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Toward an Ecological Society
"Bookchin's great virtue is that he constantly relates his theories to society as it is." George Woodcock "Bookchin is capable of penetrating, finely indignant historical analysis. Another stimulating collection." In These Times "A work that gives abundant evidence of its author's position at the centre of debate." Telos
315 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
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About the author
Murray Bookchin
122 books641 followersMurray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics, philosophy, history, and urban affairs as well as ecology. In the late 1990s he became disenchanted with the strategy of political Anarchism and founded his own libertarian socialist ideology called Communalism.
Bookchin was an anti-capitalist and vocal advocate of the decentralisation of society along ecological and democratic lines. His writings on libertarian municipalism, a theory of face-to-face, assembly democracy, had an influence on the Green movement and anti-capitalist direct action groups such as Reclaim the Streets.
Bookchin was an anti-capitalist and vocal advocate of the decentralisation of society along ecological and democratic lines. His writings on libertarian municipalism, a theory of face-to-face, assembly democracy, had an influence on the Green movement and anti-capitalist direct action groups such as Reclaim the Streets.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 11, 2025
Bookchin is better than many later Anarchist-Ecologist writers I've read and is at least capable of articulating an Anarchist ecological society that doesn't immediately fall into the anti-technology, anti-population ecofascism of later Eco-Anarchists (I'm looking at you Desert).
Despite my misgivings I do think the collection of essays provides a valuable series of questions regarding how to develop ecological politics, though I very rarely agreed with Bookchin's answers. Unlike desert, I would consider this valuable to read as part of developing a better understanding of contemporary conversations in ecologiclal and environmentalist theory.
Some issues I had:
1. Bookchin doesn't really justify or prove his points with any evidence or rigor. Developing any political theory entails more serious effort than just saying pleasing things or ideas. He talks constantly about his idea of decentralizing cities and sustaining them with wind and solar, without any thought given into the mechanics of bringing this about or the limitations of the energy sources he proposes.
His preoccupation with the revolutionary Event as a fundemental epistemic shift in human society leaves these questions safely occluded behind the Event. At no point though does he give confidence that his Anarchist revolution would provide the circumstances for self organizing communities to autonomously decentralize themselves according to his vision, in all odds the required organization and mass violence requires to forcibly disband the city and nuclear plants and industrial production would likely automatically invalidate the Anarchist revolution before it even began.
Reading the book I kept hoping for some serious explanation on how stark pre-revolutionary differences and ideas will be reconciled in a heavily decentralized world, but Bookchin largely encourages us to cross our fingers and hope all the racists and fascists are magically reborn after the Event. What happens in the event of radically different conclusions on what this balancing with nature should look like? He talks about the development of fantastic
3. Bookchin consistently falls to the fascist impulse for a retreat from modernity to a mythologized idyllic past. At some points he is indistinguishable from Konrad Meyer's own insistence on the return to a limited rural society for Nazi Germany. Similarly his baseless fear of nuclear energy and bizarre obsession with the ancient Greek polis reveal an endless desire not to imagine something new, but to recreate a fabricated past. Again, his imagined neo-polis is just supposed to work without any systems or consideration for its real development.
4. Continued Anarchist weaponization of racist outdated sociology and noble savage myths to try and establish a historical basis for a libertarian society. In one instance he describes how among the "Wintu tribe" of California they have evidence of ancient Anarchism because their chiefs don't "rule" their people, they "stand" with them. These sort of prescriptive views are both baseless and anthropologically weak. Bookchin doesnt actually care about the cultural context of the word (he doesn't even provide the Wintu word in question), just the rhetorical goal he can gain by bastardizing an English translation of it. It'd be like claiming the ancient Romans didn't have the concept of priests because instead they called them a pontifex "bridge-builder," or that Midwesterners lack the concept of soda because they call it "pop" . His rabid opposition to any kind of materialist history (or virtually any empirical, scientific research) makes him endlessly rely on these weak justifications.
5. Also telling that Marx is apparently the liberal Antichrist, but genuine conservative thinkers like Hegel warrant "serious exploration." He constantly tells us to return to Hegel and Aristotle. He has a recurring disdain for the working class as a meaningful body, instead proposing an ill-defined class of "citizens" that have no empirical or structural justifications. Just an overall bizarre selection of theorists.
6. Pedantic but desert biomes are some of the most biodiverse, not simplistic like Bookchin claims. There were a few other areas where he'd get stuff wrong that you'd hope a an expert trying to advance new theory wouldn't make, such as falsehoods regarding nuclear waste, incorrect sweeping claims about historical development, and critiques of Marx that revealed a weak engagement with the actual sources.
7. His defeatist cynicism. We all need to switch to wind and solar power, but attempts to develop large solar power grids are grotesque "gigantism." Instead he wants everyone to own and maintain their own personal solar panels, with no examination of whether innumerable isolated power systems would actually be better than the environment than a unified grid (spoiler it won't). The aesthetics of nature and revolt consistently matter more to Bookchin than actually defending the environment.
Despite my misgivings I do think the collection of essays provides a valuable series of questions regarding how to develop ecological politics, though I very rarely agreed with Bookchin's answers. Unlike desert, I would consider this valuable to read as part of developing a better understanding of contemporary conversations in ecologiclal and environmentalist theory.
Some issues I had:
1. Bookchin doesn't really justify or prove his points with any evidence or rigor. Developing any political theory entails more serious effort than just saying pleasing things or ideas. He talks constantly about his idea of decentralizing cities and sustaining them with wind and solar, without any thought given into the mechanics of bringing this about or the limitations of the energy sources he proposes.
His preoccupation with the revolutionary Event as a fundemental epistemic shift in human society leaves these questions safely occluded behind the Event. At no point though does he give confidence that his Anarchist revolution would provide the circumstances for self organizing communities to autonomously decentralize themselves according to his vision, in all odds the required organization and mass violence requires to forcibly disband the city and nuclear plants and industrial production would likely automatically invalidate the Anarchist revolution before it even began.
Reading the book I kept hoping for some serious explanation on how stark pre-revolutionary differences and ideas will be reconciled in a heavily decentralized world, but Bookchin largely encourages us to cross our fingers and hope all the racists and fascists are magically reborn after the Event. What happens in the event of radically different conclusions on what this balancing with nature should look like? He talks about the development of fantastic
3. Bookchin consistently falls to the fascist impulse for a retreat from modernity to a mythologized idyllic past. At some points he is indistinguishable from Konrad Meyer's own insistence on the return to a limited rural society for Nazi Germany. Similarly his baseless fear of nuclear energy and bizarre obsession with the ancient Greek polis reveal an endless desire not to imagine something new, but to recreate a fabricated past. Again, his imagined neo-polis is just supposed to work without any systems or consideration for its real development.
4. Continued Anarchist weaponization of racist outdated sociology and noble savage myths to try and establish a historical basis for a libertarian society. In one instance he describes how among the "Wintu tribe" of California they have evidence of ancient Anarchism because their chiefs don't "rule" their people, they "stand" with them. These sort of prescriptive views are both baseless and anthropologically weak. Bookchin doesnt actually care about the cultural context of the word (he doesn't even provide the Wintu word in question), just the rhetorical goal he can gain by bastardizing an English translation of it. It'd be like claiming the ancient Romans didn't have the concept of priests because instead they called them a pontifex "bridge-builder," or that Midwesterners lack the concept of soda because they call it "pop" . His rabid opposition to any kind of materialist history (or virtually any empirical, scientific research) makes him endlessly rely on these weak justifications.
5. Also telling that Marx is apparently the liberal Antichrist, but genuine conservative thinkers like Hegel warrant "serious exploration." He constantly tells us to return to Hegel and Aristotle. He has a recurring disdain for the working class as a meaningful body, instead proposing an ill-defined class of "citizens" that have no empirical or structural justifications. Just an overall bizarre selection of theorists.
6. Pedantic but desert biomes are some of the most biodiverse, not simplistic like Bookchin claims. There were a few other areas where he'd get stuff wrong that you'd hope a an expert trying to advance new theory wouldn't make, such as falsehoods regarding nuclear waste, incorrect sweeping claims about historical development, and critiques of Marx that revealed a weak engagement with the actual sources.
7. His defeatist cynicism. We all need to switch to wind and solar power, but attempts to develop large solar power grids are grotesque "gigantism." Instead he wants everyone to own and maintain their own personal solar panels, with no examination of whether innumerable isolated power systems would actually be better than the environment than a unified grid (spoiler it won't). The aesthetics of nature and revolt consistently matter more to Bookchin than actually defending the environment.
February 24, 2020
lettura oggi quanto mai attuale e (francamente) necessaria. consigliatissimo, se non addirittura obbligatorio.
in un tempo in cui i concetti di ecologia e ambientalismo sono diventati come prezzemolo, per condire e banalizzare ogni qualsiasi insalata politica e manifestazione popolare, bookchin (1921-2006), tra i padri del pensiero ecologista moderno (oggi apparentemente dimenticato), ci riporta con i piedi per terra, ridefinendo con parole mai più chiare, la necessità di ripensare l'ecologia nel suo più grande contesto, la società.
il saggio, infatti, non tratta dell'ecologia in sé, bensì di un percorso, quello dell'umanità e della sua lotta per la libertà universale (o "progetto rivoluzionario", come inteso da bookchin), della quale l'ecologia (sociale, per esattezza) rappresenta il prossimo logico obiettivo.
seguendo un filo quasi storico, che osserva le varie evoluzioni dell'uomo nelle sue organizzazioni sociali, dalle prime comunità preletterarie alla sfrenata urbanizzazione del capitalismo contemporaneo, l'autore, senza nemmeno sforzarsi troppo di dare un'evidente opinione personale, pone il lettore davanti all'inconfutabile prova logica di quali sono gli eventi storici ed i passaggi che più hanno caratterizzano la contemporaneità sul piano sociale nella devastazione ambientale a favore di una cieca crescita economica, nello sfruttamento umano e in una sempre più netta divisione sociale.
risulta difficile quantificare il numero di argomenti che bookchin riesce a toccare in questo interessantissimo viaggio. da riflessioni filosofiche sulla natura dell'uomo ad argomentazioni storiche sulle diverse forme di comunità sociali sviluppatesi nel corso della storia, fino a critiche ai vari movimenti politici o popolari "di sinistra" che hanno cercato di rivoluzionare la società.
è incredibile notare quanto risulti oggi attuale questo saggio, considerando che è stato scritto più di 30 anni fa. è altrettanto sbalorditivo realizzare quanto poco sia cambiato da allora e, anzi, quanto nonostante gli evidenti peggioramenti in materia ambientale e sociale, nulla, ancora, si muova.
la lettura è molto scorrevole, grazie anche all'incredibile capacità espositiva dell'autore nel descrivere alcuni concetti, anche non banali.
peccato per il sottotitolo che non centra molto il reale contenuto del saggio e che rischia addirittura di appesantirne eccessivamente l'aura.
la lettura potrebbe risultare frustrante per chi non è troppo allineato con gli stessi ideali dell'autore, il quale è molto "di parte" e lascia poco spazio ad argomentazioni alternative. consiglio in ogni caso di leggere la lettera introduttiva al saggio per farsi un'idea più chiara.
in un tempo in cui i concetti di ecologia e ambientalismo sono diventati come prezzemolo, per condire e banalizzare ogni qualsiasi insalata politica e manifestazione popolare, bookchin (1921-2006), tra i padri del pensiero ecologista moderno (oggi apparentemente dimenticato), ci riporta con i piedi per terra, ridefinendo con parole mai più chiare, la necessità di ripensare l'ecologia nel suo più grande contesto, la società.
il saggio, infatti, non tratta dell'ecologia in sé, bensì di un percorso, quello dell'umanità e della sua lotta per la libertà universale (o "progetto rivoluzionario", come inteso da bookchin), della quale l'ecologia (sociale, per esattezza) rappresenta il prossimo logico obiettivo.
seguendo un filo quasi storico, che osserva le varie evoluzioni dell'uomo nelle sue organizzazioni sociali, dalle prime comunità preletterarie alla sfrenata urbanizzazione del capitalismo contemporaneo, l'autore, senza nemmeno sforzarsi troppo di dare un'evidente opinione personale, pone il lettore davanti all'inconfutabile prova logica di quali sono gli eventi storici ed i passaggi che più hanno caratterizzano la contemporaneità sul piano sociale nella devastazione ambientale a favore di una cieca crescita economica, nello sfruttamento umano e in una sempre più netta divisione sociale.
risulta difficile quantificare il numero di argomenti che bookchin riesce a toccare in questo interessantissimo viaggio. da riflessioni filosofiche sulla natura dell'uomo ad argomentazioni storiche sulle diverse forme di comunità sociali sviluppatesi nel corso della storia, fino a critiche ai vari movimenti politici o popolari "di sinistra" che hanno cercato di rivoluzionare la società.
è incredibile notare quanto risulti oggi attuale questo saggio, considerando che è stato scritto più di 30 anni fa. è altrettanto sbalorditivo realizzare quanto poco sia cambiato da allora e, anzi, quanto nonostante gli evidenti peggioramenti in materia ambientale e sociale, nulla, ancora, si muova.
la lettura è molto scorrevole, grazie anche all'incredibile capacità espositiva dell'autore nel descrivere alcuni concetti, anche non banali.
peccato per il sottotitolo che non centra molto il reale contenuto del saggio e che rischia addirittura di appesantirne eccessivamente l'aura.
la lettura potrebbe risultare frustrante per chi non è troppo allineato con gli stessi ideali dell'autore, il quale è molto "di parte" e lascia poco spazio ad argomentazioni alternative. consiglio in ogni caso di leggere la lettera introduttiva al saggio per farsi un'idea più chiara.
Read
September 27, 2007This is a collection of Murray Bookchin's essays from various publications. So, there's a good amount in this collection to expose Bookchin's ideological stance on deep ecology, the anti-nuclear movement in the late 60's, and critiques on Marxism and the environmentalist movement.
February 26, 2023
Again by Bookchin and again a great piece.
If Nature had a manifesto, it would definitely be the works of Bookchin.
This is a work that reveals the necessity of returning to nature "again" for human beings, the dangerous course of human beings and the destruction of nature at the end of this path. Our author, who has walked through dualities in particular, is in this work. By putting artificial evolution created by man himself next to the natural evolution process we know, artificial nature created by man next to the nature we know, artificial dangers created by man (nuclear, biological weapons) next to the dangers we know in nature, how artificiality began to replace naturalness, how man has changed in this artificiality, how nature has become different. It contains very, very important analyzes about why this road to its extinction should be abandoned and who is responsible for it.
Bookchin, one of the important names of ecological thought, reminds that man is not a creature above nature, but a creature dependent on nature, and he is called the only responsible for the extinction of "human", who treats even the female of his own kind, who is a creature of his own kind. Likewise, there is no need to explain how he treats nature and animals. He completely excludes the animal world by saying wild nature.
I say read Bookchin, who fights for people despite people and whose righteousness is revealed in every line, and even understand this valuable name, for your future...
If Nature had a manifesto, it would definitely be the works of Bookchin.
This is a work that reveals the necessity of returning to nature "again" for human beings, the dangerous course of human beings and the destruction of nature at the end of this path. Our author, who has walked through dualities in particular, is in this work. By putting artificial evolution created by man himself next to the natural evolution process we know, artificial nature created by man next to the nature we know, artificial dangers created by man (nuclear, biological weapons) next to the dangers we know in nature, how artificiality began to replace naturalness, how man has changed in this artificiality, how nature has become different. It contains very, very important analyzes about why this road to its extinction should be abandoned and who is responsible for it.
Bookchin, one of the important names of ecological thought, reminds that man is not a creature above nature, but a creature dependent on nature, and he is called the only responsible for the extinction of "human", who treats even the female of his own kind, who is a creature of his own kind. Likewise, there is no need to explain how he treats nature and animals. He completely excludes the animal world by saying wild nature.
I say read Bookchin, who fights for people despite people and whose righteousness is revealed in every line, and even understand this valuable name, for your future...
July 11, 2025
some important critiques of marx's interpretation of hegel and conception of materialism / productivist ideology. i am broadly on board with his critiques of the contemporary left / his calls for a more robust focus on moving past hierarchical forms of democracy like republicanism but i felt like his vision for what this means in practice were very vague even while he was simultaneously critiquing the 'gradual dissolution of the state' in orthodox marxian thought
May 27, 2022
Varied essays on anarchism in the 70s vs the Left, mostly aimed at redirecting consciousness raising, environmentalist, and marxist strains to fully abandon their industrial, capitalist, technologist, and fundamentally domineering underpinnings for a utopian but not universalist project of liberatory self-development self-organization and ecological coexistence.
February 5, 2025
Entiendo que aquí recopilan un poco sus mejores ensayos y artículos, pero macho, esque atinó en todo.
August 2, 2015
A profound vision, but one that, in this era of commodified counterculture, climate change, and conservative resurgence seems terribly dated.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews