View source for Murray Bookchin

{{Short description|American social theorist (1921–2006)}}
{{redirect|Bookchin|the artist|Natalie Bookchin}}
{{use mdy dates|date=March 2023}}
{{use American English|date=July 2020}}
{{Infobox philosopher
|region = [[Western philosophy]]
|era = [[20th-century philosophy|20th-]]/[[21st-century philosophy]]
|image = Murray_Bookchin,_Burlington_Vermont,_1990.jpg
|caption = Bookchin in 1990
|name = Murray Bookchin
|birth_name = Mortimore Bookchin
|birth_date = January 14, 1921
|birth_place = [[New York City]], US
|death_date = {{death date and age|2006|07|30|1921|01|14}}
|death_place = [[Burlington, Vermont|Burlington]], [[Vermont]], US
|school_tradition = [[Continental philosophy]], [[anarchism]], [[libertarian socialism]], [[Hegelianism]]
|main_interests = [[Philosophy of ecology]], [[social hierarchy]], [[dialectics]], [[post-scarcity]], [[anarchism]], [[libertarian socialism]], ethics, [[environmental sustainability]], ecology, history of [[People's history|popular]] revolutionary movements
|notable_ideas = [[Communalism (Bookchin)|Communalism]], [[libertarian municipalism]], [[Social ecology (Bookchin)|social ecology]], [[dialectical naturalism]]
}}
'''Murray Bookchin''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|b|ʊ|k|t|ʃ|ɪ|n}}; January 14, 1921 – July 30, 2006<ref name="Guardian-20060808">{{cite news |last1=Small |first1=Mike |title=Murray Bookchin |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/aug/08/guardianobituaries.usa |access-date=June 30, 2018 |work=The Guardian |date=August 8, 2006 |format=Obituary |archive-date=July 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220716133107/https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/aug/08/guardianobituaries.usa |url-status=live }}</ref>) was an American [[Social theory|social theorist]], author, orator, historian, and [[Political philosophy|political philosopher.]] Influenced by [[G. W. F. Hegel]], [[Karl Marx]], and [[Peter Kropotkin]],<ref name="EoF-2005">{{cite book |last1=Bookchin |first1=Murray |title=The Ecology of Freedom; The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy |date=January 2005 |publisher=[[AK Press]] |location=Chico, California |isbn=978-1904859260  |url=https://www.akpress.org/ecologyoffreedom.html |access-date=June 30, 2018 |archive-date=April 25, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220425033549/https://www.akpress.org/ecologyoffreedom.html |url-status=live|pages=8, 11 }}</ref> he was a pioneer in the [[environmental movement]].<ref>John Muir Institute for Environmental Studies, University of New Mexico, Environmental Philosophy, Inc, [[University of Georgia]], ''[[Environmental Ethics (journal)|Environmental Ethics]]'' v. 12 1990: 193.</ref> Bookchin formulated and developed the theory of [[Social ecology (Bookchin)|social ecology]] and [[urban planning]] within [[Anarchism|anarchist]], [[libertarian socialist]], and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books covering topics in politics, philosophy, history, urban affairs, and social ecology. Among the most important were ''Our Synthetic Environment'' (1962), ''[[Post-Scarcity Anarchism]]'' (1971), ''[[The Ecology of Freedom]]'' (1982), and ''Urbanization Without Cities'' (1987). In the late 1990s, he became disenchanted with what he saw as an increasingly apolitical "[[Lifestyle anarchism|lifestylism]]" of the contemporary anarchist movement, stopped referring to himself as an anarchist, and founded his own libertarian socialist ideology called "[[Libertarian communalism|communalism]]", which seeks to reconcile and expand [[Marxism|Marxist]], [[Syndicalism|syndicalist]], and anarchist thought.{{sfn|Bookchin|2015|pp=157–158}}<ref>{{cite web |author=[[Janet Biehl|Biehl, Janet]] |url=http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/janet-biehl-bookchin-breaks-with-anarchism.html |title=Bookchin Breaks with Anarchism Communalism October 2007: 1. |work=theanarchistlibrary.org |access-date=25 May 2023 |archive-date=July 30, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200730221502/http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/janet-biehl-bookchin-breaks-with-anarchism.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Bookchin was a prominent [[anti-capitalist]], [[anti-fascist]] and advocate of social [[decentralization]] along ecological and democratic lines. His ideas have influenced social movements since the 1960s, including the [[New Left]], the [[anti-nuclear movement]], the [[anti-globalization movement]], [[Occupy Wall Street]], and the [[democratic confederalism]] of the [[Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria]]. He was a central figure in the [[Environmental movement in the United States|American green movement]]. An autodidact who never attended college, he is considered to be one of the most important left theorists of the twentieth century.

== Biography ==
===Background and early life 1921-1930===
Bookchin was born on 1921 in New York City to Nathan Bookchin (born Nacham Wisotsky) and his first wife, Rose (Kalusky) Bookchin, [[History of the Jews in Russia|Jewish immigrants]] from the Russian Empire.  His father was from [[Mazyr]] (now Belarus) and his mother from [[Vilnius]] (Lithuania).<ref name="nynat">''New York, U.S., Naturalization Records, 1882–1944''</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.social-ecology.org/article.php?story=20031028142620228|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071014123810/http://www.social-ecology.org/article.php?story=20031028142620228|title=''The Murray Bookchin Reader: Introduction''|archive-date=October 14, 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/reader/intro.html |title=The Murray Bookchin Reader: Intro |publisher=Dwardmac.pitzer.edu |access-date=May 11, 2012 |archive-date=September 6, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110906162756/http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/reader/intro.html |url-status=live }}</ref> He was embarrassed by his given name Mortimore and went by his childhood nickname, Murray.{{sfn|Biehl|2015|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=aibYCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA25 25fn8]}} His father adopted the name of a relative, Bukczin, and anglicized it to Bookchin. His parents divorced in 1934. He grew up in the [[Bronx]] with his mother, uncle Daniel, and maternal grandmother, Zeitel, a [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Socialist Revolutionary]] who imbued him with [[Narodniks|Russian populist]] ideas.
===Early political involvement and personal life 1930-1947===
After his grandmother's death in 1930, he joined the [[Young Pioneers of America]], the Communist youth organization (for children 9 to 14)<ref name="youtube2007">{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd0hxVUIQvk |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211114/Vd0hxVUIQvk |archive-date=November 14, 2021 |url-status=live |title=''Anarchism in America'' documentary |publisher=YouTube |date=January 9, 2007 |access-date=May 11, 2012}}{{cbignore}}</ref> and the [[Young Communist League USA|Young Communist League]] (for youths) in 1935. He attended the [[New York Workers School|Workers School]] near Union Square, where he studied [[Marxism]]. In the late 1930s he broke with [[Stalinism]] and gravitated toward [[Trotskyism]], joining the [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]] (SWP). In the early 1940s, he worked in a foundry in [[Bayonne, New Jersey|Bayonne]], New Jersey, where he was a trade union organizer and shop steward for the [[United Electrical Workers]] as well as a recruiter for the SWP. Within the SWP, he adhered to the Goldman-[[Felix Morrow|Morrow]] faction, which broke away after the war ended. He was an auto worker and UAW member at the time of the great [[United Auto Workers (UAW) strike of 1945–1946|General Motors strike of 1945–46]]. In 1949, while speaking to a [[Zionist]] youth organization at [[City College of New York|City College]], Bookchin met a mathematics student, Beatrice Appelstein, whom he married in 1951.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/murray-bookchin-412486.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220618/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/murray-bookchin-412486.html |last=Price|first=Andy|archive-date=June 18, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Murray Bookchin, Political philosopher and activist who became a founder of the ecological movement |access-date=November 11, 2012 |location=London |work=[[The Independent]] |date=August 19, 2006}}</ref> They were married for 12 years and lived together for 35, remaining close friends and political allies for the rest of his life. They had two children, Debbie and Joseph.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/us/07bookchin.html?_r=0 |title=Murray Bookchin, 85, writer, Activist and Ecology Theorist Dies August 7, 2006 |access-date=November 11, 2012 |work=[[The New York Times]] |first=Douglas |last=Martin |date=August 7, 2006 |archive-date=May 31, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150531064200/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/us/07bookchin.html?_r=0 |url-status=live }}</ref> On religious views, Bookchin was an atheist, but was considered to be tolerant of religious views.{{Sfn|Light|1998|p=27}}
===Writing for Contemporary Issues and interest in ecology===
From 1947, Bookchin collaborated with a fellow lapsed Trotskyist, the German expatriate [[Josef Weber]], in New York in the [[Movement for a Democracy of Content]], a group of 20 or so post-Trotskyists who collectively edited the periodical ''Contemporary Issues – A Magazine for a Democracy of Content''. ''Contemporary Issues'' embraced [[utopianism]]. The periodical provided a forum for the belief that previous attempts to create utopia had foundered on the necessity of toil and drudgery; but now modern technology had obviated the need for human toil, a liberatory development. To achieve this "[[post-scarcity]]" society, Bookchin developed a theory of ecological decentralism. The magazine published Bookchin's first articles, including the pathbreaking "The Problem of Chemicals in Food" (1952). In 1958, Bookchin defined himself as an anarchist,<ref name="youtube2007"/> seeing parallels between anarchism and environmentalism. His first book, ''[[Our Synthetic Environment]],'' was published under the pseudonym Lewis Herber, in 1962, a few months before [[Rachel Carson]]'s famous ''[[Silent Spring]]''.<ref>Paull, John (2013) [http://orgprints.org/22934/7/22934.pdf "The Rachel Carson Letters and the Making of Silent Spring"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131103230258/http://orgprints.org/22934/7/22934.pdf |date=November 3, 2013 }}, Sage Open, 3(July):1–12.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/bio1.html |title=''A Short Biography of Murray Bookchin'' by Janet Biehl |publisher=Dwardmac.pitzer.edu |access-date=May 11, 2012 |archive-date=August 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807055952/http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/bio1.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
===Middle Career 1960s-80===

In 1964, Bookchin joined the [[Congress of Racial Equality]] (CORE), and protested racism at the [[1964 World's Fair]]. During 1964–1967, while living on Manhattan's [[Lower East Side]], he cofounded and was the principal figure in the New York Federation of Anarchists. His groundbreaking essay "Ecology and Revolutionary Thought" introduced environmentalism and, more specifically, ecology as a concept in radical politics.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/ecologyandrev.html |title=Ecology and Revolution |publisher=Dwardmac.pitzer.edu |date=June 16, 2004 |access-date=May 11, 2012 |archive-date=August 29, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200829114202/http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/ecologyandrev.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1968, he founded another group that published the influential ''Anarchos'' magazine, which published that and other innovative essays on post-scarcity and sustainable technologies such as solar and wind energy, and on decentralization and miniaturization. Lecturing throughout the United States, he helped popularize the concept of ecology to the [[counterculture]]. His widely republished 1969 essay "Listen, Marxist!"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nasalam.org/bkchn06.htm |title=Listen, Marxist! |publisher=Nasalam.org |access-date=May 11, 2012 |archive-date=August 29, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200829114536/http://www.nasalam.org/bkchn06.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> warned [[Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)|Students for a Democratic Society]] (in vain) against an impending takeover by a Marxist group. "Once again the dead are walking in our midst," he wrote, "ironically, draped in the name of [[Karl Marx|Marx]], the man who tried to bury the dead of the nineteenth century. So the revolution of our own day can do nothing better than parody, in turn, the [[October Revolution]] of 1917 and the [[Russian Civil War|civil war]] of 1918–1920, with its 'class line,' its [[Bolshevik]] Party, its '[[Dictatorship of the proletariat|proletarian dictatorship]],' its [[puritanical]] morality, and even its slogan, 'Soviet power'".<ref name=Walker>[[Jesse Walker|Walker, Jesse]] (July 31, 2006) [http://reason.com/blog/2006/07/31/murray-bookchin-rip Murray Bookchin, RIP] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121012201439/http://reason.com/blog/2006/07/31/murray-bookchin-rip |date=October 12, 2012 }}, ''[[Reason (magazine)|Reason]]''</ref>

In 1969–1970, he taught at the Alternate U, a counter-cultural radical school based on 14th Street in Manhattan. In 1971, he moved to Burlington, Vermont, with a group of friends, to put into practice his ideas of decentralization. In the fall of 1973, he was hired by [[Goddard College]] to lecture on technology; his lectures led to a teaching position and to the creation of the Social Ecology Studies program in 1974 and the Institute for Social Ecology (ISE) soon thereafter, of which he became the director. In 1974, he was hired by [[Ramapo College]] in [[Mahwah, New Jersey|Mahwah]], New Jersey, where he quickly became a full professor. The ISE was a hub for experimentation and study of [[appropriate technology]] in the 1970s. In 1977–78 he was a member of the Spruce Mountain Affinity Group of the [[Clamshell Alliance]]. Also in 1977, he published ''[[The Spanish Anarchists]]'', a history of [[anarchism in Spain|the Spanish anarchist movement]] up to the [[Spanish Revolution of 1936|revolution of 1936]]. During this period, Bookchin briefly forged some ties with the nascent [[Libertarianism|libertarian]] movement, speaking at a [[Libertarian Party (United States)|Libertarian Party]] convention and contributing to a newsletter edited by [[Karl Hess]]. Nevertheless, Bookchin rejected the types of libertarianism that advocated unconstrained individualism.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bookchin/CMMNL2.MCW.html|title=Reflections: Murray Bookchin|website=dwardmac.pitzer.edu|access-date=October 16, 2019|archive-date=October 15, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181015005827/http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bookchin/cmmnl2.mcw.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
===Late Life and death===
In 1980, Bookchin co-established the New England Anarchist Conference (NEAC) to organize the [[anarchist movement]] in the United States. At its first meeting in October 1980, 175 anarchists from the [[Northeastern United States|northeastern US]] and [[Quebec]] attended. By the second conference in January 1981 in [[Somerville, Massachusetts|Somerville]], Massachusetts, the NEAC devolved into [[sectarianism]], which moved Bookchin to lose faith in a [[Socialist Revolution|socialist revolution]] happening in the US.{{sfn|Biehl|2015}}
[[File:On beautiful Lake Como.jpg|thumb|Bookchin on a boat sailing the [[Lake Como]] with [[Rossella di Leo]] and [[Amedeo Bertolo]], photographed by [[Janet Biehl]] in 1988]]
During the 1980s, Bookchin engaged in occasional critiques of [[Bernie Sanders]]' mayorship in Burlington.  Bookchin criticized Sanders' politics, claiming he lacked a drive to establish [[direct democracy]], followed a Marxian deprioritization of ecology, and was a “'centralist' who narrowly focused on economic growth."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rossi |first=Marco Rosaire |date=2022-04-03 |title=The Sanders-Bookchin Debate |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10455752.2022.2051058 |journal=Capitalism Nature Socialism |language=en |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=120–138 |doi=10.1080/10455752.2022.2051058 |s2cid=247404346 |issn=1045-5752 |access-date=June 27, 2023 |archive-date=June 27, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230627001222/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10455752.2022.2051058 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref>  Bookchin and his social ecologist colleagues in the Burlington Greens, which he co-founded with his former wife Bea Bookchin, criticized the Sanders administration for pushing for a luxury condo waterfront redevelopment, which was eventually rejected by Burlington voters. They advocated for a moratorium on growth, a moral economy, and social justice rooted in grassroots democracy.<ref>Vote Green leaflet https://www.scribd.com/doc/229304919/Vote-Bea Retrieved February 24, 2024</ref>

In 1988, Bookchin and [[Howie Hawkins]] founded the [[Left Green Network]] "as a radical alternative to U.S. Green liberals", based around the principles of [[Social ecology (Bookchin)|social ecology]] and libertarian municipalism.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Biehl |first1=Janet |author1-link=Janet Biehl |title=The Left Green Network (1988–91) |url=http://www.biehlonbookchin.com/left-green-network/ |website=Ecology or Catastrophe |access-date=November 16, 2019 |date=March 22, 2015 |archive-date=March 25, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150325131724/http://www.biehlonbookchin.com/left-green-network/ |url-status=usurped |ref={{harvid|Biehl|2015b}} }}</ref>

In 1995, Bookchin lamented the decline of [[American anarchism]] into [[Anarcho-primitivism|primitivism]], anti-technologism, neo-[[Situationism]], individual self-expression, and "ad hoc adventurism," at the expense of forming a social movement. He formally broke with anarchism in 1999, describing himself in 2002 as a "communalist" in a major essay elaborating his late-life views, called "The Communalist Project".{{sfn|Bookchin|2015}}{{pn|date=March 2025}}

He continued to teach at the ISE until 2004. Bookchin died of [[congestive heart failure]] on July 30, 2006, at his home in Burlington, at the age of 85.<ref>{{cite news |title=Murray Bookchin, visionary social theorist, dies at 85 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/us/07bookchin.html |work=The New York Times |date=August 7, 2006 |last1=Martin |first1=Douglas |access-date=February 22, 2017 |archive-date=October 1, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181001031323/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/us/07bookchin.html?_r=0 |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Thought<!--'Dialectical naturalism' redirects here--> ==
{{Anarchism US|people}}
{{Socialism US}}
In addition to his political writings, Bookchin wrote extensively on philosophy, calling his ideas '''dialectical naturalism'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->.<ref name="EoF-2005" />{{RP|31}} The [[dialectical]] writings of [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]], which articulate a developmental philosophy of change and growth, seemed to him to lend themselves to an organic, environmentalist approach.<ref name="EoF-2005" />{{RP|96–97}} Although Hegel "exercised a considerable influence" on Bookchin, he was not, in any sense, a Hegelian.<ref>{{cite book |first=Murray |last=Bookchin |title=The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays on Dialectical Naturalism |location=Montreal |publisher=[[Black Rose Books]] |date=1996 |page=x |isbn=}}</ref> His philosophical writings emphasize [[humanism]], [[rationality]], and the ideals of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Murray |last=Bookchin  |date=1982 |title=The Ecology of Freedom |location=US |publisher=Cheshire Books |page=20 |isbn=}}</ref><ref>See ''Re-Enchanting Humanity'', London: Cassell, 1995, amongst other works.</ref>
[[File:Helix, v.3, no.10, Jun. 20, 1968 - DPLA - f9ecebcefb9617a4b4bfe6acddc80869 (page 12).jpg|thumb|  Bookchin writing about the play [[Marat/Sade]] and it's relation to [[Appetition|Desire]] and Hegel's understanding of it in revolutionary politics in Helix Magazine, 1968]]
=== General sociological and psychological views ===
Bookchin was critical of class-centered analysis of Marxism and simplistic anti-state forms of libertarianism and liberalism and wished to present what he saw as a more complex view of societies. In ''The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy,'' he says that:

<blockquote>
My use of the word [[hierarchy]] in the subtitle of this work is meant to be provocative. There is a strong theoretical need to contrast hierarchy with the more widespread use of the words class and State; careless use of these terms can produce a dangerous simplification of social reality. To use the words hierarchy, class, and State interchangeably, as many social theorists do, is insidious and obscurantist. This practice, in the name of a "classless" or "libertarian" society, could easily conceal the existence of hierarchical relationships and a hierarchical sensibility, both of which—even in the absence of economic exploitation or political coercion—would serve to perpetuate unfreedom.<ref>Murray Bookchin. ''The Ecology of Freedom: the emergence and dissolution of Hierarchy''. Cheshire Books: Palo Alto. 1982. p. 3 {{ISBN?}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Bookchin also points to an accumulation of hierarchical systems throughout history that has occurred up to contemporary societies which tends to determine the human collective and individual [[Psyche (psychology)|psyche]]:

<blockquote>
The objective history of the social structure becomes internalized as a subjective history of the psychic structure. Heinous as my view may be to modern [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]]ians, it is not the discipline of work but the discipline of rule that demands the repression of internal nature. This repression then extends outward to external nature as a mere object of rule and later of exploitation. This mentality permeates our individual psyches in a cumulative form up to the present day—not merely as capitalism but as the vast history of hierarchical society from its inception.<ref>Murray Bookchin. ''The Ecology of Freedom: the emergence and dissolution of Hierarchy''. Cheshire Books: Palo Alto. 1982. p. 8 {{ISBN?}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Bookchin argued that both [[Marxism]] and [[syndicalism]] had focused too narrowly on appealing to workers and workplace issues.
<blockquote>
Yes, class struggles still exist, but they occur farther and farther below the threshold of class war. Workers, as I can attest from my own experience as a foundryman and as an autoworker for General Motors, do not regard themselves as mindless adjuncts to machines or as factory dwellers or even as "instruments of history," as Marxists might put it. They regard themselves as living human beings: as fathers and mothers, as sons and daughters, as people with dreams and visions, as members of communities—not only of trade unions.{{sfn|Bookchin|2015}}
</blockquote>

=== Humanity's environmental predicament ===
Bookchin's book about humanity's collision course with the natural world, ''[[Our Synthetic Environment]]'', was published six months before [[Rachel Carson]]'s ''[[Silent Spring]].''{{sfn|Bookchin|2015}}{{pn|date=March 2025}}

Bookchin rejected [[Barry Commoner]]'s belief that the environmental crisis could be traced to technological choices, [[Paul R. Ehrlich|Paul Ehrlich]]'s views that it could be traced to overpopulation, or the even more pessimistic view that traces this crisis to human nature. Rather, Bookchin felt that our environmental predicament is the result of the cancerous logic of capitalism, a system aimed at maximizing profit instead of enriching human lives: "By the very logic of its grow-or-die imperative, capitalism may well be producing ecological crises that gravely imperil the integrity of life on this planet."

The solution to this crisis, he said, is not a return to hunter-gatherer societies, which Bookchin characterized as xenophobic and warlike. Bookchin likewise opposed "a politics of mere protest, lacking programmatic content, a proposed alternative, and a movement to give people direction and continuity."{{sfn|Bookchin|2015}}{{pn|date=March 2025}} He claims we need:<blockquote>...a constant awareness that a given society's irrationality is deep-seated, that its serious pathologies are not isolated problems that can be cured piecemeal but must be solved by sweeping changes in the often hidden sources of crisis and suffering—that awareness alone is what can hold a movement together, give it continuity, preserve its message and organization beyond a given generation, and expand its ability to deal with new issues and developments.{{sfn|Bookchin|2015}}{{pn|date=March 2025}}</blockquote>The answer then lies in communalism, a system encompassing a [[Direct democracy|directly democratic]] political organization anchored in loosely confederated popular assemblies, decentralization of power, absence of domination of any kind, and replacing capitalism with human-centered forms of production.{{sfn|Bookchin|2015}}{{pn|date=March 2025}}

=== Social ecology<!--'Social ecology (Bookchin)' and 'Social ecology (theory)' redirect here--> ===
{{see also|Social ecology (academic field){{!}}Social ecology}}
'''Social ecology'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> is a [[philosophical theory]] associated with Bookchin, concerned with the relationship between ecological and social issues.<ref name="Bookchin-Social-Ecology">{{cite book |last=Bookchin |first=Murray |title=Social Ecology and Communalism |url=http://new-compass.net/sites/new-compass.net/files/Bookchin%27s%20Social%20Ecology%20and%20Communalism.pdf |year=2006 |publisher=[[AK Press]] |isbn=978-1-904859-49-9 |access-date=February 23, 2023 |archive-date=November 24, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124111812/http://new-compass.net/sites/new-compass.net/files/Bookchin%27s%20Social%20Ecology%20and%20Communalism.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Bookchin-Psichenatura">{{cite web |last=Bookchin |first=Murray |title=What is Social Ecology? |url=http://www.psichenatura.it/fileadmin/img/M._Bookchin_What_is_Social_Ecology.pdf |year=2007 |publisher=psichenatura.it |access-date=February 23, 2023 |archive-date=December 27, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151227082949/http://www.psichenatura.it/fileadmin/img/M._Bookchin_What_is_Social_Ecology.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> It is not a movement but a theory primarily associated with his thought and elaborated over his body of work.{{sfn|Light|1998|p=5}} He presents a utopian philosophy of human evolution that combines the nature of biology and society into a third "thinking nature" beyond biochemistry and physiology, which he argues is a more complete, conscious, ethical, and rational nature. Humanity, by this line of thought, is the latest development from the long history of organic development on Earth. Bookchin's social ecology proposes ethical principles for replacing a society's propensity for hierarchy and domination with that of democracy and freedom.<ref name="Stokols2018">{{cite book |last=Stokols |first=Daniel |title=Social Ecology in the Digital Age: Solving Complex Problems in a Globalized World |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T4mZDgAAQBAJ |year=2018 |publisher=[[Elsevier Science]] |isbn=978-0-12-803114-8 |page=33 |via=[[Google Books]] |access-date=July 22, 2018 |archive-date=September 21, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230921021324/https://books.google.com/books?id=T4mZDgAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>

It emerged from a time in the mid-1960s, under the emergence of both the [[environmental movement|global environmental]] and the [[Civil rights movement|American civil rights]] movements, and played a much more visible role from the upward movement against [[nuclear power]] by the late 1970s.<ref name="Bookchin-Socialeco">{{cite web |title=On Bookchin's Social Ecology and its Contributions to Social Movements |work=Institute for Social Ecology |url=http://social-ecology.org/wp/2008/03/on-bookchins-social-ecology-and-its-contributions-to-social-movements/ |year=2018 |publisher=social-ecology.org |access-date=February 23, 2023 |archive-date=September 29, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170929113609/http://social-ecology.org/wp/2008/03/on-bookchins-social-ecology-and-its-contributions-to-social-movements/ |url-status=live |last1=Tokar |first1=Brian }}</ref> It presents ecological problems as arising mainly from social problems, in particular from different forms of hierarchy and domination beginning with gerontocracy and patriarchy and extending through various forms of oppression including gender, race, and class status. It seeks to resolve them through the model of a non-hierarchical ecological society based on self-determination at the local level,<ref>{{harvnb|Bookchin|2015|p=39}} It is a theory of radical [[political ecology]] based on [[Communalism (Bookchin)|communalism]]</ref> which opposes the current [[Criticism of capitalism|capitalist system of production]] and [[Consumerism|consumption]]. It aims to set up a moral, decentralized, united society, guided by reason. While Bookchin distanced himself from [[anarchism]] later in his life, the philosophical theory of social ecology is often considered to be a form of eco-anarchism.<ref>McKay, Iain. ''An Anarchist FAQ.'' AK Press: Oakland. 2008. pp. 65.{{ISBN?}}</ref>

Bookchin wrote about the effects of urbanization on human life in the early 1960s during his participation in the civil rights and related social movements. He then began to pursue the connection between ecological and social issues, culminating with his best-known book, ''The Ecology of Freedom'', which he had developed over a decade.{{Sfn|Light|1998|pp=5–6}} His argument, that human domination and destruction of nature follows from social domination between humans, was a breakthrough position in the growing field of ecology. He writes that life develops from self-organization and evolutionary cooperation ([[symbiosis]]).{{sfn|Light|1998|p=6}} Bookchin wrote of preliterate societies organized around mutual need but ultimately overrun by institutions of hierarchy and domination, such as city-states and capitalist economies, which he attributes uniquely to societies of humans and not communities of animals.{{sfn|Light|1998|p=7}} He proposes confederation between communities of humans run through democracy rather than through administrative logistics.{{sfn|Light|1998|p=8}}

Bookchin's work, beginning with anarchist writings on the subject in the 1960s, has continuously evolved. Towards the end of the 1990s, he increasingly integrated the principle of communalism, with aspirations more inclined towards institutionalized municipal democracy, which distanced him from certain evolutions of [[anarchism]]. Bookchin's work draws inspiration from, and expands up, anarchism (mainly [[Peter Kropotkin|Kropotkin]]), [[Syndicalism]], and [[Marxism]] (including the writings of [[Karl Marx|Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels|Engels]]). Social ecology refuses the pitfalls of a [[Neo-Malthusian]] ecology which erases social relationships by replacing them with "natural forces", but also of a technocratic ecology which considers that environmental progress must rely on technological breakthroughs and that the state will play an integral role in this technological development. According to Bookchin, these two currents depoliticize ecology and mythologize the past and the future.<ref name="Bookchin-Social-Ecology"/>

In May 2016, the first "International Social Ecology Meetings" were organized in [[Lyon, France|Lyon]], France, which brought together a hundred radical environmentalists, decreasing figures and libertarians, most of whom came from France, [[Belgium]], Spain and [[Switzerland]], but also from the United States, [[Guatemala]] and Canada. At the center of the debates: libertarian municipalism as an alternative to the nation state and the need to rethink activism.<ref>{{cite web |title=Questions pour un autre futur |work=LeCourrier |trans-title=Questions for another future |url=http://www.lecourrier.ch/140925/questions_pour_un_autre_futur |date=July 25, 2016 |publisher=Le Courrier |language=fr |access-date=February 23, 2023 |archive-date=May 27, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170527152530/https://www.lecourrier.ch/140925/questions_pour_un_autre_futur |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Rencontres Internationales de l'Écologie Sociale – 27 28 et 29 mai 2016 Lyon |trans-title=International Meetings of Social Ecology – 27 28 and 29 May 2016, Lyon |url=http://www.passerelleco.info/article.php?id_article=2091 |date=March 16, 2016 |publisher=Passerelle éco |language=fr |access-date=February 23, 2023 |archive-date=February 23, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230223193940/https://www.passerelleco.info/article.php?id_article=2091 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Tokar |first=Brian |chapter=Bookchin's Social Ecology and its Contributions to the Red-Green Movement |author-link=Brian Tokar |editor-last=Huan |editor-first=Qingzhi |title=Eco-socialism as Politics: Rebuilding the Basis of Our Modern Civilisation |date=2010 |publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media]] |isbn=978-90-481-3745-9 |doi=10.1007/978-90-481-3745-9_8 |pages=123–140 [123–127]}}</ref>

==== Kurdish movement ====
Bookchin's reflections on social ecology and libertarian municipalism also inspired [[Abdullah Öcalan]], the historical leader of the Kurdish movement, to create the concept of [[democratic confederalism]], which aims to bring together the peoples of the Middle East in a confederation of democratic, multicultural and [[ecologism|ecological]] communes.<ref name="utopia1">{{cite web |last1=Bookchin |first1=Debbie |url=https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/06/15/how-my-fathers-ideas-helped-the-kurds-create-a-new-democracy/ |title=How My Father's Ideas Helped the Kurds Create a New Democracy |work=The [[New York Review of Books]] |date=June 15, 2018 |access-date=May 20, 2016 |archive-date=September 1, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200901113249/https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/06/15/how-my-fathers-ideas-helped-the-kurds-create-a-new-democracy/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="diplo1">{{cite web |first=Benjamin |last=Fernandez |title=Murray Bookchin, écologie ou barbarie |trans-title=Murray Bookchin, ecology or barbarism |url=https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2016/07/FERNANDEZ/55910 |date=July 2016 |publisher=Le Monde diplomatique |language=fr |access-date=February 23, 2023 |archive-date=November 17, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161117083059/http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2016/07/FERNANDEZ/55910 |url-status=live }}</ref> Adopted by the [[Kurdistan Workers' Party]] (PKK) since 2005, Öcalan's project represents a major ideological shift away from their previous goal of establishing a [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] state.<ref name="utopia1"/><ref name="nyt-2015">{{cite web |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/a-dream-of-utopia-in-hell.html |title=A Dream of Secular Utopia in ISIS' Backyard |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=November 24, 2015 |access-date=July 1, 2020 |archive-date=December 8, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161208171016/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/a-dream-of-utopia-in-hell.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="haaretz-2019">{{cite web |url=https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-amid-syria-s-darkness-a-democratic-egalitarian-and-feminist-society-emerges-1.7339983 |title=In the Heart of Syria's Darkness, a Democratic, Egalitarian and Feminist Society Emerges |last=Shilton |first=Dor |date=June 9, 2019 |publisher=[[Haaretz]] |access-date=July 2, 2020 |archive-date=July 2, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200702001149/https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-amid-syria-s-darkness-a-democratic-egalitarian-and-feminist-society-emerges-1.7339983 |url-status=live }}</ref> In addition to the PKK, Öcalan's internationalist project was also well received by its Syrian counterpart, the [[Democratic Union Party (Syria)|Party of Democratic Union]] (PYD), which would become the first organization in the world to actually found a society based on the principles of democratic confederalism.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/27/syria-kurds-dreamt-of-rojava-revolution-assad-will-snuff-this-out |title=Syria's Kurds dreamt of a 'Rojava revolution'. Assad will snuff this out |last=Malik |first=Kenan |date=October 27, 2019 |work=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=July 2, 2020 |archive-date=May 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200525174030/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/27/syria-kurds-dreamt-of-rojava-revolution-assad-will-snuff-this-out |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.plutobooks.com/9781783719884/revolution-in-rojava/ |title=Revolution in Rojava Democratic Autonomy and Women's Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan |publisher=[[Pluto Books]] |access-date=July 2, 2020 |archive-date=June 22, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200622162411/https://www.plutobooks.com/9781783719884/revolution-in-rojava/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/opinion/trump-syria-kurds-turkey.html |title=What the World Loses if Turkey Destroys the Syrian Kurds |last=Krajeski |first=Jenna |date=October 14, 2019 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=July 2, 2020 |archive-date=July 3, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200703075541/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/opinion/trump-syria-kurds-turkey.html |url-status=live }}</ref> On January 6, 2014, the cantons of [[Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria|Rojava]], in [[Syrian Kurdistan]], federated into autonomous municipalities, adopting a social contract which established a decentralized non-hierarchical society, based on principles of [[direct democracy]], [[feminism]], ecology, [[multiculturalism|cultural pluralism]], participatory politics and [[cooperativism|economic cooperativism]].<ref name="nyt-2015"/><ref name="haaretz-2019"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://newint.org/features/2020/06/11/big-story-kurds-betrayed-again |title=In the Autonomous Zones |last=Baird |first=Vanessa |date=June 22, 2020 |publisher=The New International |access-date=July 2, 2020 |archive-date=July 1, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200701123436/https://newint.org/features/2020/06/11/big-story-kurds-betrayed-again |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Municipalism and communalism<!--'Libertarian communalism' and 'Communalism (Bookchin)' redirect here--> ===
Bookchin's vision of an ecological society is based on [[Participatory democracy|highly participatory]], [[grassroots]] politics, in which municipal communities democratically plan and manage their affairs through [[popular assembly]], a program he called '''communalism'''<!---boldface per WP:R#PLA-->. This democratic deliberation purposefully promotes autonomy and self-reliance, as opposed to centralized state politics. While this program retains elements of anarchism, it emphasizes a higher degree of organization (community planning, voting, and institutions) than general anarchism. In Bookchin's communalism, these autonomous municipal communities connect with each other via [[confederation]]s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bookchin |first=Murray  |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-eirik-eiglad-free-cities |title=Free Cities: Communalism and the Left |language=en |access-date=March 18, 2022 |archive-date=April 25, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220425033549/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-eirik-eiglad-free-cities |url-status=live }}</ref>

Starting in the 1970s, Bookchin argued that the arena for libertarian social change should be the municipal level. In 1980 Bookchin used the term "[[Municipalism|libertarian municipalism]]" to describe a [[libertarian socialist]]<ref>{{Cite news |last=Taylor |first=Rafael |date=2016-03-22 |title=The New PKK: unleashing a social revolution in Kurdistan |url=https://mesopotamia.coop/the-new-pkk-unleashing-a-social-revolution-in-kurdistan/ |access-date=2023-07-24 |website=Co-operation in Mesopotamia |language=en-GB |archive-date=July 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230724073312/https://mesopotamia.coop/the-new-pkk-unleashing-a-social-revolution-in-kurdistan/ |url-status=live }}</ref> system in which institutions of directly democratic assemblies would oppose and replace the [[State (polity)|state]] with a confederation of free municipalities.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Bookchin |first=M.|date=October 1991 |url=http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/gp/perspectives24.html |title=Libertarian Municipalism: An Overview. |magazine=Green Perspectives |number=24 |location=Burlington, Vermont}}</ref> In ''The Next Revolution'', Bookchin stresses the link that libertarian municipalism has with his earlier philosophy of social ecology. He writes:

{{blockquote|Libertarian Municipalism constitutes the politics of social ecology, a revolutionary effort in which freedom is given institutional form in public assemblies that become decision-making bodies.{{sfn|Bookchin|2015|p=96}}}}

Bookchin proposes that these institutional forms must take place within differently scaled local areas. In a 2001 interview he summarized his views this way:

{{blockquote|The overriding problem is to change the structure of society so that people gain power. The best arena to do that is the municipality—the city, town, and village—where we have an opportunity to create a face-to-face democracy.<ref name = Vanek>{{Cite magazine |last1=Bookchin |first1=Murray |first2=David |last2=Vanek |date=October 1, 2001 |magazine=[[Harbinger (zine)|Harbinger]], a Journal of Social Ecology |volume=2 |number=1 |publisher=Institute for Social Ecology |title=Interview with Murray Bookchin |url=https://social-ecology.org/wp/2001/10/harbinger-vol-2-no-1-%E2%80%94-murray-bookchin-interview/}}</ref>}}

Libertarian municipalism intends to create a situation in which the two powers—the municipal confederations and the nation state cannot coexist.<ref name = Vanek/>

====Municipalization as a foundation for an ecological society====
Bookchin posits that neither privatization nor nationalization can effectively pave the way toward an ecological society. He asserts that both models are deeply embedded in structures of domination, failing to address the root causes of environmental crises. In contrast, Bookchin advocates for municipalization as a core principle in his libertarian municipalist framework<ref>{{cite web |last1=Carter |first1=Mason |title=Home Libertarian Socialism Libertarian Municipalism: Theory to Build Socialism from Below |url=https://www.classwithmason.com/2024/11/libertarian-municipalism-theory-to.html |website=Class with Mason |date=November 9, 2024 }}</ref>

===Critique of privatization and nationalization===
Bookchin critiques private property as a central driver of both social and ecological harm, associating it with exploitation, domination, and the prioritization of profit over community and environmental well-being. According to Bookchin, systems based on private ownership promote competition and individualism, which he argues are incompatible with the cooperation and solidarity needed to build a fair and sustainable society.

Nationalization, often positioned as a remedy to capitalism's excesses, is also seen by Bookchin as inadequate. He contends that nationalization typically shifts control from private companies to centralized bureaucratic entities, merely replacing one form of dominance with another. In this state-centered model, the apparatus of the state, rather than the market, assumes authority over economic activities. This can lead to what Bookchin describes as a "privatized economy in a collectivized form," where workers remain detached from their labor and ecological exploitation persists.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Carter |first1=Mason |title=Libertarian Municipalism: Theory to Build Socialism from Below |url=https://www.classwithmason.com/2024/11/libertarian-municipalism-theory-to.html |website=Class with Mason |date=November 9, 2024 }}</ref>

== Legacy and influence ==
Though Bookchin, by his own recognition, failed to win over a substantial body of supporters during his own lifetime, his ideas have nonetheless influenced movements and thinkers across the globe.

Among these are the Kurdish [[People's Protection Units]] (YPG) and closely aligned [[Kurdistan Workers' Party]] (PKK) in Turkey, which have [[Kurdish–Turkish conflict|fought the Turkish state]] since the 1980s to try to secure greater political and cultural rights for the country's [[Kurdish people|Kurds]]. The PKK is designated as a [[terrorist organization]] by the Turkish and United States governments, while the YPG has been considered an ally of the US against [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant|ISIS]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bookchin |first1=Debbie |title=How My Father's Ideas Helped the Kurds Create a New Democracy |url=https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/06/15/how-my-fathers-ideas-helped-the-kurds-create-a-new-democracy/ |access-date=October 23, 2019 |work=The [[New York Review of Books]] |date=June 15, 2018 |language=en |archive-date=September 1, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200901113249/https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/06/15/how-my-fathers-ideas-helped-the-kurds-create-a-new-democracy/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Barnard |first1=Anne |last2=Hubbard |first2=Ben |title=Allies or Terrorists: Who Are the Kurdish Fighters in Syria? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/world/middleeast/turkey-kurds-syria.html |access-date=October 23, 2019 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=January 25, 2018 |language=en |archive-date=September 1, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200901113232/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/world/middleeast/turkey-kurds-syria.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Though founded on a rigid [[Marxist–Leninist]] ideology, the PKK has seen a shift in its thought and aims since the capture and [[Imprisonment of Abdullah Öcalan|imprisonment]] of its leader, [[Abdullah Öcalan]], in 1999. Öcalan began reading a variety of [[post-Marxist]] political theory while in prison, and found particular interest in Bookchin's works.<ref name="biehl dialectics">{{cite web |url=http://new-compass.net/articles/bookchin-%C3%B6calan-and-dialectics-democracy |title=Bookchin, Öcalan, and the Dialectics of Democracy |last=Biehl |first=Janet |author-link=Janet Biehl |date=February 16, 2012 |publisher=New Compass |access-date=January 27, 2014 |archive-date=April 1, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160401092904/http://new-compass.net/articles/bookchin-%C3%B6calan-and-dialectics-democracy |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=de Jong |first1=Alex |title=The New–Old PKK |journal=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]] |date=March 2016 |url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/03/pkk-ocalan-kurdistan-isis-murray-bookchin/ |access-date=March 29, 2016 |archive-date=April 28, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160428070151/https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/03/pkk-ocalan-kurdistan-isis-murray-bookchin/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Öcalan attempted in early 2004 to arrange a meeting with Bookchin through his lawyers, describing himself as Bookchin's "student" eager to adapt his thought to Middle Eastern society. Bookchin was too ill to accept the request. In May 2004 Bookchin conveyed this message "My hope is that the Kurdish people will one day be able to establish a free, rational society that will allow their brilliance once again to flourish. They are fortunate indeed to have a leader of Mr. Öcalan's talents to guide them". When Bookchin died in 2006, the PKK hailed the American thinker as "one of the greatest social scientists of the 20th century", and vowed to put his theory into practice.<ref name="biehl dialectics"/>

"[[Democratic confederalism]]", the variation on communalism developed by Öcalan in his writings and adopted by the PKK, does not outwardly seek Kurdish rights within the context of the formation of an independent state separate from Turkey. The PKK claims that this project is not envisioned as being only for Kurds, but rather for all peoples of the region, regardless of their ethnic, national, or religious background. Rather, it promulgates the formation of assemblies and organizations beginning at the grassroots level to enact its ideals in a non-state framework beginning at the local level. It also places a particular emphasis on securing and promoting [[women's rights]].<ref name="biehl dialectics"/> The PKK has had some success in implementing its programme, through organizations such as the Democratic Society Congress (DTK), which coordinates political and social activities within Turkey, and the [[Koma Civakên Kurdistan]] (KCK), which does so across all countries where Kurds live.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://new-compass.net/article/kurdish-communalism |title=Kurdish Communalism |last=Biehl |first=Janet |author-link=Janet Biehl |date=October 9, 2011 |publisher=New Compass |access-date=January 27, 2014 |archive-date=September 1, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200901120108/http://new-compass.net/article/kurdish-communalism |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Selected works ==
{{main|Murray Bookchin bibliography}}
* ''[[Post-Scarcity Anarchism]]'' (1971)
* ''[[The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years]]'' (1977)
* ''[[The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy]]'' (1982)

==See also==
{{Portal|Anarchism|Communism|Environment|Libertarianism|Organized Labour|Politics|Socialism|Feminism}}
* [[Eco-socialism]]
* [[History of the Green Party of the United States]]
* [[Insurrectionary communes in France in 1870–1871]]
* [[Outline of libertarianism]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

== Sources ==
{{refbegin}}
* {{Cite book |last=Biehl |first=Janet |author-link=Janet Biehl |title=[[Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin]] |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-934248-8 |location=New York}}
* {{cite book |last1=Bookchin |first1=Murray |title=The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy |date=6 January 2015 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1781685815 |url=https://www.versobooks.com/products/34-the-next-revolution?srsltid=AfmBOoofbfOhAYmEoUj45bb_HVWophtFZIx6eeE6dxJISU7UalD7_Ag1 |access-date=7 October 2024}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Curran |first1=Giorel |title=21st Century Dissent: Anarchism, Anti-Globalization and Environmentalism |date=2007 |isbn=978-1-4039-4881-6 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |series=International Political Economy  }}
* {{cite book|editor-last=Light|editor-first=Andrew|title=Social Ecology After Bookchin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZUdO5qzw-rgC|year=1998|publisher=[[Guilford Press]]|isbn=1-57230-379-4|lccn=98-35447|access-date=July 22, 2018|archive-date=September 21, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230921021325/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZUdO5qzw-rgC|url-status=live}}
* {{cite book|last=Price|first=Andy|year=2012|chapter=Social Ecology|editor-first=Ruth|editor-last=Kinna|editor-link=Ruth Kinna|title=The Continuum Companion to Anarchism|publisher=[[Continuum International Publishing Group]]|isbn=978-1-4411-4270-2|pages=231–249}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
* Tarinski, Yavor, ed. [https://blackrosebooks.com/products/tarinski-bookchin-enlightenment-ecology ''Enlightenment and ecology: The legacy of Murray Bookchin in the 21st Century'']. Montréal: Black Rose Books, 2021.
* Price, Andy, ''Recovering Bookchin: Social Ecology and the Crises of Our Time,'' New Compass (2012)
* [[Janet Biehl|Biehl, Janet]], ''The Murray Bookchin Reader'' (Cassell, 1997) {{ISBN|0-304-33874-5}}.
* Biehl, Janet, "Mumford Gutkind Bookchin: The Emergence of Eco-Decentralism" (New Compass, 2011) {{ISBN|978-82-93064-10-7}}
* {{cite book |last1=Jacoby |first1=Russell |title=The Last Intellectuals |publisher=Basic Books}}
* Marshall, P. (1992), "Murray Bookchin and the Ecology of Freedom", pp.&nbsp;602–622 in, ''[[Demanding the Impossible]]''. Fontana Press. {{ISBN|0-00-686245-4}}.
* {{cite book|chapter=Anarchism and Environmental Philosophy|first=Brian|last=Morris|author-link=Brian Morris (anthropologist)|year=2017|location=[[Leiden]]|publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]]|editor-first=Nathan|editor-last=Jun|title=Brill's Companion to Anarchism and Philosophy|isbn=978-90-04-35689-4|pages=369–400|doi=10.1163/9789004356894_015|url=https://brill.com/view/title/35861}}
* Selva Varengo, ''La rivoluzione ecologica. Il pensiero libertario di Murray Bookchin'' (2007) Milano: Zero in condotta. {{ISBN|978-88-95950-00-6}}.
* E. Castano, ''Ecologia e potere. Un saggio su Murray Bookchin'', Mimesis, Milano 2011 {{ISBN|978-88-575-0501-5}}.
* Damian F. White 'Bookchin – A Critical Appraisal'. Pluto Press (UK/Europe), University of Michigan Press. {{ISBN|978-0-7453-1965-0}} (hardback); {{ISBN|978-0745319643}} (paperback).
* [http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/green-mountain-anarchist-collective-neither-washington-nor-stowe?v=1494095086 ''Neither Washington Nor Stowe: Common Sense For The Working Vermonter''], by David Van Deusen, Sean West, and the [[Green Mountain Anarchist Collective]] (NEFAC Vermont), Catamount Tavern Press, 2004. This libertarian socialist manifesto took many of Bookchin's ideas and articulated them as they would manifest in a revolutionary Vermont.
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{sisterlinks |b=no |c=Category:Murray Bookchin |n=no |q=Murray Bookchin |s=no |v=no |wikt=no |d=Q315910}}
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooksby=yes|viaf=12305586}}
* [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/Bookchinarchive.html Murray Bookchin] entry at the [[Anarchy Archives]]
* TRISE Online Conference 2021: [https://trise.org/conference-2021/ "100 years Murray Bookchin"] & [https://trise.org/2021/11/01/video-recordings-from-our-2021-conference/ Video recordings available here]
* [http://www.social-ecology.org Institute of Social Ecology] (official site)

{{Murray Bookchin|state=expanded}}
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