 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Murray Bookchin |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Anarchism |
| Publisher | Ramparts Press |
Publication date | 1971 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover andPaperback) |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 0-87867-005-X |
| OCLC | 159676 |
| 335/.83 | |
| LC Class | HX833 .B63 |
Post-Scarcity Anarchism is a collection ofessays byMurray Bookchin, first published in 1971 byRamparts Press.[1] In it, Bookchin outlines the possible formanarchism might take under conditions ofpost-scarcity. One of Bookchin's major works,[2] its author's radical thesis provoked controversy for beingutopian in its faith in the liberatory potential oftechnology.[3]
Bookchin's "post-scarcity anarchism" is an economic system based onsocial ecology,libertarian municipalism, and an abundance of fundamental resources. Bookchin argues thatpost-industrial societies have the potential to be developed into post-scarcity societies, and can thus imagine "the fulfillment of the social and cultural potentialities latent in a technology of abundance".[3] The self-administration of society is now made possible by technological advancement and, when technology is used in an ecologically sensitive manner, the revolutionary potential of society will be much changed.[4]
Bookchin claims that the expandedproduction made possible by the technological advances of the twentieth century were in the pursuit of marketprofit and at the expense of the needs of humans and of ecologicalsustainability. Theaccumulation of capital can no longer be considered a prerequisite for liberation, and the notion that obstructions such as thestate,social hierarchy, andvanguard political parties are necessary in the struggle for freedom of theworking classes can be dispelled as a myth.[4]
Bookchin's thesis has been seen as a form of anarchism more radical than that ofNoam Chomsky; while both concur thatinformation technology, being controlled by thebourgeoisie, is not necessarily liberatory, Bookchin does not refrain from countering this control by developing new, innovative and radical technologies of the self.[3]Postanarchist scholarLewis Call compares Bookchin's language to that ofMarcel Mauss,Georges Bataille andHerbert Marcuse, and notes that Bookchin anticipates the importance ofcybernetic technology to the development of human potential over a decade before the origin ofcyberpunk.[3] The collection has been cited favourably by Marius de Geus as presenting "inspiring sketches" of the future,[5] and as "an insightful analysis" and "a discussion of revolutionary potential in a technological society" byPeggy Kornegger in her essay "Anarchism: The Feminist Connection".[6]
