Transnational Institute of Social Ecology

The Unique Contribution of Murray Bookchin to Political Thought

Written by Jean-François Filion

The life of the Social Ecologist, Murray Bookchin, was exemplary. His political and theoretical commitment is a model of depth and courage. Regardless of the fate the future holds for his doctrine, regardless of the memory of the intellectual disputes in which he participated, Murray Bookchin will remain a major reference for anyone interested in the causes of the ecological crisis and how to overcome it. My encounter with this character some 20 years ago was memorable and continues to be a source of inspiration.

Despite his illness in late life, Murray agreed to organize a seminar with a group of four young ecologists, including myself. He welcomed us in his modest apartment in Burlington, Vermont, where books were piling up everywhere. The space was so cramped that his companion, Janet Biehl, also engaged in social theory, cut herself off from the flow of words too often heard by wearing these earmuffs found on construction sites; she could thus go about her own intellectual pursuits. Sitting on his bed, where his bones caused less suffering, Murray engaged in conversation, voluble, generous, often professorial, admittedly, but always keen to establish a dialogue on the subjects and polemics that concerned us. And what worried us, then, was to understand the social roots of the ecological crisis, to foresee a future beyond the abyss it foreshadowed, to find solutions full of hope of emancipation for humanity. Such was the program of this Social Ecology seminar.

Murray Bookchin had a broad historial perspective and a genuinely revolutionary indignation at the current state of affairs in the world. He talked to us of his slightly bitter memories about the communist movement of the 20th century, as well as his concerns about the future of the West, under the influence of an American culture mired in decrepitude and the deadly globalization of capitalism. He knew that we were living in difficult times for any perspective of political transformation, but, for him, this difficulty was not a reason to despair. Despite the urgency of the situation, one had to be willing to be patient: “When the context seemed to hinder him,” he said, “Lenin retired to study before he reinvested himself in the revolution!” Seeing the failure of critical thinking in the face of neoliberalism—an ideology that could still claim in the early 1990s to avail itself without too much protest as the end of history—Murray made it clear to us that a precise understanding of capitalism was more necessary than ever. In other words, the failure of traditional Marxism forced a transition to a new theory that seriously included a strategy to overcome the ecological crisis.

* * *

It seems obvious that the current context, which brings together both global economic crisis, ecological crisis and the crisis of meaning raises the need to open up to radical thoughts such as those pursued by Bookchin. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Indeed, in the face of the painful failures of Western civilization, where the permanent state of crisis seems strangely normalized, will an in-depth re-evaluation of human society become necessary? Making no concessions to ideological trends or academic recognition, Murray Bookchin invites us through his work to look far ahead to reflect on the human causes of the dysfunction in the earth’s habitat. Even if Bookchin formulated it more than half a century ago, the problem has still not been sufficiently addressed with the depth it requires. On the contrary, attempts to resolve the ecological crisis seem to resist, whether consciously or unconsciously, to seriously question the global social structure, namely its political hierarchy and productivist economy, which are responsible—according to Bookchin—for the destruction of the biosphere as well as the poverty of the majority of earth inhabitants. However, the stubborn refusal of mainstream intellectuals and politicians to examine Social Ecology analyses and syntheses, as well as other streams of thought in the ecosocialist movement, is manifested in our time in two main trends that are both different and complementary: technocratic environmentalism and ethical radicalism. Technocratic environmentalism consists in what is commonly known as “sustainable development,” while ethical radicalism, more discreet because it is more individual, can be mystical—like the Deep Ecology so abhorred by Bookchin—or not.

If environmentalism gives the impression of being optimistic in its aim of “saving the planet,” by a single improvement in governance that would maintain the current mode of production, ethical radicalism, on the contrary, leads to pessimism where beautiful souls indulge in the inner certainty of having correctly diagnosed that humanity was losing in its madness to dominate nature. However, both of these two positions, at first seemingly opposed, share the same flaw, which is the absence of political questioning of social structures. Moreover, the idea forseeing the future of a post-capitalist society does not even touch on green thought, whether optimistic or pessimistic. If the proponents of these two positions, who have the future of ecosystems at heart, are powerless to change anything in the course of events, it is because they implicitly admit the naturalization of liberal democracy and capitalism. Such naturalization makes the end of the world more plausible in the social imagination than that of a post-capitalist society.

While ethical or mystical radicalism is less present on the public scene—since it is an individual asceticism of survival that tends to cut itself off from the corrupt world­—the fuzzy ideology of sustainable development, on the other hand, has held the media spotlight since the 1992 Rio Summit. It has been so for the past 20 years that the promoters of development are showing us the repetitive spectacle of their accumulated failures. However, these promoters, which are found in mainstream, respectable environmental organizations and a public sector still spared by austerity have always justified their stance in the name of pragmatism. Opposed to the “ideologues” of Social Ecology, ecosocialism or those who speak of the decline of the environment, they claim that the ecological crisis dictates a need to participate in the game of liberal democracy and capitalism. Their reasoning is as follows: Since the challenge of social structures may marginalize ecology and thus give free rein to the destruction of ecosystems, it is better to meet the requirements of various “partners” representing the dominant order. Although this argument has won the support of a large number of environmental activists, for an anticapitalist ecologist and antiauthoritarian like Bookchin, such an option was doomed to fail, a priori. If he could once claim a certain rationality, sustainable development would be refuted by the real situation: Its failure is obvious; it is time to put an end to this slogan for business people and politicians on borrowed time. Those who still believe in it, run the risk of not being acquitted by the court of history, if the future state of the biosphereallows it to destroyed. Since one of the virtues of ecological awareness is the consideration of future generations, we can only hope that environmentalists will rectify the situation by opening up to thoughts such as that of Bookchin. This would prevent their condemnation by our great-grandchildren or children who had the misfortune of being born today in one of these multiple social and environmental hells outside the “pedestrian zone of the world capitalism,” as the late Robert Kurz would say, that constitutes Western Europe and North America.

If the ranks of radical ecology remain rather limited, however, there are some warning signs that forsee a change in this regard. Thus, on the eve of the Rio+20 Summit in summer 2012, the renowned Canadian biologist, David Suzuki, bitterly stated that environmentalism had failed. A Bookchin reader can only agree with what has always seemed obvious. Despite his anger and intelligence, Suzuki, like many other informed scientists, does not seem to have dared to criticize the dominant social structure, that is, liberal democracy and capitalism. No, because the “fetishism” of the commodity and the “naturalization” of technocratic organizations make the collective conscience feel that the dominant technico-economic logic is normal.

It is this reality that some critical thinkers are beginning to describe as totalitarian. Totalitarian, not in the archaic sense of Nazism and Stalinism, but in that whole parts of human life and nature seem inexorably doomed to commodification or managerial treatment. Totalitarian in the sense that everything that manifests itself in opposition to capitalism is either rejected into the symbolic nothingness of the absurd, or waiting to be suppressed in one way or another, that is, by media lies, tear gas, or drone projectiles. It is undoubtedly in fear of losing face in this world of neoliberalism either that respectable scientists, who no longer have anything to lose for the success of their careers, do not yet risk opting for radical thinking like that of Murray Bookchin or the ecosocialists.

By also rejecting the path of political ecology, ethical or mystical radicalism serves as a purported “soul” in a context of unlimited expansion of technico-economic logic and a crisis of meaning. Their sweeping accusations against Western Judeo-Christian anthropocentrism abound in the absence of an analysis of the sociological causes of the ecological crisis. This flight into the world of “spirituality” is therefore summed up in the apolitical option of hoping for a massive conversion of populations to a new world vision based on a “biocentric” ethics inspired by Amerindian or Buddhist wisdom. Given the current imbroglio into which the naïvity of sustainable development has plunged us, and from which environmental ethics will not help us to escape, thoughts like Bookchin’s promise a more viable future. By studying his work, it will be possible to learn about the foundations of ecology which is one of the first political ideas to have claimed that a single cause explains the ecological crisis as well as social misery and deprivation, and that the resolution of these contradictions will take place only through the transformation of social structures, in particular, by overcoming capitalism. Moreover, Bookchin’s relevant ideas seem more and more confirmed when you witness the extent of the economic crisis that has been unfolding since 2008. We now find ourselves in a tragicomedy where the globalization of markets requires the support of the Nation-State that neoliberalism has tried to teach us to hate! What a devastating sight! It is now the State that saves the large, “too big to fail,” companies from bankruptcy, which relieves the banks of toxic debts by increasing public debt, which destroys environmental standards necessary to foster growth in times of economic crisis, and then sacrifices the unprofitable part of the population with the adoption of austerity plans required for the repayment of public debt by rating agencies—Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s or Fitch. Now, it’s the overcoming of this type of vicious circle that Bookchin’s Social Ecology must be applied. To resist this kind of thinking for fear that political radicalism will lead to perverse effects is to expose oneself to an even greater danger: the emergence of fascist solutions to the crisis, as was seen in Europe of the 1930s and which we see today in Greece with neo-Nazi organizations such as Golden Dawn, which have elected MPs and spread terror among immigrants. In a situation of crisis, quietism is more frightening than activism. Who is afraid of citizens of regional cities who oppose exploitation in the heart of their community? Who is afraid of the borough mayors of urban neighbourhoods that discourage motorized commuters to pollute the habitat morning and evening? Who is afraid of students taking the streets to challenge unfair decisions reducing access to higher education that today’s explosive social context makes more than ever necessary?

* * *

Like any ethical-political doctrine, Murray Bookchin’s Social Ecology has its limitations. It therefore does not have to be adopted without a critical eye, especially since in terms of political commitment, action must never be deduced from a theory, but only inspired by it. Against the tide, Bookchin’s work encourages us to reflect on fundamental problems, despite the fact that this may lead to conclusions that differ from those of its author. Nevertheless, three elements of Social Ecology, which derive from each other, appear to be unavoidable: 1) The central place of reason in continuity with classic socialism, thus breaking with its postmodern rejection; 2) The need to develop an active political subjectivity; and 3) The affirmation of an anticapitalism with a concern for the future postcapitalist society.

The rebirth of dialectical reason

The philosophical approach developed by Bookchin, dialectical naturalism, allows one to grasp the immanent meaning of nature, thus escaping the dichotomy between the extremes of religious thought and nihilistic thought that we find in particular in the opposition between obtuse creationism and Neodarwinian evolutionism. The central point of Murray Bookchin’s philosophy is to distinguish two concepts of reason, conventional reason and dialectical reason. Conventional reason leads to the mathematization of nature as a condition for its domination, its commodification, which contributes to the ecological crisis. Like Hegel, from whom he freely draws inspiration, Bookchin states that the major challenge of Western philosophy is to go beyond the conventional reason established in modernity by renewing dialectical reason, which makes it possible to conceive reality in its future. Dialectical naturalism, says Bookchin, “discerns a phenomenon that evolves in a fluid and plastic way.” In its future, an entity implies the existence of various potentialities that may or may not be achieved; by looking again at the Hegelian example of the germ, dialectical reason shows that it can grasp the concrete dialectical development of the plant in relation to its environment (water, light, soil quality, etc.), which will make it a beautiful tree or a yellowed stem. Dialectical criticism of conventional reason does not lead to a rejection of science, only to its relativization, because only dialectical reason recognizes an immanent meaning in nature, while avoiding the traps of mysticism. It is in the presence of this immanent meaning that Bookchin entrenched his ethical-political conception: The life present in nature shows us an ordered reality without the need for recourse to the authoritarianism of a hierarchical power, a reality where living beings have the potential for creativity which led to the cosmic development of subjectivity on Earth. By taking up a theme dating back to ancient philosophy, Bookchin developed the idea of an articulation of first nature with second nature, that is, the human world (second nature) that has emerged from first nature (the Earth, sans humans). The humanity that comes from first nature is therefore radically dependent on it, demonstrating that the scandal of the ecological crisis is a contradiction in terms. Since second nature (humans) are both the most evolved product of first nature and encompass human freedom, we must restore our essential compatibility with the biosphere. This is how Bookchin wants to create social norms in line with the complexification of nature, which has made possible the existence of human societies.

The development of political subjectivity

Murray Bookchin considers it necessary for humans to undergo a form of ethical conversion and revive active citizenship. Each era in human history contains potentialities that are unique; it is necessary to rely on everyone’s spontaneity and voluntarism. No political change can be achieved without a subjective commitment to political action. This requirement does not concern a particular sociological category, no specific revolutionary subject, but includes virtually any citizen who wants to end the current society. Of course, some will want to end it more than others, but the thought of Bookchin emphasizes that a girl from a rich family can embark in political activism even if, from her standpoint, there could be no “class interest” that would explain her support to a cause beyond her own social situation. This type of commitment has been put forward in feminism, a source of inspiration for Social Ecology, insofar as this social movement is “transclass,” i.e. it requires a personal decision to refuse heirarchy and domination and struggle for issues that are both here and now. Bookchin, on the other hand, was very critical of the Marxist-Leninist tradition that focused on a revolutionary subject—the proletariat—and waited for the emergence of objective conditions for the advent of the Grand Soir, the final occasion when significant changes in social structures could be brought about. This also explains why Bookchin attached great importance to historical studies in order to identify the times when various potentialities were available to societies and the choices they have made. In fact, he noted how the series of bad historical choices led to the ecological crisis, the situation in the Third World, the reduced quality of living, to selfish struggle and the isolation of individuals. One of the worst potentialities seen, according to Bookchin, is the emergence of the State. He saw that, in the history of modernity, there has been a civilizational split between the confederal and state paths. The confederal path would have been based on decentralized community institutions, as in the direct democracy practiced in New England at the dawn of the United States or the soviets at the beginning of the Russian Revolution. But it is the state path that has so far triumphed, and the ecological crisis and human suffering are symptoms of this tendency. As a “professional system of social coercion” (Statecraft rule), the State would destroy the political subjectivity that only institutions on a human scale could maintain and enrich. By its very nature, the State reduces the citizen to the passive role of taxpayer-elector, which leads to depoliticization and also facilitates, notably, the commodification of the world.

Direct democracy and municipalization means of production

Libertarian municipalism, or communalism, must be built from now on by the democratic takeover of the political institutions of cities and villages. Although radical, Bookchin refuses to accept any insurrectional project fuelled by the fantasy of the tabula rasa, where existing institutions would be suddenly destroyed. His criticism of state domination and representative democracy leads to the idea of revitalizing political activity in municipal communities that would be coordinated within interregional federations. This is the project of libertarian municipalism, inspired by the Athenian city and the medieval commune, where citizens participated in communal policy making or local politics that takes place on a human scale. This, therefore, makes repoliticization possible through pedagogical and ethical interactions with politicized and committed fellow citizens. The foundation of individual freedom is therefore not the abstract premise of the atomized individual, but the municipality: “Although it seems to be paradoxical,” Bookchin points out, “the authentic elements of a free and rational society are communal and not individual.” To put it in more institutional terms, the municipality is not only the basis of a free society but also the irreducible ground of an authentic individuality. Thus, libertarian municipalism provides for the municipalization of the economy and means of production in order to overcome the opposition between the extremes of capitalist privatization or socialist nationalization. In this way, it will be possible to control rationally and democratically the development of technologies and end productivism—producing for producing’s sake—which causes the ecological crisis. Municipalized production will focus on quality rather than quantity: It is in fact about institutionalizing the requirement of classical socialism “from each according to his/her abilities, to each according to his/her needs.”

Concluding Remarks

Murray Bookchin’s Social Ecology can still contribute to radical political ecology practices. Despite its mixed success, many of its elements remain and will remain current for some time to come.