this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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Anarchism and Social Ecology

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Anarchism

Anarchism is a social and political theory and practice that works for a free society without domination and hierarchy.

Social Ecology

Social Ecology, developed from green anarchism, is the idea that our ecological problems have their ultimate roots in our social problems. This is because the domination of nature and our ecology by humanity has its ultimate roots in the domination humanity by humans. Therefore, the solutions to our ecological problems are found by addressing our social and ecological problems simultaneously.

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Poetry and imagination must be integrated with science and technology, for we have evolved beyond an innocence that can be nourished exclusively by myths and dreams.

~ Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom

People want to treat ‘we’ll figure it out by working to get there’ as some sort of rhetorical evasion instead of being a fundamental expression of trust in the power of conscious collective effort.

~Anonymous, but quoted by Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'Til We Free Us

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

~Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking.

~Murray Bookchin, "A Politics for the Twenty-First Century"

There can be no separation of the revolutionary process from the revolutionary goal. A society based on self-administration must be achieved by means of self-administration.

~Murray Bookchin, Post Scarcity Anarchism

In modern times humans have become a wolf not only to humans, but to all nature.

~Abdullah Öcalan

The ecological question is fundamentally solved as the system is repressed and a socialist social system develops. That does not mean you cannot do something for the environment right away. On the contrary, it is necessary to combine the fight for the environment with the struggle for a general social revolution...

~Abdullah Öcalan

Social ecology advances a message that calls not only for a society free of hierarchy and hierarchical sensibilities, but for an ethics that places humanity in the natural world as an agent for rendering evolution social and natural fully self-conscious.

~ Murray Bookchin

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[–] keepthepace@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Be careful in making grand statements like that, using definitions that only a narrow range of people use. Anarchists are not against what most people think about when they think about private property:

To summarise, anarchists are in favour of the kind of property which "cannot be used to exploit another — those kinds of personal possessions which we accumulate from childhood and which become part of our lives." We are opposed to the kind of property "which can be used only to exploit people — land and buildings, instruments of production and distribution, raw materials and manufactured articles, money and capital."

And I find it disingenuous to make peremptory statements about "all anarchists" and "no anarchist". We are a pretty diverse crowd when it comes to the political theory.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Well, that's the entire point of the article, no? To explain what the difference between private and personal property is, and why private property (as defined in the article) is incompatible with anarchism.

And this definition is not some niche one only anarchists have. Basically any political theory has a variation of it, except capitalism, which is at the core about everything being private property.

[–] keepthepace@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And this definition is not some niche one only anarchists have. Basically any political theory has a variation of it

And call it differently.

Saying "we are against private property" is understood as "we are coming for your house, for your car, for your kids' toys, for your tools". Proudhon is voluntarily provocative in his maxim but I really think it is counter productive.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So you object against the headline only? Because the text immediately makes it clear that this isn't meant.

Provocative headlines work, and people that only read headlines are probably not the right target audience anyways.

[–] keepthepace@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The headline and the first 4 pages that never define these notions. You have to reach B.3.1 for that.

I only read that far because I know (a bit) the various theories of property and wondered if they would define the "usage property" a bit later. Someone who does not know that private property has a different meaning in socialist literature would probably not have read that far.

Provocative headlines work, and people that only read headlines are probably not the right target audience anyways.

What is the target audience then? People who already know the anarchist definitions of private properties? These are learning nothing from that read. Here is the flow for the people who may have been interested but are going to get lost by that article:

  1. Provocative headline -> "What the fuck is that crap, are they saying what I understand, that I can't possess anything?"
  2. Skims the first few pages -> "Yep, it is as stupid as it sounds"
  3. Closes and gets a wrong idea of anarchism and socialism in general.
[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago

This is a lengthy text on economic theory targeted at an already anti-capitalist audience, or alternatively at anarchists that want to understand better why anarcho-capitalism is a contradiction in itself.

Obviously you wouldn't link that in your racist uncle's facebook group...