(en) WSM - Irish Anarchist Review #11 - - Murray Bookchin: The Next Revolution (Review) by O'CONNOR

Despite being a pathbreaking figure from the 1960s onward in anarchist, green, and 
directly­ democratic political circles ­ having predicted early on the significance of 
ecological issues and technology to left­wing social struggles ­ Murray Bookchin today 
remains unknown to many on the left, and to those who do know of him he remains 
controversial. ---- Disliked by class struggle anarchists and Marxists for his advocacy of 
community organising over workplace organising, and by anarchists involved in single 
issue activism for their lack of organisation and supposed concern with personal 
rebellion over social change, he made quite a few enemies in his last days for fiery 
polemics directed at his intellectual opponents. While his supporters in organisations 
like New Compass defend him for his consistency, others argue that he ended up alienating 
potential allies by refusing to ever waver on his specific revolutionary vision: focused 
on creating a municipal­ confederation of ecological communities practicing direct­ 
democracy, founded on a philosophy of science, reason, and humanism.

This new collection of essays from the last few years of his life may provide a useful 
entry­ point of his philosophical and political project called social ecology and generate 
further debate for the future of libertarian socialist organising in an age of increasing 
militarism and climate crisis.

New wine or new bottle?

The first essay, The Communalist Project, has been published before and is by far the 
weakest. Written after Bookchin had distanced himself from anarchism, it is replete with 
historical distortions and errors about anarchist theory and practice ­ which Bookchin 
himself attacked Marxists for making in the 1960s. It comes across as a disingenuous 
rewriting of his former philosophy, knocking down straw-man after straw-man in an attempt 
to boost his own new political project called Communalism.

One could argue that Bookchin in fact never really left the social anarchist tradition, 
merely felt the need to distance himself from a label he saw as being irredeemable due to 
its increasing associations with primitivists, postmodernists, and lifestylists. From his 
own descriptions, Communalism could be viewed as a revamped version of anarcho­-communism 
in that it seeks a community­ directed economy instead of the worker­ directed economy 
desired by most anarcho-­syndicalists.

Ecology and the future of the left

Most of the other essays cover familiar topics of interest, from the importance of ecology 
and the urban environment to political organising (years before Autonomist Marxists like 
Hardt and Negri), the crucial need to root one's ideas in Enlightenment humanism over what 
he saw as the irrationality of postmodernism, critiques of nationalism, and the potential 
of popular assemblies as organs of a new participatory democracy.

The final essay, The Future of the Left, is from a contemporary perspective the most 
interesting. Bookchin gives a broad overview of revolutionary left traditions of the past, 
offering critical commentary of what went right and wrong with anarchism, Marxism, and 
other revolutionary doctrines. He stresses the importance of reason, Enlightenment 
humanism, direct democracy, and the ecological worldview, while attacking the traditional 
left's excessive focus on class and economic issues, pointing out the need to appeal to 
people simply as "the people", instead of "workers", which he finds reduces them to their 
economic function and discounts the significance of trans­-class power hierarchies that 
cannot be reduced economics.

A matter of emphasis

It's difficult to say what he would have made of the recent Occupy and Squares movements 
that kicked off in 2011. His comments about the flaws of the alter­-globalisation protests 
indicate he would have criticised their focus on consensus decision ­making over majority 
voting and their lack of a coherent program and systematic body of ideas. Though he would 
likely have praised the attempts to get people involved in grassroots democracy, unify 
class and tras­-class forms of social struggle, and bring environmental issues to the 
forefront of political discussion.

Looking at the collection a a whole, Bookchin perhaps under emphasised the role of class 
and workplace organising in social struggle, but no more so than Marxists and class 
struggle anarchists have overemphasised it, often relegating issues like race, gender, 
sexuality, and ecology to secondary importance; issues that can be sorted out "after 
the revolution". Whether traditional class struggle against capital and the state is 
indeed inferior to Bookchin's form of community­ struggle against all forms of hierarchy 
and domination is an open question, and one that deserves consideration.

Given the impact social ecology has had on the recent Rojava Revolution, this collection 
can act as a compelling gateway to a thinker whose ideas could provide valuable lessons 
for future anti-­authoritarian theory and practice.

http://www.wsm.ie/c/murray%C2%A0bookchin%C2%A0%C2%AD%C2%A0the%C2%A0%C2%A0next%C2%A0revolution%C2%A0review