Bookchin: A Critical Appraisal

257 Pages·2008·0.91 MB·English

by  Damian F. White

Bookchin
WWhhiittee 0000 pprree ii 2299//88//0088 1144::2222::3322
WWhhiittee 0000 pprree iiii 2299//88//0088 1144::2222::3322
Bookchin
A Critical Appraisal
DAMIAN F. WHITE
PLUTO PRESS
www.plutobooks.com
WWhhiittee 0000 pprree iiiiii 2299//88//0088 1144::2222::3333
First published 2008 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Damian F. White 2008
The right of Damian F. White to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 1965 0 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 1964 3 Paperback
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected
to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin. The paper may
contain up to 70% post consumer waste.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton
Printed and bound in the European Union by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
WWhhiittee 0000 pprree iivv 2299//88//0088 1144::2222::3333
To Mum and Dad
Mark and Sarah
With Love and Thanks
WWhhiittee 0000 pprree vv 2299//88//0088 1144::2222::3333
WWhhiittee 0000 pprree vvii 2299//88//0088 1144::2222::3344
Contents
Abbreviations xi
Acknowledgments xiii
PART ONE: BEGINNINGS
Introduction 3
Orientations 5
Bookchin’s Critics 6
Plan of the Work 8
1 Environments, Cities and Post-Scarcity Worlds 12
The Political Life of an American Radical 12
Contemporary Issues 14
Neither Washington nor Moscow 15
The Problem of Chemicals in Food 16
Our Synthetic Environment 17
Emerging Themes in Bookchin’s Early Writings 18
Post-Scarcity Politics and Ecology as Revolutionary
Thought 19
Beyond the New Left 24
Mapping the Arc of Bookchin’s Work 24
Intellectual Infl uences 26
PART TWO: THE LEGACY OF DOMINATION
2 Hierarchy, Domination, Nature: Bookchin’s Historical
Social Theory 31
Marxism and ‘Bourgeois Sociology’ 32
From Social Classes and the State to Social Hierarchy
and Social Domination 34
The Outlook of Organic Society 36
The Emergence of Hierarchy 37
A ‘Legacy of Domination’ and a ‘Legacy of Freedom’ 39
Considering Bookchin’s Historical Social Theory 40
Organic Society I: Vagaries and Inconsistencies 42
WWhhiittee 0000 pprree vviiii 2299//88//0088 1144::2222::3344
viii Contents
Organic Society II: Anthropological Evidence and
Methodological Concerns 45
After Ecological Romanticism 47
Social Hierarchy/Social Domination 48
Social Hierarchy, Social Domination and the Idea of
the Dominating of Nature by Humans 50
Dominant Ideologies and Actual Relations with Nature 52
Time, Space, Social Production and Social Ecologies 55
Domination, Liberation, and the Production,
Reproduction and Enframing of Active Nature(s) 56
Domination/Producing/Appropriating Nature 59
3 Social Ecology as Modern Social Theory 62
The Emergence of Capitalism 62
Mapping the Contours of ‘Advanced’ Capitalism 64
Developing a Critique of ‘Advanced’ Capitalism 65
Defi ning the Environmental Agenda 70
The Critique of Neo-Malthusianism 70
Causality and Problem Defi nition in Socio-Ecological
Critique 73
Socio-Ecological Critique without Malthus 75
Post-Scarcity Ecology 77
The Virtues of Bookchin’s Approach to Socio-Ecological
Critique 81
4 Capitalism and Ecology 83
The ‘Grow or Die’ Thesis 84
Bookchin’s Macro Eco-Crisis Theory 85
Social Ecology, Political Ecology and the Sociology of
Environmental Justice 89
The Sociology of Ecological Modernisation and its
Critics 92
Climate Change, Green Governmentality and Nature
as an Accumulation Strategy 96
PART THREE: THE LEGACY OF FREEDOM
5 Ethics and the Normative Grounds of Critique 101
Ecology and Revolutionary Thought 102
Holism, Spontaneity, Non-Hierarchy 103
Developing Dialectical Naturalism 104
WWhhiittee 0000 pprree vviiiiii 2299//88//0088 1144::2222::3344
Contents ix
Humanity and the Natural World 107
First Nature, Second Nature and Free Nature 108
‘Nature’ as the Grounds or Matrix for Ethics 109
Social Ecology, Scientifi c Ecology and Evolutionary
Theory 110
‘Non-Hierarchical’ and ‘Mutualistic’ Nature? 113
Metaphors and Nature 117
The Ecological Ethics of Social Ecology 118
Social Ecology versus Deep Ecology 120
Hybrid Natures and Active Subjects 123
6 Urbanisation, Cities, Utopia 127
‘Crisis in Our Cities’ 127
Reifi cation and the Unlimited City 129
‘The Limits of the City’ 130
The Humanist Concept of the City in History 131
The City as a Human[e] Community: Envisaging
Ecotopia 134
Bookchin’s Critique of the Limitless City 137
Social Ecology and the New Urbanism 138
Suburbs, Ex-Urbs and Social Ecology 143
Eco-Communalism or a Pluralist Eco-Urbanism? 145
Social Ecology and Technology 147
Free Nature: Blending or Maintaining Demarcations? 148
Dissolving or Retrofi tting the Modern Metropolis? 150
Utopian Dialogue as ‘Public Event’ 152
7 Citizens, Politics, Democracy 155
The Polis and the Political 156
Zoon Politikon, Paideia and Philia 157
The Legacy of Freedom 158
The Rise of the Free Cities, Neighbourhood Communes
and City Confederations 160
The Municipal Route to Modernity 162
Libertarian Municipalism: From Here to There 163
The History/Histor(ies) of Civic Freedom 164
From Dionysus to Philia 169
Polis and Cosmopolis 172
Transparency and Complexity 174
Between the Heroic and the Imminent 176
WWhhiittee 0000 pprree iixx 2299//88//0088 1144::2222::3344