Greening Anarchy: Social Ecology

Abstract

Murray Bookchin is a radical ecology stalwart. His integration of ecology and anarchism helped create a novel form of eco-anarchism — one he prefers to call social ecology. Social ecology has contributed significantly to the greening of anarchism. Its primary insight is that the ecological crisis is a social crisis of values, with hierarchy the main culprit. Yet Bookchin claims to go beyond traditional anarchism and even newer forms of anarchism. He sees ‘authentic’ anarchism as highly individualist and champions municipalism, or communalism, in its stead. Municipalism describes a polity or civic arena in which free people participate directly in the consociational management of their community. Bookchin is certainly against the state, but not so the direct democratic practices of community self-government — a form of ‘town meeting government’. To the chagrin of many fellow anarchists, social ecologists encourage the fielding of and voting for candidates in municipal elections. Bookchin also promotes a highly rationalist political philosophy which he opposes to the ‘anti-rationalism’ that he argues infuses much of radical ecology and now much of contemporary anarchism.