Green anarchism
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Green anarchism, also known as ecological anarchism or eco-anarchism, is an
Ecological approaches to anarchism were first formulated during the 19th century, as the rise of
Green anarchism was first developed into a distinct political theory by sections of the
At its core, green anarchism concerns itself with the identification and abolition of social hierarchies that cause environmental degradation. Opposed to the extractivism and productivism of industrial capitalism, it advocates for the degrowth and deindustrialisation of the economy. It also pushes for greater localisation and decentralisation, proposing forms of municipalism, bioregionalism or a "return to nature" as possible alternatives to the state.
History
Background
Before the Industrial Revolution, the only occurrences of ecological crisis were small-scale, localised to areas affected by natural disasters, overproduction or war. But as the enclosure of common land increasingly forced dispossessed workers into factories, more wide-reaching ecological damage began to be noticed by radicals of the period.[3]
During the late 19th century, as capitalism and colonialism were reaching their height, political philosophers first began to develop critiques of industrialised society, which had caused a rise in pollution and environmental degradation. In response, these early environmentalists developed a concern for nature and wildlife conservation, soil erosion, deforestation, and natural resource management.[4] Early political approaches to environmentalism were supplemented by the literary naturalism of writers such as Henry David Thoreau, John Muir and Ernest Thompson Seton,[5] whose best-selling works helped to alter the popular perception of nature by rejecting the dualistic "man against nature" conflict.[6] In particular, Thoreau's advocacy of anti-consumerism and vegetarianism, as well as his love for the wilderness, has been a direct inspiration for many eco-anarchists.[7]
Roots
The ecological roots of anarchism go back to the classical anarchists, such as
Like Bakunin before him, Kropotkin extolled the
Reclus himself argued that environmental degradation caused by industrialisation, exemplified to him by mass
Kropotkin and Reclus' synthesis of environmental and social justice formed the foundation for eco-socialism, chiefly associated with libertarian socialists who advocated for a "return to nature", such as Robert Blatchford, William Morris and Henry Salt.[18] Ecological aspects of anarchism were also emphasised by Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, who, drawing from the work of Henry David Thoreau, conceived of anarchism as a means to promote unity between humans and the natural world.[7] These early ecological developments in anarchism lay the foundations for the elaboration of green anarchism in the 1960s, when it was first taken up by figures within the New Left.[19]
Development
Green anarchism first emerged after the dawn of the
Green anarchism as a tendency was first developed by the American social anarchist
In 1973, Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss developed another green anarchist tendency, known as deep ecology, which rejected of anthropocentrism in favour of biocentrism.[29] In 1985, this philosophy was developed into a political programme by the American academics Bill Devall and George Sessions, while Australian philosopher Warwick Fox proposed the formation of bioregions as a green anarchist alternative to the nation state.[30]
Following on from deep ecology,
From theory to practice
By the 1970s, radical environmentalist groups had begun to carry out direct action against nuclear power infrastructure, with mobilisations of the anti-nuclear movement in France, Germany and the United States providing a direct continuity between contemporary environmentalism and the New Left of the 1960s.[36] In the 1980s, green anarchist groups such as Earth First! started taking direct action against deforestation, roadworks and industrial agriculture.[37] They called their sabotage actions "monkey-wrenching", after Edward Abbey's 1984 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang.[38] During the 1990s, the road protest movements in the United Kingdom and Israel were also driven by eco-anarchists, while eco-anarchist action networks such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) first rose to prominence.[36] Eco-anarchist actions have included violent attacks, such as those carried out by cells of the Informal Anarchist Federation (IAF) and Individualists Tending to the Wild (ITS) against nuclear scientists and nanotechnology researchers respectively.[39]
As environmental degradation was accelerated by the rise of
Contemporary theoretical developments
Writers such as Murray Bookchin and Alan Carter have claimed contemporary anarchism to be the only political movement capable of addressing climate change.[46] In his 1996 book Ecology and Anarchism, British anthropologist Brian Morris argued that anarchism is intrinsically environmentalist, as it shared the ecologist principles of decentralisation, non-hierarchical social organisation and interdependence.[7]
By the 21st century, green anarchists had begun to move beyond the previous century's divisions into social ecologist and anarcho-primitivst camps, establishing a new body of theory that rejected the dualisms of humanity against nature and civilisation against wildneress.[47] Drawing on the biocentric philosophy of deep ecology, in 2006, Mark Somma called for a "revolutionary environmentalism" capable of overthrowing capitalism, reducing consumption and organising the conservation of biodiversity.[48] Somma championed a form of solidarity between humanity and the non-human natural world, in a call that was taken up in 2009 by Steven Best, who called for eco-anarchists to commit themselves to "total liberation" and extend solidarity to animals.[49] To Best, morality ought to be extended to animals due to their sentience and capacity to feel pain; he has called for the abolition of the hierarchy between humans and animals, although he implicitly excludes non-sentient plants from this moral consideration.[50] Drawing from
In 2012,
Branches
Social ecology
The green anarchist theory of
According to social ecology, the oppression of humans by humans directly preceded the exploitation of the environment by hierarchical society, which itself caused a vicious circle of increasing socio-ecological devastation.[58] Considering social hierarchy to go against the natural evolutionary tendencies towards complexity and diversity,[59] social ecology concludes that oppressive hierarchies have to be abolished in order to resolve the ecological crisis.[60] Bookchin thus proposed a decentralised system of direct democracy, centred locally in the municipality, where people themselves could participate in decision making.[61] He envisioned a self-organized system of popular assemblies to replace the state and re-educate individuals into socially and ecologically-minded citizens.[62]
Deep ecology
The theory of deep ecology rejects anthropocentrism in favour of biocentrism, which recognizes the intrinsic value of all life, regardless of its utility to humankind.[29] Unlike social ecologists, theorists of deep ecology considered human society to be incapable of reversing environmental degradation and, as a result, proposed a drastic reduction in world population.[30] The solutions to human overpopulation proposed by deep ecologists included bioregionalism, which advocated the replacement of the nation state with bioregions, as well as a widespread return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.[38] Some deep ecologists, including members of Earth First!, have even welcomed the mass death caused by disease and famine as a form of population control.[63]
Anarcho-primitivism
The theory of
Green syndicalism
Green syndicalism, as developed by
Theory
Although a diverse body of thought, eco-anarchist theory has a fundamental basis unified by certain shared principles.
Critique of civilisation
Green anarchism traces the roots of all forms of oppression to the widespread transition from
Decentralisation
Eco-anarchism considers the rise of states to be the primary cause of environmental degradation, as states promote greater industrial extraction and production as means to remain competitive with other state powers, even at the expense of the environment.[73] Drawing from the ecological principle of "unity in diversity", eco-anarchism also recognises humans as an intrinsic part of the ecosystem that they live in and how their culture, history and language is shaped by their local environments.[65] Eco-anarchists therefore argue for the abolition of states and their replacement with stateless societies,[73] upholding various forms of localism and bioregionalism.[74]
Deindustrialisation
Ecological anarchism considers the exploitation of labour under capitalism within a broader ecological context, holding that environmental degradation is intrinsically linked with societal oppression.[75] As such, green anarchism is opposed to industrialism, due to both its social and ecological affects.[16]
See also
- Animal rights and punk subculture
- Chellis Glendinning
- Earth Liberation Front
- Earth First!
- Green Scare
- Eco-socialism
- Intentional community
- Left-libertarianism
- Operation Backfire (FBI)
- Permaculture
References
- ^ a b c Price 2019, p. 281.
- ^ Aaltola 2010, p. 161.
- ^ a b Parson 2018, p. 220.
- ^ a b Morris 2017, p. 371.
- ^ Hall 2011, p. 379; Morris 2017, p. 373.
- ^ Morris 2017, p. 373.
- ^ a b c Hall 2011, p. 379.
- ^ Morris 2017, pp. 373–374.
- ^ Hall 2011, pp. 375–378.
- ^ Hall 2011, p. 375.
- ^ Morris 2017, p. 370.
- ^ Hall 2011, p. 378; Morris 2017, p. 370.
- ^ Morris 2017, pp. 370–371.
- ^ a b c Hall 2011, p. 378.
- ^ Ward 2004, p. 90.
- ^ a b c Parson 2018, pp. 222–223.
- ^ Parson 2018, pp. 220–221.
- ^ Morris 2017, pp. 372–373.
- ^ Morris 2017, p. 374; Parson 2018, pp. 220–223.
- ^ Price 2019, pp. 281–282.
- ^ Carter 2002, p. 13; Curran 2004, p. 40.
- ^ Curran 2004, pp. 40–41.
- ^ Price 2019, p. 282.
- ^ Curran 2004, p. 41; Gordon 2009, p. 1; Price 2019, p. 282; Ward 2004, p. 93.
- ^ Price 2019, p. 282; Ward 2004, p. 93.
- ^ a b c Parson 2018, p. 221.
- ^ Parson 2018, p. 221; Price 2019, p. 282.
- ^ Curran 2004, p. 41; Gordon 2009, p. 1; Parson 2018, p. 221; Price 2019, p. 282.
- ^ a b Price 2019, p. 287.
- ^ a b Price 2019, pp. 287–288.
- ^ a b Parson 2018, pp. 223–224; Price 2019, p. 289.
- ^ Gordon 2009, pp. 1–2; Parson 2018, pp. 223–224; Price 2019, p. 289.
- ^ a b Gordon 2009, pp. 1–2.
- ^ Gordon 2009, pp. 1–2; Price 2019, p. 289.
- ^ a b Parson 2018, pp. 223–224.
- ^ a b c Gordon 2009, p. 1.
- ^ Gordon 2009, p. 1; Marshall 1993, p. 689; Price 2019, p. 288.
- ^ a b Price 2019, p. 288.
- PMID 22660296.
- ^ Curran 2004, p. 44.
- ^ Curran 2004, pp. 44–45.
- ^ Curran 2004, pp. 45–46.
- ^ Curran 2004, p. 46.
- ^ Curran 2004, pp. 46–47.
- ^ Curran 2004, pp. 49–50.
- ^ Ward 2004, p. 98.
- ^ Hall 2011, p. 383.
- ^ Hall 2011, pp. 383–384.
- ^ Hall 2011, p. 384.
- ^ Hall 2011, pp. 384–385.
- ^ Hall 2011, pp. 385–386.
- ^ Gordon 2009, p. 1; Hall 2011, pp. 379–380; Price 2019, p. 282.
- ^ Price 2019, pp. 282–283.
- ^ Gordon 2009, p. 1; Price 2019, pp. 283–284.
- ^ Price 2019, pp. 283–284.
- ^ Price 2019, p. 284.
- ^ Gordon 2009, pp. 1–2; Price 2019, p. 284.
- ^ Hall 2011, p. 380; Parson 2018, p. 221; Price 2019, pp. 284–285; Radcliffe 2016, p. 194.
- ^ Price 2019, p. 285.
- ^ Parson 2018, p. 221; Price 2019, p. 285.
- ^ Price 2019, pp. 285–286.
- ^ Price 2019, p. 286.
- ^ Price 2019, pp. 288–289.
- ^ Price 2019, p. 289.
- ^ a b c Marshall 1993, p. 689.
- ^ Marshall 1993, p. 689; Parson 2018, p. 221.
- ^ Parson 2018, p. 223.
- ^ Gordon 2009, p. 1; Parson 2018, p. 222.
- ^ Gordon 2009, p. 1; Parson 2018, pp. 222–223.
- ^ Marshall 1993, p. 688; Parson 2018, p. 224.
- ^ Parson 2018, pp. 224–225.
- ^ Marshall 1993, pp. 688–689.
- ^ a b Carter 2002, p. 14.
- ^ Gordon 2009, p. 1; Marshall 1993, p. 689.
- ^ Parson 2018, p. 222.
Bibliography
- Aaltola, Elisa (2010). "Green Anarchy: Deep Ecology and Primitivism". In Franks, Benjamin; Wilson, Matthew (eds.). Anarchism and Moral Philosophy. ISBN 978-0-230-28968-0.
- LCCN 98-41317.
- Carter, Alan B. (2002). "Anarchism/eco-anarchism". In Barry, John; Frankland, E. Gene (eds.). International Encyclopedia of Environmental Politics. LCCN 2001019754.
- Curran, Giorel (2004). "Anarchism, environmentalism, and anti–globalisation". Interdisciplinary Environmental Review. 6 (2): 37–50. ISSN 2042-6992.
- Dunlap, Alexander (2021). "Toward an Anarchist Decolonization: A Few Notes". Capitalism Nature Socialism. 32 (4): 62–72. S2CID 234082682.
- Edwards-Schuth, Brandon; Lupinacci, John (2023). "Anarchism, EcoJustice, and Earth Democracy". In Lupinacci, John; Happel-Parkins, Alison; Turner, Rita (eds.). Ecocritical Perspectives in Teacher Education. LCCN 2022046926.
- Gordon, Uri (2009). "Eco-Anarchism". In Ness, Immanuel (ed.). The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest. pp. 1–2. ISBN 9781405198073.
- Hailwood, Simon (2003). "Eco-Anarchism and Liberal Reformism". ISSN 1363-7320.
- Hall, Matthew (2011). "Beyond the human: extending ecological anarchism". S2CID 143845424.
- Holohan, Kevin J. (2022). "Navigating Extinction: Zen Buddhism and Eco-Anarchism". Religions. 13 (60): 60. ISSN 2077-1444.
- OCLC 1042028128.
- Mellos, Koula (1988). "Theory of Eco-anarchism: Bookchin's Critique of Authority". Perspectives on Ecology: A Critical Essay. ISBN 978-1-349-19600-5.
- ISBN 978-90-04-35689-4.
- Parson, Sean (2018). "Ecocentrism". In Franks, Benjamin; Jun, Nathan; Williams, Leonard (eds.). Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach. LCCN 2017044519.
- Parsons, Jonathan (2018). "Anarchism and Unconventional Oil" (PDF). In Bellamy, Brent Ryan; Diamanti, Jeff (eds.). Materialism and the Critique of Energy. LCCN 2018949294. Archived(PDF) from the original on 25 February 2021.
- Price, Andy (2019). "Green Anarchism". In Adams, Matthew S.; Levy, Carl (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. S2CID 242090793.
- Radcliffe, James (2016) [2012]. "Eco-anarchism, the New Left and Romanticism". In Rignall, John; Klaus, H. Gustav (eds.). Ecology and the Literature of the British Left: The Red and the Green. LCCN 2012003109.
- Shahar, Dan C. (2020). "Anarchism for an Ecological Crisis?". In Chartier, Gary; Van Schoelandt, Chad (eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought. S2CID 228898569.
- Smessaert, Jacob; Feola, Giuseppe (2023). "Beyond Statism and Deliberation: Questioning Ecological Democracy through Eco-Anarchism and Cosmopolitics". S2CID 257854522.
- Taylor, Bron (2013). "Threat Assessments and Radical Environmentalism". Terrorism and Political Violence. 15 (4): 173–182. S2CID 143100557.
- Verstraeten, Guido J. M.; Verstraeten, Willem W. (2014). "Eco-refuges as Anarchist's Promised Land or the End of Dialectical Anarchism". Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies. 2 (6): 781–788. ISSN 2321-2799.
- Ward, Colin (2004). "Green aspirations and anarchist futures". Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction. ISBN 978-0-19-280477-8.
- Wiedmann, Thomas; Lenzen, Manfred; Keyßer, Lorenz T.; PMID 32561753.
- Williams, Dana M. (2009). "Red vs. green: regional variation of anarchist ideology in the United States". Journal of Political Ideologies. 14 (2): 189–210. S2CID 33888366.
Further reading
- ISBN 0397010842.
- LCCN 97-074155.
- ISBN 0-06-090363-5.
- Bookchin, Murray (1986) [1971]. OCLC 977237290.
- Bookchin, Murray (1980). Toward an Ecological Society. OCLC 7753479.
- Bookchin, Murray (1991) [1982]. LCCN 81-21745.
- Bookchin, Murray (1987). The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship. Sierra Club Books. LCCN 86-22083.
- Bookchin, Murray (2007). Social Ecology and Communalism. LCCN 2006933557.
- Devall, Bill; Sessions, George (1985). Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered. LCCN 84-14044.
- LCCN 74-9072.
- Kropotkin, Peter (1902). LCCN 03000886.
- OCLC 12933940.
- Purchase, Graham (1997) [1993]. Anarchism and Ecology. OCLC 35938985.
- ISSN 0010-7565.
- Reclus, Élisée (2013). Clark, John; Martin, Camille (eds.). Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus. LCCN 2013911520.
- Shantz, Jeff (2012). Green Syndicalism: An Alternative Red/Green Vision. LCCN 2012019259.
- LCCN 68-28281.
- Snyder, Gary (1974). ISBN 0-8112-0545-2.
- Snyder, Gary (1990). The Practice of the Wild. LCCN 90-7590.
- Tobias, Michael, ed. (1984). Deep Ecology. ISBN 0-932238-13-0.
- Watson, David (1998). Against the Megamachine: Essays on Empire and its Enemies. OCLC 59376926.
- Witoszek, Nina; Brennan, Andrew, eds. (1999). Philosophical Dialogues: Arne Næss and the Progress of Philosophy. LCCN 98-24368.
- ISBN 0-86571-205-0.
- Zerzan, John (1994). ISBN 1-57027-000-7.
- Zerzan, John (1999) [1988]. Elements of Refusal (Revised ed.). Columbia Alternative Library Press. ISBN 1-890532-01-0.
External links
- The Institute for Social Ecology.
- Articles tagged with "green" and "ecology" at The Anarchist Library.