Post-Scarcity Anarchism, Chapter 2

 

Summary of Chapter 2: Ecology and Revolutionary Thought

 

The three planks of Bookchin’s argument in this book are laid out in the first three chapters, in turn: 1) the specific revolutionary potential of the post-scarcity condition; 2) the link between ecology and anarchism; and 3) the possibilities for the development of technology in an anarchist, rather than a capitalist, social context. In this chapter Bookchin lays out the second plank, making the argument which can be summarized as “red and green make black,” (i.e., a socially egalitarian and ecologically sustainable society will necessarily be an anti-authoritarian one).

He begins by discussing the links between the development of science and of revolutionary thought: “In almost every period since the Renaissance the development of revolutionary thought has been heavily influenced by a branch of science, often in conjunction with a school of philosophy” (79). He discusses the historical influence of disciplines like astronomy, mechanics, mathematics, biology, and anthropology in delivering shocks to the consciousnesses of society, undermining the complacent ideologies of earlier times, and spurring idealistic and progressive movements. However:

In our own time, we have seen the assimilation of these once-liberatory sciences by the established social order. Indeed, we have begun to regard science itself as an instrument of control over the thought processes and physical being of man. This distrust of science and of the scientific method is not without justification. (79)

[There is here a direct link with Foucault’s discussion of the history of the critique of the Enlightenment, in “What is Critique?”]

What is perhaps equally important, modern science has lost its critical edge. Largely functional or instrumental in intent, the branches of science that once tore at the chains of man are now used to perpetuate and gild them.

[and here, also interesting in relation to Wiener's mid-century complaints about intellectuals of his time, in the context of the growing subordination of academia to capitalist interests and models.]

Even philosophy has yielded to instrumentalism and tends to be little more than a body of logical contrivances; it is the handmaiden of the computer rather than of the revolutionary. (79-80)

[I imagine a lot of people today would object to the characterization of “the computer” and “the revolutionary” as categorical opposites; however, the point Bookchin is making needs to be recognized. The importance of the rise of computing in the expansion of late 20^th and early 21^st century governmentality cannot be overstated. Hence, it is reasonable to suspect philosophy in the service of “the computer.”]

Despite the subservience of science to capitalism and the state during this "period of general scientific docility," one modern scientific discipline holds out hope, and that is ecology. Its implications are in fact "explosive" and revolutionary; it is on the one hand critical and on the other “integrative and reconstructive.” [Bookchin does not state this here, but this two-sidedness is an important aspect of critique as part of a unified praxis.] Ecology shows the limits of human mastery, over both nature and humanity. Bookchin explores the analogy of humans as parasites: humans have become insanely destructive, and this makes them similar to parasites; yet, according to Bookchin, parasites aren’t inherently destructive in this sense but only become so, due to some disruption in their environment. The question then is, what is the change that has happened in the human social environment, which has caused humans to become parasites? The answer is of course the growth of the state and of capitalism over the last few centuries.

The imbalances man has produced in the natural world are caused by the imbalances he has produced in the social world. (84)

He places part of the blame on "urbanized and centralized society":

If we put all moral considerations aside for the moment and examine the physical structure of this society, what must necessarily impress us is the incredible logistical problems it is obliged to solve—problems of transportation, of density, of supply (of raw materials, manufactured commodities and foodstuffs), of economic and political organization, of industrial location, and so forth. The burden this type of urbanized and centralized society places on any continental area is enormous. (84)

[cf here Merrifield's accusations of anti-urbanism; yet Bookchin’s complaints are technical and logistic. Couldn't the same kind of developments that produce "post-scarcity" also correct some of these problems of distribution? In other words, if the problem is no longer production but distribution, couldn't a large-scale society (economically, not necessarily politically centralized) find technological solutions?]

Bookchin returns to the question of the emergence of hierarchy, as the cause for human parasitism:

The notion that man must dominate nature emerges directly from the domination of man by man. (85)

It starts with the patriarchal family, and leads to the split between "mind and labor" and "spirit and reality," and the “anti-naturalist bias of Christianity;” this comes to a head during and after the Industrial Revolution when market relations replace "organic community relations" and nature becomes a "resource for exploitation." [This is what Marxists call the "metabolic rift."]

In  addition to the industrial order or production, Bookchin identifies another order or aspect of society, the "consumer society," in which a parallel process (though this time plundering the “human spirit” of desire, needs for identity and creativity, connection, etc.) takes place that exacerbates and drives the former plundering of nature:

Needs are tailored by the mass media to create a public demand for utterly useless commodities, each carefully engineered to deteriorate after a predetermined period of time. The plundering of the human spirit by the marketplace is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital. (85)

He points out that the contemporary discourse on overpopulation blames countries like India, when the real culprits are the over-producers like the US, wasteful in production  and pollution (waste meaning both excess, and the inefficiency/toxicity of the production process); also the need for economic growth means this will continue to get worse. In addition to literal waste and destruction, there is an argument about objectification and simplification that drives this and/or makes it possible:

From the standpoint of ecology, man is dangerously oversimpliflying his environment. The modern city represents a regressive encroachment of the synthetic on the natural, of the inorganic (concrete, metals, and glass) on the organic, of crude, elemental stimuli on variegated, wide-ranging ones. (87)

In discussing this simplification, he returns to his massification/urbanization argument, that large populations are difficult to manage, creating bureacratization, centralization, standardization, etc. This "mass concept of human relations" is “totalitarian, centralistic and regimented in orientation" (87).

[This is one of the aspects of Bookchin’s thinking on cities that Merrifield was criticizing. In Bookchin’s defense he is making an argument about a certain approach in modernism, which he elsewhere defines as “urbanization” and defines in contrast to the “city,” which in his terms is a true community on an idealized Athenian model. A problem with Bookchin here is that, in this rant against standardization, etc., he seems to be oversimplifying (ironically enough) and not taking into account the individualistic side of capitalism, which of course has become more pronounced over the later decades, in part as a response arguably to this very sort of critique of mass media and consumerism (which was recuperated into neo-liberalism as a means of asserting a distinction between capitalism and the state).]

Authoritarian thinkers (which includes liberals, Marxists, and conservatives) used to deride anarchists as idealists, but this has changed, due to the threat of ecological disaster, and the possibilities of the post-scarcity condition: “historical development has rendered virtually all objections to anarchist thought meaningless today” (91). He claims that the “intuitive anarchism” of the youth of his time, is a reaction against everything that is wrong with society today; ecological thinking [with its reconstructive praxis] can "convert this often nihilistic rejection of the status quo into an emphatic affirmation of life" (92).

The opposite of standardization/simplification (which is what has created the human-as-pest conditions) is "organic differentiation,” and this is something that is a central feature of both anarchist and ecological thinking. He discusses going back to the small-scale farming of the past, which resulted in the development of [traditional ecological knowledge]; we also need more diverse fuel sources, such as were used before the Industrial Revolution reduced everything to coal, then to coal and petroleum [and the argument here is an example of Bookchin escapes the binary rhetoric of past vs. future, with such a call for an integration of past practices with new technologies:]

We could try to re-establish earlier regional energy patterns, using a combined system of energy provided by wind, water and solar power. We would be aided by devices more sophisticated than any known in the past. (95)

Bookchin’s call for a “mosaic” of fuel sources parallels the ecological call for “organic diversity” and the anarchist call for self-directing individuals and communities. Bookchin does believe that urban decentralization will be necessary to use renewables, based on, for example, the solar and battery tech of his time; but this fits as well with his argument that small-scale, largely self-sufficient communities could be more locally environmentally conscious and responsive, and this in itself would lead to a healthy diversity of local approaches to social organization and morphology, each fitting their own environment.

Bookchin criticizes the use of engineering "gimmicks" to marginally reduce pollution in cars, etc. The real problem is scale and growth, which will overrun these incremental advances:

there is a strong sentiment to "engineer" the more noxious features of the automobile into oblivion. Our age characteristically tries to solve all its irrationalities with a gimmick--afterburners for toxic gasoline fumes, antibiotics for ill health, tranquilizers for psychic disturbances. (97)

For the rest of the chapter he basically reiterates his main points again, that both ecology and anarchism call for spontaneous diversity rather than the destructive simplification and homogenization which has been the product of the current state capitalist system. He quotes the anarchist Herbert Read that “Progress is measured by the degree of differentiation within a society” as individuals are given freedom to be themselves and find their own paths; according to Bookchin, this is a common approach of both anarchism and ecology: you don't control or micromanage a system, but allow diversity to form spontaneously. “Their object is not to rule a domain, but to release it” (100).

He repeats the call for decentralization: cities should be reduced in size in order to “create real communities;” the model is the Athenian ecclesia, a face-to-face democracy in which everyone has an opportunity to be involved and contribute.

Electronic devices such as telephones, telegraphs, radios and television receivers should be used as little as possible to mediate the relations between people. (101)

In a true, face to face democracy, political relations can become personal ones (an interesting revision of the term “the personal is political”):

all members of the community should have an opportunity to acquire in full the measure of anyone who addresses the assembly. They should be in a position to absorb his attitudes, study his expressions, and weigh his motives as well as his ideas in a direct personal encounter and through face-to-face discussion.

Members of these communities should not merely be limited to specialized trades but should experience a wide variety of trades, etc; the epitome of Marx's “hunt in the morning, criticize after dinner” ideal:

To separate the engineer from the soil, the thinker from the spade, and the farmer from the industrial plant promotes a degree of vocational overspecialization that leads to a dangerous measure of social control by specialists. (102)

[The above is roughly Bookchin's version of Braverman's thesis.] The anarchist society would form an "ecosystem" of small-scale, self-sufficient communities, with "moderate population size" centered on the local ecosystem, basically an "ecotopia" idea. Local communities will take different forms, in adaptation to their environmental circumstances:

an exciting, often dramatic, variety of communal forms—here marked by architectural and industrial adaptations to semi-arid ecosystems, there to grasslands, elsewhere by adaptation to forested areas. (103)

In a non-hierarchical society, differences will be valued and encouraged instead of subsumed under a hierarchical model of superior and inferior; individuals will be able to achieve their full potential (104).

 

 

Post-Scarcity Anarchism, Chapter 1

 

Summary of Chapter 1: Post-Scarcity Anarchism

Bookchin lays out his great, two-part thesis: that 1) the productivity of modern technology has created the conditions for a post-scarcity society, free of hierarchy and exploitation; and 2) that only a society that is free of hierarchy and exploitation will manage to avoid destroying the environment. Bookchin emphasizes the promise of the present [1960s, early 70s], but there is an unstated (at least so far) flipside of urgency in the face of impending ecological disaster; no doubt, if the book had been written today, that dark side would get more emphasis. A third and related point, which he will discuss throughout the chapter, is the difference between the current revolutionary moment which he saw in the counterculture of the late 60s, with earlier revolutionary movements: while all the past successful revolutions have been particularistic, asserting the interests of a specific "minority" class, there is now the potential for a generalized revolution in the interest of all of humanity.

The great bourgeois revolutions of modern times offered an ideology of sweeping political reconstitution, but in reality they merely certified the social dominance of the bourgeoisie, giving formal political expression to the economic ascendancy of capital. The lofty notions of the "nation," the "free citizen," of equality before the law," concealed the mundane reality of the centralized state, the atomized isolated man, the dominance of bourgeois interest. Despite their sweeping ideological claims, the particularistic revolutions replaced the rule of one class by another, one system of exploitation by another, one system of toil by another, and one system of psychological repression by another. (55)

The “great wound" of propertied society (and inequality) can be "healed." He distinguishes between "abstract" vs. "concrete" freedom: and only with the latter are humans "fully human.” The preconditions exist, but technology is currently used to maintain the centralizing and unequal system of the status quo, privileging the bourgeoisie. The further downside of current technology is that, in trying to dominate and control the environment, "bourgeois society" is destroying it (57).

Bookchin emphasizes the difference between today's economy and the economy at the time Marx was writing. Today, the problem is not scarcity but "‘consumption for the sake of consumption,’ in which immiseration takes a spiritual rather than an economic form—it is starvation of life” (59). According to Bookchin, it was a limitation of Marx’s time that led him to focus on the struggle over the means of production in the economic system; what Marx had described is really just the preconditions for liberation. He introduces the idea of a "redemptive dialectic" which appears to be a criticism of Marx's dialectic – with his idea of generalized against particularistic revolutions, it sounds like he would have seen Marxist revolution as particularistic? It is no longer about the proletariat, or the economy itself, according to Bookchin.

Part of why he calls the modern system "state capitalism," as opposed to the earlier "industrial capitalism": “A century ago, scarcity had to be endured; today, it has to be enforced—hence the importance of the state in the present era” (59-60). The old dialectic between classes is replaced by a new dialectic: capitalism against the environment. Besides capitalism against [Gaia], there is the contradiction/dialectic between hierarchy/exploitation and "man's Eros-derived impulses" – which is why the youth are the true revolutionary class, according to Bookchin. He cites Vaneigem that "hierarchical power has preserved humanity for thousands of years as alcohol preserves a fetus, by arresting either growth or decay"  (61: endnotes have been cut off this pdf. Online this passage is identified as from "Basic Banalities" published in the Situationist International). These hierarchical forms, which once played a role in fighting scarcity, now threaten the very survival of humanity.

The counterculture of the time of his writing plays a revolutionary, or potentially revolutionary, role, by its refusal of the bourgeois order: he lists several important negations in this regard on page 63 in a rapidfire paragraph which I’ll tease apart here:

1. negation of city by community:

The absolute negation of the city is community—a community in which the social environment is decentralized into rounded, ecologically balanced communes. (63)

[Since Merrifield called out Bookchin for anti-urban sentiment, I am on the lookout for passages like this; nevertheless, although he is using the “city” as something to be negated, it doesn’t seem to me like “commune” and “community” are necessarily anti-urban concepts here. Later on he will mention the idea of “human scale” as opposed to modern cities which are beyond human scale. There is a reductionist vision coming out of ethology that tries to cook this insight regarding “human scale” down to some kind of naturally acceptable and reifiable number; this has been used in a very anti-urban way [in contrast with Benjamin’s writings on panorama and physiologies, and scarring etc., as a distinct reaction to the more-than-human size of the metropolis]. But the situationalists themselves wanted a “unified” political order and the idea of urban communes on some kind of council or soviet model does not have to be about abolishing cities, just about changing their governance.]

2. negation of bureaucracy by face-to-face relations (akin to above)

3. negation of centralized economy (which includes capitalism; the opposite is a localized economy)

4. negation of patriarchal family by liberated sexuality

5. negation of marketplace by communism

A growing societal rejection of hierarchy and centralization is learning from ecological examples: agriculture should be more decentralized to be more ecological; manufacturing and power generation should also be smaller and more diverse, more clean. He champions the idea of ecocommunity which seeks a lasting balance with the natural world. Individualism is essential to any true [generalized] revolution: such a revolution he describes as "self-liberation that reaches social dimensions.” The most advanced form of class consciousness thus becomes self-consciousness.

In apparent contrast to his later condemnations of “lifestyle anarchism,” he here insists that there is a revolutionary lifestyle, which is essential to the process of building for revolution. Though not stated as such, this multitudinous self-making of diverse, [unique] individuals would be the opposite of the failed, top-down model of imposed revolution a la the Bolsheviks. Bookchin traces examples of spontaneity in earlier revolutions; this "surreal dimension of the revolutionary process" has been an essential component in every revolutionary movement. In contrast, the traditional left puritanism (of the official vanguard parties which are in fact drags on true, spontaneous, bottom-up revolution) is the product of the infiltration of bourgeois life into the revolutionary movement, "the commodity nature of man under capitalism" which also transforms the group into a self-maintaining thing, contra its original goals. The truly revolutionary group must see itself as a "catalyst," not a vanguard. It must avoid all hierarchy, bureaucracy, and "commodity relations" in its working, and be totally open, transparent, and decentralized.

The potential limits of Bookchin's somewhat idealist view of revolution is revealed in his account of the great promise presented by the counterculture of his day, as a "refusal" of Bourgeois values. He again privileges the role of college youth in bridging the “particularistic critique[s]” of antiracism, feminism, gay rights, environmentalist, and labor movements, into a "generalized opposition to the bourgeois order" (70-1). He compares and contrasts the present to the period of the Enlightenment, in which he sees a bottom-up dissatisfaction and change in consciousness in the lower classes, which seems to then take a more critical form in the educated classes, which then “seeps downward” as critique in a sort of dialectic:

In this respect, the period in which we live closely resembles the revolutionary Enlightenment that swept through France in the eighteenth century—a period that completely reworked French consciousness and prepared the conditions for the Great Revolution of 1789. Then as now, the old institutions were slowly pulverized by molecular action from below long before they were toppled by mass revolutionary action. This molecular movement creates an atmosphere of general lawlessness: a growing personal day-to-day disobedience, a tendency not to "go along" with the existing system, a seemingly "petty" but nevertheless critical attempt to circumvent restriction in every facet of daily life. The society, in effect, becomes disorderly, undisciplined, Dionysian—a condition that reveals itself most dramatically in an increasing rate of official crimes. A vast critique of the system develops—the actual Enlightenment itself, two centuries ago, and the sweeping critique that exists today—which seeps downward and accelerates the molecular movement at the base. Be it an angry gesture, a "riot" or a conscious change in lifestyle, an ever-increasing number of people—who have no more of a commitment to an organized revolutionary movement than they have to society itself—begin spontaneously to engage in their own defiant propaganda of the deed. (71)

There are many key ideas in here: the “molecular movement” from below [aka undirected spontaneism]; general lawlessness as a form of propaganda by the deed, part of a "vast critique" [but the critique "seeps downward", so is not identical with the uncritical lawlessness; the loss of faith and dissatisfaction precedes the formation and spread of critique. [Another good example of a point where "suspicion" and "critique" are two distinct things, though related].

 Bookchin sees several parallels between the modern counterculture and the Enlightenment:

1. similar unevenness and contradictory makeup

2. the emergence of the crowd or "mob" (72) as a vehicle of protest. Similar to Shumsky, the mob represents an alternative form which comes into being when the need for protest is not serviced by existing institutions. Yet Bookchin, contra most traditional theorists of the crowd, emphasizes the mob as a site of individualization and of de-massification [because they are rebelling against the massified and de-individualizing social order; cf. also Deleuze and Guattari’s distinction between “mass” and “pack”]. The rebellious crowd reclaims the street from commodification, for real human existence. Bookchin here reiterates his themes of 1) individual revolt becoming social revolt, and 2) the opposition between the abstract, and everyday life.

3. just like with the Enlightenment, there are growing numbers of Lumpen/ declasses, educated middle class people falling into lower strata, and at the bottom unruly "sans-cullottes" in ghettos, etc.

However, despite these similarities, the present time is also different from the Enlightenment, which was a switch between two social orders based on scarcity. Bookchin details how the forces of the Enlightenment revolution were harnessed and controlled by industrial society and democratic politics. He contrasts the slogans of the French revolution ("Bread and the Constitution of '93!") with the modern "Black is Beautiful!" "Make Love, Not War," and the graffiti of the May 1968 events. The old struggle was still over scarcity but the new one is over the potential for a world without toil or exploitation.

What we are witnessing is the breakdown of a century and a half of embourgeoisement and a pulverization of all bourgeois institutions at a point in history when the boldest concepts of Utopia are realizable. And there is nothing that the present bourgeois order can substitute for the destruction of its traditional institutions but bureaucratic manipulation and state capitalism. (75)

 [Here he does not seem to have foreseen the future of neo-liberal adaptation, accompanied by use of computing power. It is the technological control of information, and later massaging of consumers in the environment through apps (for example), which has been part of the “state capital” response to the crisis he is referring to (along with increased globalization and off-shoring of production; the wealth he describes is still dependent on labor, just in other countries; unless it could be argued that obscene financialization and debt consume the "wealth" that could be going to a post-scarcity society).]

Post-Scarcity Anarchism, Introduction to Second Edition

Summary of Introduction to the Second Edition

 

Distinctly less upbeat than the first introduction, the 1985 intro offers an autopsy of the hopes of the 60s and 70s, along with a defense of the numerous ways in which the original text was both foresightful and influential, and remains timely. Two of his main topics of discussion are the 60s (of which he provides an analysis of its promises and shortcomings) and of Marxism, certain versions of which have become welcomed into the academy, from which they work as a barrier to the broader exposure of people to anarchist ideas. Bookchin discusses the leftist "professoriat" on numerous occasions – it is unclear (he credits the term to someone else) if this is tongue in cheek (because professors are so bourgeois) or refers (in its origin, to any degree) to the adjunctification/precarization of the academic workforce; probably only the former, as the trend only became pronounced later, and Bookchin makes no explicit reference to it (though he does talk about careerism and the pressures to conform in the academy). One thing he dislikes about Marxism, and apparently particularly academic Marxism of the 80s, is its "hodge-podge" adoption of ideas of his, such as ecology, and so on; he points to certain contradictions this involves (for instance, he sees nature as fecund and overflowingly creative, whereas Marx more traditionally saw it as "stingy"). He of course does not blame this on Marx himself though, but on "epigones" and their "epigonic" writings. He complains how, in the 30s, the diverse leftist movements got along and cooperated with and defended each other; but this is no longer the case. 

He counters the idea that the 60s has been coopted, because it was too radical; it has instead fragmented, and fragments have been coopted. In part this is the fault of some of the radical movements (he does not here fault "lifestyle" movements, but rather doctrinaire Marxists). They went too far for other parts of society to follow along with them, became too dangerous and unrecognizable (and perhaps violent) and frightened people off. He points out the important role of black militants, to whom the white college crowd was secondary (though also important); one wonders if this is a corrective to his earlier insistence on the middle class youth as a revolutionary force in itself). He singles out the situationalists for their "repellent dogmatism."  In any event, the failure of the 60s came down to an overenthusiasm, the movement presumed more than it could achieve, while remaining no more than marginal in both the black and white communities. In my reading this sounds like somewhat of a retreat from his earlier spontaneism; perhaps a more sophisticated understanding of his spontaneism (from his several other books) would correct me on this; in any event for much of the chapter he calls for a more unified consciousness or understanding, which takes more time to achieve. Impatience does not work. He remains opposed to the Marxist emphasis on "class analysis" and continues to insist that "transclass" consciousness, and formations (even such as "the people") remain essential [one wonders: perhaps because this is what the mainstream of a capitalist democracy also relies on? Yet today, in 2022, what is the condition of this "People"?]

He notes that the conditions for true revolution will rely on "objective forces," then reiterates his call for an inclusive approach in which a broad front of movements serve a unifying purpose of achieving social liberation. He singles out ecology, feminism (especially eco-feminism), the peace movement (which ultimately needs to oppose militarism and thus hierarchy, not just seek disarmament), and localism. He makes a distinction between "politics" and "statecraft":

Suffice it to say that politics, in my view, is the recovery of the Greek notion of a local public sphere — the municipality — in contrast to the statecraft of the nation-state which we have so mistakenly designated as "politics." (42)

He identifies cities and municipalities, neighborhoods, etc. as the locus for these new practices of true politics. (He cites his own books about the Limits of the City and Urbanization without Cities; nevertheless the content of his remarks here makes Merrifield's accusation that Bookchin is anti-urban sound unfair. There is perhaps a semantic distinction which he makes elsewhere.) He calls for a reassessment of the old Democratic revolutions which the Marxists had dismissed as "bourgeois" – Bookchin being against an overly obsessive class analysis, would perhaps call these "transclass movements". [An interesting opposition here to my recent reading of Benjamin in which he is following Marx in decrying the limited consciousness of bohemian "professional conspirators" in these pre-Marxist movements in the 1800s]. Further, Bookchin wants to reconnect with older populist and (apparently) pre-industrial traditions of opposition, an apparent call for folk or populist traditions to be seen as libertarian:

Tragically, we have lost contact with our own radical traditions in Western society and, due in no small measure to Marxism-Leninism, have replaced them with ideologies and a vocabulary that is utterly alien to our own communities. (44)

[This is akin to the observation that "democracy" in countries like Iraq etc. needs to grow out of local institutions and movements, not be imposed from the outside by military force; he is essentially saying the same needs to happen here, and that the Marxist critique is "alien" somehow. It is interesting to consider the Shumsky book I just finished on crowds and politics in the 1870s and the rise of Kearny and the Workingmens’ Party of California (WPC), in this light.; however, these links really do not seem promising. In that particular instance, it seems clear that Kearny's “transclass” movement was destructive and negative, and ultimately reactionary, compared to the potential of the actual socialists of the original WPUSA whom he displaced.]

Bookchin has modified his take on scarcity since the earlier text; he now states that the idea of post-scarcity as a historical precondition is something that was an artifact of his Marxism in the 50s. He notes that the historical scheme he nodded at was "equivocal" and what was important was the present, not the past. "Post-scarcity" as well seems not about pure excess of wealth anymore, but the arrangement of needs, etc. and availability of resources. He talks about how needs become a productive force, the fetishization of needs, not just of commodities. Thus post-scarcity is a necessary precondition for escaping capitalism, not a necessary one for all time and societies. He also counters charges that his book "fetishizes technology," and points out some errors in the original, along with his new reservations about certain technologies such as nuclear power and electric cars, which he had endorsed in the original and now has doubts about. He ends with a call not only for counterculture but for counterinstitutions to spread and unify that culture; study groups are more important than affinity groups; and municipalities show the most hope as locations where popular assemblies can be formed and real politics regained.

 

Post-Scarcity Anarchism, Introduction to First Edition

 

Murray Bookchin (1986 [1971]) Post-Scarcity Anarchism. (Second Edition). Black Rose Books, Buffalo, NY.

[Merrifield discusses and critiques Bookchin in his Politics of the Encounter, which got me thinking of this book which influenced me back in high school. This 1986 edition was no doubt the one I got off the shelf of the Santa Rosa Public Library... though the pdf I am using here is missing the last three essays along with the notes, bibliography, etc.]

Summary of Introduction to the First Edition

In this introduction, Bookchin wanders among many key themes, which he says will all be discussed in the text. The first concept he brings up is presentism, as a blinder that leaves us unaware of the burden of the past (a la Marx) and the possibilities of the future (a la Benjamin) (I am inferring those links; Bookchin certainly references Marx plenty as one who "interred" the dead of the past; he does not mention Benjamin and presumably would not have had read him, though there are many commonalities to their thinking). The big event of present history is the emergence of the possibility of post-scarcity, a future condition in which material wealth is enough to prevent anyone from having to experience scarcity: scarcity, in this reading of history, was experienced by all older societies, and is the "historic rationale" for the replacement of the originary "organic societies" which lived in union with nature, by state societies and all the forms of hierarchy they involve. The conditions for post-scarcity create a dissatisfaction in the "psyche" which appears to be Bookchin's name for a revolutionary (or not) consciousness that is rooted in the experience of lived conditions during one's lifetime.

Related to "psyche," another important concept appears, which is "privilege," or rather false privilege. This is how capitalism ensnares the bourgeoisie into supporting the system, although they themselves are also bought and sold and alienated. The older generation which has experienced scarcity clings to their privileges, but the younger generation, which has not, is dissatisfied and thus forms a revolutionary consciousness which is ultimately the possibility of achieving an anarchist, "post-scarcity" utopia. There are some very Benjaminian passages in which wishes and dream images are created by capitalism and turned into critiques of it; capitalism as [pharmakon]. But Bookchin is not thinking of Benjamin, he is probably being influenced by psychoanalytic ideas here (refers e.g. to the unconscious).

Bookchin attacks Marxism (in the Leninist and Maoist forms) in particular as examples of failed or flawed revolutionary movements, which failed to critique and get rid of all forms of hierarchy, and thus ended up being more counter-revolutionary than revolutionary. In contrast he celebrates the diverse progressive movements and liberation struggles of his day, over race, gender, sexuality, etc. Because modern [late] capitalism is so fragile, it can actually be attacked and harmed in all of these ways, because each of these struggles for liberation is a struggle for everyone's liberation. This also seems tied to his concept of revolutionary spontaneism, by which he means the autonomous choices of a small affinity group (or individuals) to take action based on their own analyses, instead of there being some proper program or proposal that everyone should be following or adhering to (or some specific point of attack that is more important than others). He talks about "privileges" and "rights" and articulates the anarchist critique that rights are about buying off would-be revolutionaries: but the post-scarcity-conscious youth are unsatisfied with this: "It is not justice any longer that is being demanded, but rather freedom" (17). This aspect is very relative imho to the current controversy of "woke ideology" and the critique of it e.g. by Michel Bauwens (namely, the argument that “wokism” is about achieving opportunities and recognition (in the name of rights) for small, relatively privileged fractions of BIPOC, LGBTQ+, women, etc., while most people in all of these categories are unable to benefit, because the current hierarchical power structure is maintained). In any event this all makes Bookchin's later attacks on "lifestyle anarchism" (which I used to dismiss as a dumb old rant) more interesting to potentially read; given also that in the present text he discusses the "lifestyles" of the current hippy movement as necessary to the cultivation and development of revolutionary psyche. (Direct action is also discussed in this context, as an experience that allows the individual to recognize their own agency; what Debord would call a return of history).

He talks of revolutionary epochs of which the late 20th century is the most important: these moments are also convergences in a certain place, and this time it is the US, where the contradictions are most stark and the resources are available to fight and break capitalism (hence the development of psyche and the growth and number of liberation movements). He seems to dismiss the factory-based working class as a revolutionary force and celebrate the middle class youth as the repository of the appropriate psyche or revolutionary consciousness (I keep using that latter term, but he does not). This seems interesting based on his own background as a factory worker for many years before becoming a professor. He insists that the issue of post-scarcity, and the particular promise of the present and future, must be insisted on along with the traditional focuses on exploitation, in order to keep the leftist critique from becoming "traditional” (and thus dead as in Marx's dead weights of the past). This in itself is a great foreshadowing of post-critique and of Wark's critique of "sublime language."

The main things I got from reading this book before (way back in high school) were the importance of ecology, and the unity of a political critique of hierarchy, with a sustainable ecological future. He has touched on those concepts so far, but has not really developed them as much as the above points.