Murray Bookchin

Murray Bookchin [ mɝ ː i bʊktʃɪn ] ( born January 14, 1921 in New York City; † 30 July 2006 in the Burlington, Vermont) was an American libertarian socialist and founder of anarchist and ecological thinking (see eco - anarchism ). He was director and co-founder of the Institute for Social Ecology ( ISE) in Plainfield, Vermont and professor at Ramapo College of New Jersey in Mahwah. Bookchin was the author of numerous articles and books that appeared in Germany, among others, in Karin Kramer Verlag, the publisher and the magazine Black Nevertheless thread.

Life

Bookchin's parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. At age nine, he was a member of a communist youth group. But Disillusioned by the authoritarian character of the movement he came out a few years later.

In New Jersey Bookchin worked in a foundry and as a trade union activist before joining the U.S. Army. Later he worked in the auto industry, left the industry and the trade unions but after the General Motors strike of 1946.

His interests shifted to the environment and writing, he joined the circle around the journal Contemporary Issues in former Trotskyists to the German emigrants Joseph Weber. In Contemporary Issues ( and in parallel in the German edition things, the time) he published his first article, including food chemistry. Therefore Bookchin is one of the preparers of the ecological movement. As a theorist, he felt this movement closely connected, but he said that the domination of nature by humans whatsoever hierarchies and power pursuit subject based. In the rejection of hierarchy and domination Bookchin developed an anarchist ethics and philosophy.

Bookchin estimated the German philosophy of Immanuel Kant to Theodor W. Adorno. Schooled in the Spanish Civil War and the Spanish Revolution, he developed a Social Ecology, based on decentralization, dual counter-power, self-management and self-organization, the class struggle of the old school refuses and instead relies on neighborhood work, public meetings and direct democracy.

An important example was the polis of the Greek cities in the ancient world, whose citizens' assemblies and equal opportunity to decide whether the male full citizens he saw as a role model, even though he was aware that this early version of democracy, the women excluded and also based on slavery to him. In addition to this downside however he saw traits that seemed worthy of emulation. His ideas and theories he published in books, interviews and articles.

From 1977 to 1981 he taught at Ramapo College in New Jersey.

In Burlington, Bookchin was creative director of a green movement, the critical and dismissive grappled with the Green Party of the United States. In 1971 he participated in the founding of the Institute for Social Ecology in Plainfield, which today exists, and could be temporarily discontinued for organizational center of an international movement for " libertarian communalism ". The highlight of this organization attempts for a pragmatic anarchism, which organizes international politics at the municipal level, the approaches from Lisbon ( August 1998 26.- 28. ) Were the Conventions in Lisbon in 1998, and Vermont in 1999. Could a year later not continue as to " American" potentially interested parties were excluded by a screening process of the participation in advance. The fear of having to receive saboteurs as a participant at the conference, led ultimately to the failure of the second international conference and referred the ideas back to the respective interested parties. Nevertheless, the initiative showed that it is possible to discuss internationally via a provider to match steps and arrive at common positions and actions that could promote a new libertarian movement internationally.

In Marxist circles, he was known for his criticism of the pure Marxist doctrine. Bookchin was a radical anti- capitalist and proponents of decentralization. His ideas and writings had great influence on the anti-globalization movement and the U.S. environmental movement, and the radical wing of the U.S. Open.

Works

• Listen, Marxist! ( in: Under the cobblestones is the beach, Volume 1, page 49-109 ), Karin Kramer Verlag, Berlin, 1975, 2nd edition 1980
• The forms of freedom. Essays on ecology and anarchism ( in anarchism among others in the post- deficiency society, Some remarks on the "classic" Anarchism and Modern Ecology, The May / June events in France in 1968 ). Publisher Pandora's box, Telgte Westbevern 1977
• The boundaries of the city (1977 ), published by Jacob Sohn, Berlin
• Murray Bookchin, Luciano Lanza et al, ed. by Wolfgang Haug: self-government. The basis of a liberated society, publishing Nevertheless, Reutlingen 1979
• Hierarchy and domination ( including inter alia: The way out of the ecological crisis, self-management and advanced technology, Beyond Neo-Marxism ), Karin Kramer Verlag, Berlin 1981.
• Nature and consciousness, wind pressure Verlag 1982
• The ecology of freedom. We do not need hierarchies ( including inter alia: The concept of social ecology, The emergence of hierarchy), Beltz Verlag, Weinheim / Basel 1985, ISBN 3-407-85057-3.
• The redesign of the Company ( the appendix contains a 42 -page bibliography of Bookchin's works with the various translations con 1950-1991 ), Still Verlag, Grafenau 1992, ISBN 3-922209-35-1 The redesign of the company ( online edition, PDF file; 480 kB)

Secondary literature

• Janet Biehl: The social ecofeminism and other essays ( influenced by Bookchin approach, translated by Wolfgang Haug ) Nevertheless Verlag, Grafenau 1991, ISBN 3-922209-34-3.
• Janet Biehl: The libertarian communalism. The political practice of social ecology ( in an interview with Bookchin ) Nevertheless Verlag, Grafenau 1998, ISBN 3-931786-07-2 review in GWR No.222 and No.232
• Cornelia Wicht: The Ecological anarchism Murray Bookchin - an introductory text, Frankfurt / M.: . Publishing Free Society, 1980 - 73 pp. ( 1st edition ), DA- L0001420.
• Rolf Cantzen: Less State - Other company. ( Freedom Ecology anarchism ) Nevertheless Verlag, Grafenau 1995 (2nd Edition ), ISBN 3-922209-81-5.
• Peter Marshall: Bookchin and the Ecology of Freedom, in: " Demanding the Impossible. A History of Anarchism ", Fontana Press, London 1993, ISBN 0-00-686245-4.
• Selva Varengo: La rivoluzione ecologica. Il pensiero di Murray Bookchin libertario, Zero in condotta, Milano 2007, ISBN 9,788,895,950,006th

About libertarian communalism:

• Wolfgang Haug ( Lisbon report ): libertarian communalism - a revival of anarchism in: Black thread No. 66 (1998)
• Wolfgang Haug: The new movement for a libertarian communalism reinfected as in crisis. The Conference of Plainfield in 1999, in: Black thread, No. 69 (1999)