Bookchin

Damian F. White

Description

This is the first comprehensive overview of the work of Murray Bookchin, the left-libertarian social theorist and political ecologist who is widely regarded as the visionary precursor of anti-corporate politics.



Bookchin's writing spans fifty years and engages with a wide variety of issues: from ecology to urban planning, from environmental ethics to debates about radical democracy. Weaving insights from Hegel and Marx, Kropotkin and Mumford, Bookchin presents a critical theory whose central utopian message is 'things could be other than they are'.



This accessible introduction maps the evolution of Bookchin's project. It traces his controversial engagements with Marxism, anarchism, critical theory, postmodernism and eco-centric thought. It evaluates his attempt to develop a social ecology. Finally, it considers how his thinking relates to current debates in social theory and environmentalism, critical theory and philosophy, political ecology and urban theory.



Offering a clear account of Bookchin's key themes, this book provides a critical but sympathetic account of the strengths and weaknesses of Bookchin's writing.
Abbreviations

Acknowledgments

Part One: Beginnings

1. Environments, Cities And Post Scarcity Worlds

Part Two: The Legacy Of Domination

2. Hierarchy, Domination, Nature: Bookchin's Historical Social Theory

3. Social Ecology As Modern Social Theory

4. Capitalism and Ecology

Part Three: The Legacy Of Freedom

5. Ethics And The Normative Grounds Of Critique

6. Urbanisation, Cities, Utopia

7. Citizens, Politics, Democracy

Part Four :Endings

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie politique
• Philosophy
• Philosophie et théologie
• Political

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 octobre 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849641692
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Bookchin A Critical Appraisal

DAMIAN F. WHITE

PLUTO PRESS www.plutobooks.com

First published 2008 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright © Damian F. White 2008

The right of Damian F. White to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN ISBN

978 0 7453 1965 0 978 0 7453 1964 3

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This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin. The paper may contain up to 70% post consumer waste.

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Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton Printed and bound in the European Union by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

To Mum and Dad Mark and Sarah

With Love and Thanks

Abbreviations Acknowledgments

Introduction

Orientations Bookchin’s Critics Plan of the Work

Cont

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PART ONE: BEGINNINGS

1 Environments, Cities and PostScarcity Worlds The Political Life of an American Radical Contemporary Issues Neither Washington nor Moscow The Problem of Chemicals in Food Our Synthetic Environment Emerging Themes in Bookchin’s Early Writings PostScarcity Politics and Ecology as Revolutionary  Thought Beyond the New Left Mapping the Arc of Bookchin’s Work Intellectual Influences

PART TWO: THE LEGACY OF DOMINATION

2 Hierarchy, Domination, Nature: Bookchin’s Historical Social Theory Marxism and ‘Bourgeois Sociology’ From Social Classes and the State to Social Hierarchy  and Social Domination The Outlook of Organic Society The Emergence of Hierarchy A ‘Legacy of Domination’ and a ‘Legacy of Freedom’ Considering Bookchin’s Historical Social Theory Organic Society I: Vagaries and Inconsistencies

xi xiii

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5 6 8

12 12 14 15 16 17 18

19 24 24 26

31 32

34 36 37 39 40 42

viii Contents

Organic Society II: Anthropological Evidence and  Methodological Concerns After Ecological Romanticism Social Hierarchy/Social Domination Social Hierarchy, Social Domination and the Idea of  the Dominating of Nature by Humans Dominant Ideologies and Actual Relations with Nature Time, Space, Social Production and Social Ecologies Domination, Liberation, and the Production,  Reproduction and Enframing of Active Nature(s) Domination/Producing/Appropriating Nature

3 Social Ecology as Modern Social Theory The Emergence of Capitalism Mapping the Contours of ‘Advanced’ Capitalism Developing a Critique of ‘Advanced’ Capitalism Defining the Environmental Agenda The Critique of NeoMalthusianism Causality and Problem Definition in SocioEcological  Critique SocioEcological CritiquewithoutMalthus PostScarcity Ecology The Virtues of Bookchin’s Approach to SocioEcological  Critique

4 Capitalism and Ecology The ‘Grow or Die’ Thesis Bookchin’s Macro EcoCrisis Theory Social Ecology, Political Ecology and the Sociology of  Environmental Justice The Sociology of Ecological Modernisation and its  Critics Climate Change, Green Governmentality and Nature  as an Accumulation Strategy

PART THREE: THE LEGACY OF FREEDOM

5 Ethics and the Normative Grounds of Critique Ecology and Revolutionary Thought Holism, Spontaneity, NonHierarchy Developing Dialectical Naturalism

45 47 48

50 52 55

56 59

62 62 64 65 70 70

73 75 77

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83 84 85

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101 102 103 104

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Humanity and the Natural World First Nature, Second Nature and Free Nature ‘Nature’ as the Grounds or Matrix for Ethics Social Ecology, Scientific Ecology and Evolutionary  Theory ‘NonHierarchical’ and ‘Mutualistic’ Nature? Metaphors and Nature The Ecological Ethics of Social Ecology Social Ecology versus Deep Ecology Hybrid Natures and Active Subjects

Contents ix

Urbanisation, Cities, Utopia ‘Crisis in Our Cities’ Reification and the Unlimited City ‘The Limits of the City’ The Humanist Concept of the City in History The City as a Human[e] Community: Envisaging  Ecotopia Bookchin’s Critique of the Limitless City Social Ecology and the New Urbanism Suburbs, ExUrbs and Social Ecology EcoCommunalism or a Pluralist EcoUrbanism? Social Ecology and Technology Free Nature: Blending or Maintaining Demarcations? Dissolving or Retrofitting the Modern Metropolis? Utopian Dialogue as ‘Public Event’

Citizens, Politics, Democracy ThePolisand the Political Zoon Politikon,PaideiaandPhilia The Legacy of Freedom The Rise of the Free Cities, Neighbourhood Communes  and City Confederations The Municipal Route to Modernity Libertarian Municipalism: From Here to There The History/Histor(ies) of Civic Freedom From Dionysus to Philia PolisandCosmopolis Transparency and Complexity Between the Heroic and the Imminent

107 108 109

110 113 117 118 120 123

127 127 129 130 131

134 137 138 143 145 147 148 150 152

155 156 157 158

160 162 163 164 169 172 174 176

x Contents

PART FOUR: ENDINGS

Conclusion Reenchanting Humanity, Disenchanted Bookchin Breaks, Transitions, Excommunications (Harsh) Judgments New Beginnings, or More Considered Judgments Lessons, Legacies and Traces

Notes Bibliography Index

181 181 184 187 188 193

199 216 231

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Abbreviations

M. Bookchin.Anarchism, Marxism and the Future of the Left: Interviews and Essays, 1993–1998.Edinburgh and San Francisco: AK Press, 1999. J. Biehl (ed.).The Bookchin Reader. London: Cassell, 1997. Lewis Herber. (Pseud. M. Bookchin).Crisis in Our Cities. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1965. Murray Bookchin and Dave Foreman (ed. Steve Chase). Defending the Earth: A Dialogue Between Murray Bookchin and Dave Foreman.Boston: South End Press, 1991. M. Bookchin.The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy. 1st Edition, California: Cheshire Books, 1982. All quotations in this book are taken from the 2nd edition (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1991) unless otherwise stated. M. Bookchin.From Urbanization to Cities: Towards a New Politics of Citizenship.1st Edition, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1987. All quotations in this book are taken from the 1995 revised edition (London: Cassell). M. Bookchin.The Limits of the City. 1st Edition, New York: Harper and Row, 1974. All quotations in this book are taken from the 2nd edition (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1986). M. Bookchin.The Modern Crisis.Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1986. Lewis Herber (Pseud. M. Bookchin).Our Synthetic Environment. 1st Edition, New York: Alfred. A. Knopf, 1962. All quotations in this book are taken from the 1963 British edition (London: Jonathan Cape). M. Bookchin.The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays on Dialectical Naturalism.Edition, Montreal: Black Rose 1st Books, 1990. All quotations in this book are taken from the 2nd edition (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1995) unless otherwise stated. M. Bookchin.PostScarcity Anarchism. 1st Edition, San Francisco: Rampart Books, 1971. All quotations in this book are taken from the 2nd edition (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1986) unless otherwise stated.

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xii Abbreviations

REM. Bookchin. ‘Recovering Evolution: A Reply to Eckersley and Fox’Environmental Ethics12: 3, Fall 1990. RH M. Bookchin.Reclaiming Humanity: A Defense of the Human Spirit Against AntiHumanism, Misanthropy, Mysticism and Primitivism.London: Cassell, 1995. RSM. Bookchin.Remaking Society: Paths to a Green Future. Boston: South End Press, 1990. SALAM. Bookchin.Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm.Edinburgh: AK Press, 1995. SEvsDEM. Bookchin. ‘Social Ecology Versus Deep Ecology: A Challenge for the Ecology Movement’Socialist Review18: 3, July–Sept 1988. TES M. Bookchin.Towards an Ecological Society.Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1980.