bookchin> Bookchin, Murray. ''The Ecology of Freedom''. Oakland: AK Press, 2005. p.11</ref> [[Baruch Spinoza]],<ref name=Bookchin>ibid, p.11</ref> [[G.W.F. Hegel]],<ref name=Bookchin>ibid, p.11</ref> [[Karl Marx]],<ref name=Bookchin>ibid, p.11</ref> [[Peter Kropotkin]]<ref name=Bookchin>ibid, p.11</ref>|
notable_ideas = [[social ecology]], [[libertarian municipalism]], critique of [[lifestyle anarchism]], dialectical naturalism, critique of [[anarcho-syndicalism]], critique of [[Deep Ecology]] |
}}
'''Murray Bookchin''' ([[January 14]], [[1921]] – [[July 30]], [[2006]]) was an [[United States|American]] [[Libertarian socialism|libertarian socialist]], political and social philosopher, speaker and writer. For much of his life he called himself an [[anarchist]]<ref>[http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vd0hxVUIQvk ''Anarchism In America'' documentary interview 1981 ]</ref>. The founder of the [[social ecology]] movement within libertarian socialist and [[ecology|ecological]] thought, Bookchin is noted for his synthesis of the libertarian socialist tradition with modern ecological awareness. He was the author of two dozen books on politics, philosophy, history, and urban affairs as well as ecology.
Bookchin was a radical [[anti-capitalism|anti-capitalist]] and vocal advocate of the [[decentralisation]] of society. His writings on [[libertarian municipalism]], a theory of face-to-face, grassroots democracy, had an influence on the [[Green movement|Green Movement]] and [[anti-capitalist]] [[direct action]] groups such as [[Reclaim the Streets]]. He was a staunch critic of [[biocentrism|biocentric]] philosophies such as [[deep ecology]] and the [[biological determinism|biologically deterministic]] beliefs of [[sociobiology]], and his criticisms of "[[new age]]" Greens such as [[Charlene Spretnak]] contributed to the divisions that affected the American [[Green movement]] in the 1990s.
==Life and writings==
Bookchin was born in [[New York City]] to the [[Russia]]n [[Jewish]] immigrants<ref>[http://www.social-ecology.org/article.php?story=20031028142620228 ''The Murray Bookchin Reader: Introduction'']</ref> Nathan Bookchin and Rose (Kaluskaya) Bookchin, and was imbued with [[Marxism|Marxist]] ideology from his youth. He joined the [[Young Pioneers]], the Communist youth organization, at the age of nine.<ref>[http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vd0hxVUIQvk ''Anarchism In America'' documentary ]</ref> He worked in factories and became an organizer for the [[Congress of Industrial Organizations]]. In the late 1930s he broke with [[Stalinism]] and gravitated toward [[Trotskyism]], working with a group publishing the periodical ''Contemporary Issues''. Then gradually becoming disillusioned with the [[coercion]] he saw as inherent in conventional [[Marxism-Leninism]], he became an [[anarchist]],<ref>ibid.</ref> helping to found the [[Libertarian League]] in New York in the 1950s. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Bookchin worked in a number of working class situations — including a stint as a railroad [[stevedore]]. He began teaching in the late 1960s at the [[Free University]], a [[counter-cultural]] 1960s-era Manhattan-based institution. This led to a tenured position at Ramapo State College in Mahwah, NJ. At the same time, he co-founded, in 1971, the [[Institute for Social Ecology]] at [[Goddard College]] in Vermont.
His book, ''[[Our Synthetic Environment]]'', published under the pseudonym 'Lewis Herber' six months before [[Rachel Carson]]'s ''Silent Spring,''<ref>[http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/bio1.html ''A Short Biography of Murray Bookchin'' by Janet Biehl]</ref> described a broad range of environmental ills but received little attention because of his political radicalism. His groundbreaking essay "Ecology and Revolutionary Thought" introduced [[ecology]] as a concept for radical politics. Other essays from the 1960s pioneered innovative ideas about ecological technologies. Lecturing all over the United States, he helped popularize the concept of ecology to the counterculture. His widely republished 1969 essay "Listen, Marxist!" warned [[Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)|Students for a Democratic Society]] (in vain) against its takeover by a Marxist group. These and other influential 1960s essays are anthologized in ''Post Scarcity Anarchism''. In 1982 Bookchin's ''The Ecology of Freedom'' was published, and had a profound impact on the emerging ecology movement, both in the United States and abroad. He was active in the antinuclear [[Clamshell Alliance]] in New England, and his lectures in Germany influenced some of the founders of the [[German Greens]]. In ''From Urbanization to Cities'' (originally published as ''The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship''), Bookchin traced the democratic traditions that influenced his political philosophy and defines the implementation of the [[libertarian municipalism]] concept. A much smaller work, ''The Politics of Social Ecology'', written by his partner of twenty years, [[Janet Biehl]], briefly summarizes these ideas. In 1999, Bookchin broke with anarchism and placed his ideas into the framework of [[communalism]].
In addition to his political writings, Bookchin wrote extensively on his philosophical ideas, which he called ''dialectical naturalism''.<ref>Bookchin, Murray. ''The Ecology of Freedom''. Oakland: AK Press, 2005. p.31</ref> The [[dialectical]] writings of [[Hegel]], which articulate a developmental philosophy of change and growth, seemed to him to lend themselves to an organic, even ecological approach.<ref>ibid. 96-7</ref> Although [[Hegel]] "exercised a considerable influence" on Bookchin, he was not, in any sense, a Hegelian.<ref>Bookchin, Murray. ''The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays on Dialectical Naturalism''. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1996. p.x</ref> His later philosophical writings emphasize [[humanism]], [[rationality]], and the ideals of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]].<ref>See ''Re-Enchanting Humanity'', London: Cassell, 1995, amongst other works.</ref> His last major published work was ''The Third Revolution'', a four-volume history of the libertarian impulse in European and American revolutionary movements. He moved from Hoboken, NJ to Vermont upon his retirement from Ramapo and devoted his time to writing and lecturing around the world. He continued to teach at the ISE until 2004. He died of heart failure on [[July 30]], [[2006]] at his home in [[Burlington, Vermont]] at the age of 85.<ref>[http://www.social-ecology.org/staticpages/index.php?page=mb_trib&topic=mb_trib ''Murray Bookchin, visionary social theorist, dies at 85'']</ref>
==Thought==
===Social ecology===
Bookchin is best known for his elaboration of a body of thought called [[social ecology]]. The basic concept of social ecology is that humans tend to impute their social structure onto non-human nature. Accordingly, the present society's tendency to dominate and exploit nature stems directly from features of hierarchy and domination within society itself.<ref>Bookchin, Murray (1991). ''The Ecology of Freedom,'' Black Rose Books, Introduction.</ref> Thus from very early on, Bookchin advocated the creation of [[affinity groups]] and [[direct action]] working toward a direct, decentralized democracy, as a radical solution to the ecological crisis.
===Libertarian municipalism===
Bookchin was the first to use the term "[[Libertarian municipalism]]", to describe a system in which [[libertarian socialism|libertarian]] institutions of directly [[democracy|democratic]] assemblies would oppose and replace the [[State]] with a confederation of free municipalities.<ref>[http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/gp/perspectives24.html ''Libertarian Municipalism: An Overview'']</ref> Libertarian municipalism intends to create a situation in which the two powers — the municipal confederations and the nation-state — cannot coexist. Not only is it believed to be, by its supporters, the means to achieve a rational society but its structure becomes the organization of society.
==Selected bibliography==
===Books===
* ''[[Our Synthetic Environment]]'' 1962
* ''Post-Scarcity Anarchism'' (1971 and 2004) ISBN 1-904859-06-2.
* ''The Limits of the City'' (1973) ISBN 0-06-091013-5.
* ''The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years'' (1977 and 1998) ISBN 1-873176-04-X.
* ''Toward an Ecological Society'' (1980) ISBN 0-919618-98-7.
* ''[http://www.akpress.org/2004/items/ecologyoffreedom The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy]'' (1982 and 2005) ISBN 1-904859-26-7.
* ''The Modern Crisis'' (1986) ISBN 0-86571-083-X.
* ''The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship'' (1987 and 1992)
* ''The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays on Dialectical Naturalism'' (1990 and 1996) Montreal: Black Rose Books.
* ''[http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/bookchin/sp001642/toc.html To Remember Spain]'' (1994) ISBN 1-873176-87-2
* ''Re-Enchanting Humanity'' (1995) ISBN 0-304-32843-X.
* ''The Third Revolution. Popular Movements in the Revolutionary Era'' (1996-2003) London and New York: Continuum. ISBN 0-304-33594-0. (4 Volumes)
* ''[[Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm]]'' (1997) ISBN 1-873176-83-X.
* ''The Politics of Social Ecology: Libertarian Municipalism'' (1997) Montreal: Black Rose Books. ISBN 1-55164-100-3.
* ''Anarchism, Marxism and the Future of the Left. Interviews and Essays, 1993-1998'' (1999) Edinburgh and San Francisco: A.K. Press. ISBN 1-873176-35-X.
===Articles===
* " Beyond Neo-Marxism ". [[TELOS (journal)|''TELOS'']] 36 (Summer 1978). New York: [http://www.telospress.com Telos Press]
==References==
{{refs}}
* [[Janet Biehl|Biehl, Janet]] (1997), ''The Murray Bookchin Reader'' (An Anthology). Cassell ISBN 0-304-33874-5.
* Marshall, P. (1992), "Murray Bookchin and the Ecology of Freedom", p.602-622 in, ''Demanding The Impossible''. Fontana Press. ISBN 0-00-686245-4.
* {{cite book | last = Bookchin | first = Murray | title = Anarchism, Marxism and the Future of the Left | publisher = [[AK Press]] | location = Stirling | year = 1999 | isbn = 187317635X }}
==Further reading==
* Selva Varengo, ''La rivoluzione ecologica. Il pensiero libertario di Murray Bookchin'' (2007) Milano: Zero in condotta. ISBN 9788895950006.
==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
* [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/Bookchinarchive.html Murray Bookchin Archive] at ''[[Anarchy Archives]]''
* [http://libcom.org/tags/murray-bookchin ''Libertarian Communist Library'' Murray Bookchin holdings]
* [http://www.social-ecology.org/ Institute for Social Ecology (ISE)]
* [http://www.communalism.org/ ''Communalism'': International Journal for a Rational Society]
* ''[http://www.social-ecology.org/lgp/ Left Green Perspectives]'' (formerly Green Perspectives) - A Social Ecology Publication
* 'The Prehistory of Post-Scarcity Anarchism: Josef Weber and the Movement for a Democracy of Content (1947-1964)' by Marcel van der Linden, ''[[Anarchist Studies]]'', vol. 9, no. 2, (2001).
* [http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/606 Murray Bookchin: Requiem for a Pugilist]
* [http://www.altruists.org/f839 Ecology & Ideology] ([[.mp3]] file)
* [http://socialecologylondon.wordpress.com/ Social Ecology London]. English study/action group exploring Bookchin's ideas.
* [http://www.demalt.info/ Democratic Alternative]. Scandinavian communalist organization based on Bookchin's ideas. In Svenska, Norsk, Espanol, English.
* [http://janetbiehl.blogspot.com/ My Graphics About Murray Bookchin:] blog and archive of comic strip stories about Bookchin's life maintained by Janet Biehl.
* [http://nymaa.org/node/586/ Being a Bookchinite:] by Chuck Morse. An account of Bookchin as a revolutionist, written by a former student and collaborator.
{{Persondata
|NAME=Bookchin, Murray
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
|SHORT DESCRIPTION=Anarchist/socialist writer
|DATE OF BIRTH=[[January 14]] [[1921]]
|PLACE OF BIRTH=[[New York City]]
|DATE OF DEATH=[[July 30]] 2006]]
|PLACE OF DEATH=[[Burlington, Vermont]]
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bookchin, Murray}}
[[Category:1921 births]]
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[[Category:Jewish anarchists]]
[[Category:Jewish American writers]]
[[Category:Jewish American historians]]
[[Category:American anti-war activists]]
[[Category:American environmentalists]]
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[[Category:American non-fiction environmental writers]]
[[Category:American political philosophers]]
[[Category:American political writers]]
[[Category:Deaths from cardiovascular disease]]
[[Category:Former anarchists]]
[[Category:Former Trotskyists]]
[[Category:Green anarchism]]
[[Category:Green thinkers]]
[[Category:Historians of anarchism]]
[[Category:People from Burlington, Vermont]]
[[Category:People from New York City]]
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