Exploring Anarchy, Ecology, and Social Concepts

ANARCHY All anarchists reject the legitimacy of external government and of the state, and condemn imposed political authority, hierarchy and domination. They seek to establish the condition of anarchy, that is to say, a decentralised and self-regulating society consisting of a federation of voluntary associations of free and equal individuals. The ultimate goal of anarchy is to create a free society which allows all human beings to realize their full potential. Marshall, P. (2008) Demanding the impossible: a history of anarchism, London: Harper Perennial.

Ecology Early ecologists simply defined ecology as the study of organisms and their environment. Current scope of the discipline: The scientific study of the processes influencing the distribution and abundance of organisms, the interactions among organisms, and the interactions between organisms and the transformation and flux of energy and matter. Niemela, J. (2014)Urban Ecology: Patterns,Processes and Applications

Urban Ecology For much of the 20th century human-dominated ecosystems were not seen as legitimate subjects of ecological study. Since the 1970s there has seen the gradual recognition that no ecosystem on Earth was free from the actions of humans. From this has emerged the interdisciplinary study of urban ecology, dissolving the boundaries between the ecological and social science disciplines.

Murray Bookchin - Social Ecology All ecological problems have their roots in social problems. Domination of human by human precedes the notion of dominating nature. Removal of hierarchies and domination in society. Ethics of complementarity between nonhuman nature and human nature. Ecological wholeness in differentiation. Dynamic unity (stability) in diversity. Interdependence in and between nature and society.

Social Ecology The need to allow for a high degree of natural spontaneity. Respect for nature and Working with nature Not surrendering to a mystical Nature that is beyond all human comprehension and intervention. Bookchin uses the analogy of steering a boat with respect to managing the world s future and social ecology will teach us how to find the current and understand the direction of the stream.

Social Ecology The notion of progress, once identified by our ancestors as a faith in the evolution of greater human cooperation and care, is now identified with economic growth A society based on the mindless laws of supply and demand , grow or die as its all-pervasive imperative must necessarily have a devastating ecological impact Bookchin, M. (1993) What Is Social Ecology? http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/socecol.html

Libertarian Municipalism In past societies certain customs guided human behaviour along basically decent lines. The law of the irreducible minimum , the shared notion that all members of a community are entitled to the means of life, irrespective of the amount of work they perform, infirmities or even frivolous behaviour. The principle of usufruct, the notion that the means of life that were not being used by one group could be used, as needs be, by another.

Libertarian Municipalism Cultivation of an affiliation with the interests of the community. Property would be shared and belong to the community as a whole. Ecological society composed of a Commune of communes . Property interests would be municipalised. Workers, farmers, professionals and the like would deal with municipalised property as citizens. Municipalities would be organised into a confederation of ever larger networks that form a dual power in opposition to the nation-state.