 | Toward an Ecological Society — NotesBy Murray Bookchin |
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| Toward an Ecological Society — NotesBy Murray Bookchin |
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Father of Social Ecology and Anarcho-Communalism
: Growing up in the era of traditional proletarian socialism, with its working-class insurrections and struggles against classical fascism, as an adult he helped start the ecology movement, embraced the feminist movement as antihierarchical, and developed his own democratic, communalist politics. (From: Anarchy Archives.)
• "...a market economy based on dog-eat-dog as a law of survival and 'progress' has penetrated every aspect of society..." (From: "The Crisis in the Ecology Movement," by Murray Bo....)
• "...real growth occurs exactly when people have different views and confront each other in order to creatively arrive at more advanced levels of truth -- not adopt a low common denominator of ideas that is 'acceptable' to everyone but actually satisfies no one in the long run. Truth is achieved through dialogue and, yes, harsh disputes -- not by a deadening homogeneity and a bleak silence that ultimately turns bland 'ideas' into rigid dogmas." (From: "The Crisis in the Ecology Movement," by Murray Bo....)
• "...Proudhon here appears as a supporter of direct democracy and assembly self- management on a clearly civic level, a form of social organization well worth fighting for in an era of centralization and oligarchy." (From: "The Ghost of Anarcho-Syndicalism," by Murray Book....)
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Notes
[82] It is interesting to note that, as far back as the 19th century, Marx’s labor theory of value has been justly criticized for its schzoid nature. In Capital, Vol. I, the labor theory of value functions brilliantly as a qualitative analysis of the emergence and form of bourgeois social relations. In Capital, Vol. Ill, however, the theory functions quantitatively as a very dubious description of price formation, the distribution of profits between different enterprises and the so-called “tendency of the rate of profit to decline.” This “tendency” has never been clearly established in terms of Marx’s labor theory because it is largely unprovable. It becomes meaningless and mechanistic, in fact, when value is viewed merely in quantitative terms and it can be justly regarded as equivocal in view of the countervailing factors Marx himself invokes, factors which serve to shake the credibility of the “tendency” as an economic reality. Accordingly, this “tendency” has not only divided Marxian economists from non-Marxian, but has also led to endless quarrels among the most devout acolytes of the master for generations. For Gorz, this highly disputable “tendency” is merely adduced as given — and that is that!
[83] Albrecht Wellmer’s Critical Theory of Society does, in fact, point to the “instrumental dimension” of Marx’s writings and subjects it to valuable criticism. But Wellmer’s criticism, unfortunately, stops short of an outright rejection of Marxism as a social theory and essentially falls within the orbit of Jurgen Habermas’s critique rather than a consistently libertarian one.
{1} See Albrecht Wellmer: “Communications and Emancipation: Reflections on the Linguistic Turn in Critical Theory” in On Critical Theory, ed. John O’Neill (Seabury Pres, 1976), p. 254.
{2} Karl Marx: “The Civil War in France,” Selected Works, Vol. II (Progress Publishers, 1969), p. 220.
{3} Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract (Everyman Edition, 1959), pp. 94, 96. Rousseau’s influence on Hannah Arendt is almost as great as Aristotle’s. Compare these remarks with Arendt’s in On Revolution (Viking Press, 1965), pp. 239–40.
{4} See my Post-Scarcity Anarchism (Black Rose Books, 1977), pp. 150–53.
{5} Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: The Holy Family (Progress Publishers, 1956), pp. 52–53; Frederick Engels: “On Authority” in Marx, Engels, Lenin: Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism (International Publishers, 1972), p. 102.
{6} Ibid., p. 102.
{7} Herbert Marcuse: An Essay on Liberation (Beacon Press, 1969), pp. VII, VIII, 22, 57, 64, 80,85.
{8} Herbert Marcuse: Counter-Revolution and Revolt (Beacon Press, 1972), p. 41.
{9} Marcuse: An Essay on Liberation, op. cit., p. 14.
{10} Marcuse, ibid., p. 69 and fn. on same page.
{11} Ibid., p. VIII.
{12} Karl Marx: Capital, vol. I (Vintage, 1977), pp. 477–78, 479.
{13} Peter Kropotkin: Mutual Aid (Extending Horizons Books, 1955), pp. 179–80, 181.
{14} Martin Buber: Paths in Utopia (Beacon Press, 1958), op. 13–14.
{15} See Post-Scarcity Anarchism, op. cit., p. 65.
{16} Karl Marx: Grundrisse (Random House, 1973), p. 410.
{17} Jeremy J. Shapiro: “The Slime of History” in On Critical Theory, op. cit., pp. 147–48.
{18} Ibid., p. 149.
{19} Ibid.
{20} See my “On Spontaneity and Organization, Liberation, March, 1972, pp. 6–7. (See pp. 249–274 below)
{21} M.I. Finley: Democracy: Ancient and Modern (Rutgers University Press, 1973), p. 18.
{22} Ibid., pp. 29–30.
{23} John Stuart Mill: Considerations on Representative Government (World Classics Edition, 1948), pp. 196–98.
{24} Hannah Arendt: “Truth and Politics” in Philosophy, Politics and Society (edited by Peter Laslett and W.G. Runciman (Blackwell & Co., 1967), p. 115.
{25} G.W.F. Hegel: The Early Theological Writings (University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 304–5.
{26} Hannah Arendt, “Truth and Politics,” Op. cit., p. 115.
{27} Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: The Holy Family, op. cit., pp. 52–53.
{28} Aristotle: Politics (Loeb Classical Library, 1932), 1278bl5-30 and Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: The German Ideology (International Publishers, 1947), p. 7.
{29} G.W.F. Hegel: The Early Theological Writings, op. cit., p. 81, 82.
{30} Ibid.
{31} Max Horkheimer: “The Authoritarian State,” Telos, Spring, 1973, p. 6.
{32} Lewis Mumford: The City in History (Harcourt, Bacee & World, 1961), p. 332.
{33} Merril Jensen: American in the Era of the Articles of Confederation
{34} See my “Toward a Vision of the Urban Future” in Urban Affairs Annual Review (Sage Publications, 1978) in press. (See pp. 171–191 above)
From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org
Father of Social Ecology and Anarcho-Communalism
: Growing up in the era of traditional proletarian socialism, with its working-class insurrections and struggles against classical fascism, as an adult he helped start the ecology movement, embraced the feminist movement as antihierarchical, and developed his own democratic, communalist politics. (From: Anarchy Archives.)
• "Broader movements and issues are now on the horizon of modern society that, while they must necessarily involve workers, require a perspective that is larger than the factory, trade union, and a proletarian orientation." (From: "The Ghost of Anarcho-Syndicalism," by Murray Book....)
• "...a market economy based on dog-eat-dog as a law of survival and 'progress' has penetrated every aspect of society..." (From: "The Crisis in the Ecology Movement," by Murray Bo....)
• "...real growth occurs exactly when people have different views and confront each other in order to creatively arrive at more advanced levels of truth -- not adopt a low common denominator of ideas that is 'acceptable' to everyone but actually satisfies no one in the long run. Truth is achieved through dialogue and, yes, harsh disputes -- not by a deadening homogeneity and a bleak silence that ultimately turns bland 'ideas' into rigid dogmas." (From: "The Crisis in the Ecology Movement," by Murray Bo....)
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