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Murray Bookchin, the visionary social
theorist and activist, died during the early morning of Sunday,
July 30th in his home in Burlington, Vermont. During a prolific
career of writing, teaching and political activism that spanned
half a century, Bookchin forged a new anti-authoritarian outlook
rooted in ecology, dialectical philosophy and left libertarianism.
During the 1950s and '60s,
Bookchin built upon the legacies of utopian social philosophy
and critical theory, challenging the primacy of Marxism on the
left and linking contemporary ecological and urban crises to
problems of capital and social hierarchy in general. Beginning
in the mid-sixties, he pioneered a new political and philosophical
synthesis-termed social ecology-that sought to reclaim local
political power, by means of direct popular democracy, against
the consolidation and increasing centralization of the nation
state.
From the 1960s to the present,
the utopian dimension of Bookchin's social ecology inspired several
generations of social and ecological activists, from the pioneering
urban ecology movements of the sixties, to the 1970s' back-to-the-land,
antinuclear, and sustainable technology movements, the beginnings
of Green politics and organic agriculture in the early 1980s,
and the anti-authoritarian global justice movement that came
of age in 1999 in the streets of Seattle. His influence was often
cited by prominent political and social activists throughout
the US, Europe, South America, Turkey, Japan, and beyond.
Even as numerous social movements
drew on his ideas, however, Bookchin remained a relentless critic
of the currents in those movements that he found deeply disturbing,
including the New Left's drift toward Marxism-Leninism in the
late 1960s, tendencies toward mysticism and misanthropy in the
radical environmental movement, and the growing focus on individualism
and personal lifestyles among 1990s anarchists. In the late 1990s,
Bookchin broke with anarchism, the political tradition he had
been most identified with for over 30 years and articulated a
new political vision that he called communalism.
Bookchin was raised in a leftist
family in the Bronx during the 1920s and '30s. He enjoyed retelling
the story of his expulsion from the Young Communist League at
age 18 for openly criticizing Stalin, his brief flirtation with
Trotskyism as a labor organizer in the foundries of New Jersey,
and his introduction to anarchism by veterans of the immigrant
labor movement during the 1950s. In 1974, he co-founded the Institute
for Social Ecology, along with Dan Chodorkoff, then a graduate
student at Vermont's Goddard College. For 30 years, the Institute
for Social Ecology has brought thousands of students to Vermont
for intensive educational programs focusing on the theory and
praxis of social ecology. A self-educated scholar and public
intellectual, Bookchin served as a full professor at Ramapo College
of New Jersey despite his own lack of conventional academic credentials.He
published more than 20 books and many hundreds of articles during
his lifetime, many of which were translated into Italian, German,
Spanish, Japanese, Turkish and other languages.
During the 1960s - '80s, Bookchin
emphasized his fundamental theoretical break with Marxism, arguing
that Marx's central focus on economics and class obscured the
more profound role of social hierarchy in the shaping of human
history. His anthropological studies affirmed the role of domination
by age, gender and other manifestations of social power as the
antecedents of modern-day economic exploitation. In The Ecology
of Freedom(1982), he examined the parallel legacies of domination
and freedom in human societies, from prehistoric times to the
present, and he later published a four-volume work,The Third
Revolution, exploring anti-authoritarian currents throughout
the Western revolutionary tradition.
At the same time, he criticized
the lack of philosophical rigor that has often plagued the anarchist
tradition, and drew theoretical sustenance from dialectical philosophy-particularly
the works of Aristotle and Hegel; the Frankfurt School-of which
he became increasingly critical in later years-and even the works
of Marx and Lenin. During the past year, even while terminally
ill in Burlington, Bookchin was working toward a re-evaluation
of what he perceived as the historic failure of the 20th century
left. He argued that Marxist crisis theory failed to recognize
the inherent flexibility and malleability of capitalism, and
that Marx never saw capitalism in its true contemporary sense.
Until his death, Bookchin asserted that only the ecological problems
created by modern capitalism were of sufficient magnitude to
portend the system's demise.
Murray Bookchin was diagnosed
several months ago with a fatal heart condition. He will be remembered
by his devoted family members-including his long-time companion
Janet Biehl, his former wife Bea Bookchin, his son, daughter,
son-in-law, and granddaughter-as well as his friends, colleagues
and frequent correspondents throughout the world. There will
be a public memorial service in Burlington, Vermont on Sunday,
August 13th. For more information, contact info(at)social-ecology.org.
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