Murray Bookchin
Social ecologist and libertarian socialist theorist · 1921–2006
Bookchin was an American theorist who developed social ecology, which links environmental destruction to social hierarchy. He proposed libertarian municipalism, in which citizen assemblies govern towns that confederate with one another.
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Estimated from their documented words and actions. A simplification, not a verdict.
His libertarian municipalism placed power in local assemblies linked through confederation.
He championed face-to-face direct democracy in popular assemblies.
He opposed state coercion and hierarchical authority of every kind.
He rejected nationalism and favoured cooperation among confederated communities across borders.
No strong recorded view on war beyond accepting popular self-defence in revolution.
No strong recorded view on immigration.
He called for the abolition of capitalism and private ownership of productive resources.
He proposed that municipal assemblies, not markets or a central state, should manage the economy.
No strong recorded view on trade.
He criticised mystical and spiritual currents in ecology and defended secular reason.
He opposed all hierarchy, including patriarchy and racial domination.
He argued that 'liberatory technology' could free people from toil and rejected primitivism.