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Bookchin,Murray,1921–2006.Thenextrevolution/MurrayBookchin,DebbieBookchin,BlairTaylor;prefacebyUrsulaK.Le

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1.Politicalparticipation.2.Directdemocracy.I.Bookchin,Debbie.II.Taylor,Blair.III.Title.

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ForBeaBookchin

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formorethanfiftyyears

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Contents

CoverTitlePageCopyrightDedication

ForewordbyUrsulaK.LeGuin

IntroductionbyDebbieBookchinandBlairTaylor

1.TheCommunalistProject2.TheEcologicalCrisisandtheNeedtoRemakeSociety3.APoliticsfortheTwenty-FirstCentury4.TheMeaningofConfederalism5.LibertarianMunicipalism:APoliticsofDirectDemocracy6.Cities:TheUnfoldingofReasoninHistory7.Nationalismandthe“NationalQuestion”8.AnarchismandPowerintheSpanishRevolution9.TheFutureoftheLeft

AcknowledgementsFurtherReading

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Foreword

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ByUrsulaK.LeGuin

“TheLeft,” ameaningful term ever since theFrenchRevolution, tookonwidersignificancewiththeriseofsocialism,anarchism,andcommunism.TheRussianrevolutioninstalledagovernmententirelyleftistinconception;leftistandrightistmovements tore Spain apart; democratic parties in Europe and North Americaarrayed themselves between the two poles; liberal cartoonists portrayed theoppositionasafatplutocratwithacigar,whilereactionariesintheUnitedStatesdemonized“commieleftists”fromthe1930sthroughtheColdWar.Theleft/rightopposition, though often an oversimplification, for two centuries was broadlyusefulasadescriptionandareminderofdynamicbalance.Inthetwenty-firstcenturywegoonusingtheterms,butwhatisleftoftheLeft?

Thefailureofstatecommunism,thequietentrenchmentofadegreeofsocialismindemocraticgovernments,andtherelentlessrightwardmovementofpoliticsdrivenbycorporatecapitalismhavemademuchprogressivethinkingseemantiquated,orredundant, or illusory. TheLeft ismarginalized in its thought, fragmented in itsgoals,unconfidentof its ability tounite. InAmericaparticularly, thedrift to theright has been so strong that mere liberalism is now the terrorist bogey thatanarchismorsocialismusedtobe,andreactionariesarecalled“moderates.”So,inacountrythathasallbutshutitslefteyeandistryingtouseonlyitsright

hand,wheredoesanambidextrous,binocularOldRadlikeMurrayBookchinfit?I think he’ll find his readers. A lot of people are seeking consistent,

constructive thinking onwhich to base action—a frustrating search. Theoreticalapproaches that seem promising turn out, like the Libertarian Party, to be AynRand in drag; immediate and effective solutions to a problem turn out, like theOccupymovement, to lackstructureandstaminafor the longrun.Youngpeople,peoplethissocietyblatantlyshort-changesandbetrays,arelookingforintelligent,realistic,long-termthinking:notanotherrantingideology,butapracticalworkinghypothesis, a methodology of how to regain control of where we’re going.Achievingthatcontrolwillrequirearevolutionaspowerful,asdeeplyaffectingsocietyasawhole,astheforceitwantstoharness.Murray Bookchin was an expert in nonviolent revolution. He thought about

radicalsocialchanges,plannedandunplanned,andhowbesttoprepareforthem,allhislife.Thisbookcarrieshisthinkingonpasthisownlifeintothethreateningfutureweface.Impatient, idealistic readersmay find him uncomfortably tough-minded. He’s

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unwillingtoleapoverrealitytodreamsofhappyendings,unsympathetictomeretransgression pretending to be political action: “A ‘politics’ of disorder or‘creative chaos,’ or a naïve practice of ‘taking over the streets’ (usually littlemore than a street festival), regresses participants to the behavior of a juvenileherd.” That appliesmore to the Summer of Love, certainly, than to theOccupymovement, yet it is a permanently cogent warning. But Bookchin is no grimpuritan.Ifirstreadhimasananarchist,probablythemosteloquentandthoughtfuloneofhisgeneration,andinmovingawayfromanarchismhehasn’tlosthissenseofthejoyoffreedom.Hedoesn’twanttoseethatjoy,thatfreedom,comecrashingdown,yetagain,amongtheruinsofitsowneuphoricirresponsibility.What all political and social thinking has finally been forced to face is, of

course,theirreversibledegradationoftheenvironmentbyunrestrainedindustrialcapitalism: theenormousfactofwhichsciencehasbeen tryingfor fiftyyears toconvinceus,whiletechnologyprovidedusevergreaterdistractionsfromit.Everybenefitindustrialismandcapitalismhavebroughtus,everywonderfuladvanceinknowledge and health and communication and comfort, casts the same fatalshadow. All we have, we have taken from the earth; and, taking with ever-increasingspeedandgreed,wenowreturnlittlebutwhatissterileorpoisoned.Yet we can’t stop the process. A capitalist economy, by definition, lives bygrowth; as he observes: “For capitalism to desist from its mindless expansionwouldbeforittocommitsocialsuicide.”Wehave,essentially,chosencancerasthemodelofoursocialsystem.

Capitalism’sgrow-or-dieimperativestandsradicallyatoddswithecology’simperativeofinterdependenceandlimit.Thetwoimperativescannolongercoexistwitheachother;norcananysocietyfoundedonthemyththattheycanbereconciledhopetosurvive.Eitherwewillestablishanecologicalsocietyorsocietywillgounderforeveryone,irrespectiveofhisorherstatus.

MurrayBookchinspentalifetimeopposingtherapaciousethosofgrow-or-diecapitalism.Thenineessays in thisbook represent theculminationof that labor:thetheoreticalunderpinningforanegalitariananddirectlydemocraticecologicalsociety,withapracticalapproachforhowtobuildit.Hecritiquesthefailuresofpast movements for social change, resurrects the promise of direct democracyand, in the last essay in this book, sketches his hope of howwemight turn theenvironmental crisis into a moment of true choice—a chance to transcend theparalyzing hierarchies of gender, race, class, nation, a chance to find a radicalcure for the radical evil of our social system. Reading it, I was moved and

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grateful,asIhavesooftenbeeninreadingMurrayBookchin.HewasatruesonoftheEnlightenmentinhisrespectforclearthoughtandmoralresponsibilityandinhishonest,uncompromisingsearchforarealistichope.

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Introduction

Theworldtodayconfrontsnotone,butaseriesofinterlockingcrises—economic,political, social, and ecological. The new millennium has been marked by agrowing gap between rich and poor that has reached unprecedented levels ofdisparity, consigninganentiregeneration todiminishedexpectationsanddismalprospects. Socially, the trajectory of the new century has been equally bleak,particularly in the developing world, where sectarian violence in the name ofreligion, tribalism, and nationalism has turned entire regions into insufferablebattlezones.Meanwhile,theenvironmentalcrisishasworsenedatapacethathasexceededeventhemostpessimisticforecasts.Globalwarming,risingsealevels,pollutionoftheair,soil,andoceans,andthedestructionofmassivetractsofrainforesthaveacceleratedatsuchalarmingrates that theenvironmentalcatastrophethat was expected to reach grave proportions sometime in the next century hasinsteadbecomethepressing,urgentconcernofthisgeneration.Yet,inthefaceoftheseever-worseningcrises,theperverselogicofneoliberal

capitalismissoentrenchedthat,despiteitsspectacularcollapsein2008,theonlythinkableresponsehasbeenmoreneoliberalism:anever-increasingdeferencetocorporate and financial elites,whichpositsprivatization, slashing services, andgiving free reign to the market as the only way out. The result has been apredictableriseindisenfranchisementpoliticallyandanelectoralpoliticsdevoidof substantive debate and choice—an exercise in showmanship—whether inArgentina,Italy,Germany,ortheUnitedStates.Still,whilepoliticalandeconomicelitesinsist“thereisnoalternative”andcynicallydoubledownonthestatusquoofausterity,activistsaroundtheworldhavechallengedthisconventionalwisdomwithanewpolitics,demandingamoreexpansiveformofdemocracy.FromNewYorkandCairotoIstanbulandRio,movementslikeOccupyWallStreetandtheSpanish indignados have pried open new space with an exciting politics thatdefies existing categories, attacking both capitalist inequality and ossified“representative”democracies.Thevoicesanddemandsarediverse,but at theirrootisadirectchallengetothecurrentpoliticalethosinwhichtheeconomicandsocialpoliciesofelectedgovernments—left, right,orcenter—haveblurred intoan indistinguishable consensus of tinkering around the edges and unquestioningobeisancetoglobalmarketcapitalism.Thesemovementshaveignitedwidespread

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excitement,attractingmillionsofparticipantsaroundtheworldtomassiverallies,andhavekindledonceagainthehopethatfromthestreetswillarisetheflameofarevolutionarynewsocialmovement.Despite inspired moments of resistance, the radical democracy forged in

squares from Zuccotti to Taksim has still not congealed into a viable politicalalternative.Theexcitementandsolidarityonthegroundhasyettocoalesceintoapoliticalpraxiscapableofeliminatingthecurrentarrayofrepressiveforcesandreplacing it with a visionary, egalitarian—and importantly, achievable—newsociety.MurrayBookchindirectlyaddresses thisneed,offeringa transformativevisionandnewpoliticalstrategyforatrulyfreesociety—aprojectthathecalled“Communalism.”Aprolificauthor,essayistandactivist,Bookchindevotedhislifetodeveloping

anewkindofleftpoliticsthatspeakstobothmovementconcernsandthediversesocial problems they confront. Communalismmoves beyond critique to offer areconstructive vision of a fundamentally different society—directly democratic,anticapitalist,ecological,andopposedtoallformsofdomination—thatactualizesfreedom in popular assemblies bound together in confederation. Rescuing therevolutionaryprojectfromthetaintofauthoritarianismandthesupposed“endofhistory,” Communalism advances a bold politics that moves from resistance tosocialtransformation.Bookchin’suseofthetermCommunalismsignifieshisarrival,aftersixdecades

asanactivistandtheorist,ataphilosophyofsocialchangethatwasshapedbyalifetimeontheleft.Bornin1921,hebecameradicalizedattheageofnine,whenhe joined the Young Pioneers, the Communist youth organization in New YorkCity.HebecameaTrotskyist in the late thirties and,beginning in1948, spent adecade in the libertarian socialist Contemporary Issues group, which hadabandonedorthodoxMarxistideology.Inthelate1950s,hebegantoelaboratetheimportance of environmental degradation as a symptom of deeply entrenchedsocial problems. Bookchin’s book on the subject,Our Synthetic Environment,appeared six months before Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, while his seminal1964 pamphletEcology and Revolutionary Thought introduced the concept ofecology as a political category to the New Left. That essay’s groundbreakingsynthesis of anarchism, ecology, anddecentralizationwas the first to equate thegrow-or-dielogicofcapitalismwiththeecologicaldestructionoftheplanetandpresented a profound new understanding of capitalism’s impact on theenvironment as well as social relations. His 1968 essay “Post-ScarcityAnarchism” reformulated anarchist theory for a new era, providing a coherentframeworkforthereorganizationofsocietyalongecological-anarchisticlines.AsStudents for a Democratic Society (SDS) was imploding into Marxist

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sectarianism at its final convention in 1969, Bookchin was distributing hispamphletListenMarxist!, which criticized the retrogressive return to dogmaticMarxismbyvarious factions ofSDS.He advocated for an alternative anarchistpolitics of direct democracy and decentralization, ideas thatwere buried in therubbleof thecrumblingorganizationbutwhich resonatedwith thosemovementsthat would later become dominant on the left. His essays from this period,originally published in themagazineAnarchos by a NewYork City group thatBookchincofoundedinthemid-1960s,werecollectedinthe1971anthologyPost-ScarcityAnarchism,abookthatexertedaprofoundinfluenceontheNewLeftandbecameaclassicarticulationoftwentieth-centuryanarchism.Authoringtwenty-threeworksofhistory,politicaltheory,philosophy,andurban

studies,BookchindrewonarichintellectualtraditionthatrangedfromAristotle,Hegel,andMarxtoKarlPolanyi,HansJonas,andLewisMumford.Inhismajorwork, The Ecology of Freedom (1982), he elaborated the historical,anthropological, and social roots of hierarchy and domination and theirimplicationsforourrelationshiptothenaturalworldinanexpansivetheorythathecalled“social ecology.”Hechallengedand influencedeverymajor figureoftheperiod,fromNoamChomskyandHerbertMarcusetoDanielCohn-BenditandGuyDebord.In1974,Bookchincofounded the Institute forSocialEcology (ISE), aunique

educationalprojectinVermontofferingclassesinpoliticaltheory,radicalhistory,andpracticalecological initiatives likeorganicagricultureandsolarenergy.Hewas an important influence on the overlapping tendencies of nonviolent directaction, peace, radical feminism, and ecology that comprised the new socialmovementsofthelate1970sand1980s.Drawingonhisownactivistbackgroundas, variously, a young street agitator, autoworker shop steward, and civil rightsorganizer for CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality), he played a leadershiproleintheantinuclearClamshellAllianceandintheformationoftheLeftGreenNetwork. In her book Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: NonviolentDirect Action in the 1970s and 1980s, Barbara Epstein credits BookchinwithintroducingtheconceptofaffinitygroupsandpopularizingtheEuropeanCriticalTheory of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. His ideas of face-to-faceparticipatorydemocracy,generalassemblies,andconfederationwereadoptedasthebasicmodesoforganizationanddecision-makingbymuchof theantinuclearmovement worldwide and later by the alterglobalization movement, whichemployed them to ensure democracy in their organization and decision-makingprocesses.BookchinalsometandcorrespondedwithGermanGreenleadersandwas a key voice in the Realo/Fundi debate over whether the Greens shouldremainamovementorbecomeaconventionalparty.Hisworkhadaglobalreach

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andwaswidely translatedand reprinted throughoutEurope,LatinAmerica, andAsia.In the 1980s and 1990s, Bookchin was a central interlocutor for critical

theorists likeCorneliusCastoriadis and a frequent contributor to the influentialjournalTelos. He engaged in lively debateswith prominent ecological thinkerslikeArneNessandDavidForeman.Meanwhile,theInstituteforSocialEcologyplayed an important role in the alterglobalization movement that emerged inSeattlein1999,becomingaspaceforactivistreflectionwhileadvocatingdirectdemocracyandanticapitalismincontrasttothereformist,anticorporatediscourseof many NGOs, and launched a variety of left libertarian and ecologicalinitiatives.Butby themid-1990s,problematic tendencieswithinsomestrainsofanarchismtowardprimitivism,lifestylepolitics,andaversiontoorganizationledBookchinfirsttotrytoreclaimasocialanarchismbeforeeventuallybreakingwiththetraditionentirely.Reflectingonalifetimeofexperienceontheleft,Bookchinspentthelastfifteenyearsbeforehisdeathin2006workingonacomprehensivefour-volumestudyofrevolutionaryhistorycalledTheThirdRevolution,inwhichheofferedastuteconclusionsaboutthefailureofrevolutionarymovements—frompeasantuprisingstomoderninsurrections—toeffectlastingsocialchange.Theseinsights informed a new political perspective, one he hoped could avoid thepitfallsofthepastandleadtoanew,emancipatorypraxis—Communalism.ItwasduringthisperiodthatBookchinpublishedmanyoftheessayscontained

in this collection, formally elaborating the concept of Communalism and itsconcrete political dimension, libertarian municipalism. Communalist politicssuggests away out of the familiar deadlock between the anarchist andMarxisttraditions, offering a missing third pole in the recent debate between SimonCritchley and Slavoj Žižek. Rejecting both the modesty of Critchley’s purelydefensivepoliticsof resistanceaswellasŽižek’sobsessionwith theseizureofoppressive state power, Bookchin instead returns to the recurrent formationarising in nearly every revolutionary upsurge: popular assemblies. From thequartiersoftheParisCommunetothegeneralassembliesofOccupyWallStreetand elsewhere, these self-organized democratic councils run like a red threadthroughhistory up to the present.Yet revolutionaries of all stripes have largelyoverlooked the broader potential of these popular institutions. Subjected tocentralizedpartydisciplinebyMarxistsandviewedwithsuspicionbyanarchists,these institutions of popular power, which Hannah Arendt called the “losttreasure”oftherevolutionarytradition,arethefoundationofBookchin’spoliticalproject.Communalismdevelopsthisrecurringhistoricalformintothebasisforacomprehensivelibertariansocialistvisionofdirectdemocracy.OneofBookchin’searlyformulationsof libertarianmunicipalismappearedin

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1987,whenhewroteTheRiseofUrbanizationand theDeclineofCitizenship(republished later asFromUrbanization to Cities), a follow-up to his earlierbookTheLimitsof theCity (1971), inwhichhe traced thehistoryof theurbanmegalopolis and argued for decentralization. In the later volume, Bookchinrevisited the history of the city to explain the importance of an empoweredcitizenryasthefundamentalbasisforcreatingfreecommunities.Hedistinguished“statecraft,”inwhichindividualshaveadiminishedinfluenceinpoliticalaffairsbecause of the limits of representational government, from “politics,” inwhichcitizens have direct, participatory control over their governments andcommunities.Theideascontainedinthisbook,inwhichBookchinreturnstotheGreekpolistofleshoutnotionsofface-to-faceparticipatorydemocracy,generalassemblies, and confederation, offer a prefigurative strategy in which a newsociety is created in the shell of the old.This concept of direct democracy hasplayedagrowingroleinthelibertarianleftismofactiviststodayandhasbecomethe fundamentalorganizationalprincipleofOccupyWallStreet,even ifmanyofitsadherentswereunawareofitsorigins.AsDavidHarveyobservedinhisbookRebel Cities, “Bookchin’s proposal is by far the most sophisticated radicalproposal to dealwith the creation and collective use of the commons across awidevarietyofscales.”The nine essays here offer an excellent overview of Bookchin’s political

philosophy and themost mature formulation of his thinking with respect to theformsoforganizationnecessarytodevelopacountervailingforcetothecoercivepowerof thenation-state.Eachwasoriginallywrittenasastand-alonework; incollecting them for this volume we have edited the essays where necessary toavoidexcessiverepetitionandpreserveclarity.Takentogether,theychallengeustoaccomplish thechangesnecessary to saveourplanet andachieve realhumanfreedom, and offer a concrete program by which to accomplish this sweepingsocialtransformation.Thewritingsinthiscollectionserveasbothanintroductionandculminationto theworkofoneof themostoriginal thinkersof the twentiethcentury.In the opening essay, “The Communalist Project,” Bookchin situates

Communalismvis-à-visotherleftideologies,arguingthattheworldhaschangedsignificantlyfromthetimesthatbirthedanarchismandMarxism;hecontendsthatthese older ideologies are no longer capable of addressing the new and highlygeneralized problems posed by the modern world, from global warming topostindustrialization.Thesecondessay,“TheEcologicalCrisisand theNeed toRemakeSociety,”elucidates thecore insightofBookchin’ssocialecology—thatthe ecological and social crises are intertwined, indeed, that our domination ofnature is a projection of domination of human by human in society. Rejecting

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ecological arguments that blame individual choices, technology, or populationgrowth, Bookchin argues that the ecological crisis is caused by an irrationalsocial system governed by the cancerous logic of capitalism, driven by itscompetitive grow-or-die imperative and its endless production directed nottowardmeetinghumanneedsbutaccumulatingprofit.Arguingagainsttheextremesof an authoritarian state or totally autonomous self-sufficiency, Bookchin offersCommunalism as an emancipatory alternative capable of saving ourselves andnatureatthesametime.The three middle essays, “A Politics for the Twenty-First Century,” “The

MeaningofConfederalism,”and“LibertarianMunicipalism:APoliticsofDirectDemocracy,”describeindetaildifferentaspectsoflibertarianmunicipalism.Thefirst outlines how confederated assemblies can assert popular control over theeconomy inorder toabolish it as a separate social realm,directing it tohumanneeds rather than profit. “TheMeaning ofConfederalism” further elaborates onthesethemesandaddressesspecificobjectionstotheconceptofconfederaldirectdemocracy. Itanswerscommonquestionssuchas, Isconfederation feasible inaglobalized world? How would local assemblies address bigger problems in ademocraticmanner?Would local communities cooperate or compete with eachother,orcouldlocalismdevolvetoparochialism?“LibertarianMunicipalism:APolitics of Direct Democracy” traces the familiar historical trajectory frommovements into parties—social democratic, socialist, and Green alike—whichhave consistently failed to change the world but instead are changed by it. Bycontrast,libertarianmunicipalismchangesnotonlythecontentbutalsotheformofpolitics, transforming politics from its current lowly status as what reviledpoliticians do to us into a newparadigm inwhichpolitics is somethingwe, asfullyengagedcitizens,doforourselves,thusreclaimingdemocraticcontroloverourownlivesandcommunities.Exploring theunique liberatorypotentialof thecityand thecitizen throughout

history,“Cities:TheUnfoldingofReasoninHistory”examinesthedegradationoftheconceptof“citizen”—fromthatofafreeindividualempoweredtoparticipateandmakecollectivedecisionstoamereconstituentandtaxpayer.BookchinseekstorescuetheEnlightenmentnotionofaprogressive,butnotteleological,conceptofHistorywhereinreasonguideshumanactiontowardtheeradicationoftoilandoppression;orputpositively,freedom.The essays “Nationalism and the ‘National Question’ ” and “Anarchism and

PowerintheSpanishRevolution”elucidatealibertarianperspectiveonquestionsof power, cultural identity, and political sovereignty. In the former, Bookchinplacesnationalisminthelargerhistoricalcontextofhumanity’ssocialevolution,withtheaimoftranscendingit,suggestinginsteadalibertarianandcosmopolitan

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ethics of complementarity inwhich cultural differences serve to enhancehumanunity. In “Anarchism and Power in the Spanish Revolution” he confronts thequestionofpower,describinghowanarchiststhroughouthistoryhaveseenpoweras an essentially negative evil that must be destroyed. Bookchin contends thatpowerwill alwaysexist,but that thequestion revolutionaries face iswhether itwillrestinthehandsofelitesorbegivenanemancipatoryinstitutionalform.The concluding, previously unpublished, essay “The Future of the Left”

assesses the fate of the revolutionary project during the twentieth century,examining the Marxist and anarchist traditions. Bookchin argues that Marxismremainstrappedbyalimitedfocusoneconomyandisdeeplymarredbyitslegacyof authoritarian statism. Anarchism, by contrast, retains a problematicindividualism that valorizes abstract and liberal notions of “autonomy” over amore expansive notion of freedom, ducking thorny questions about collectivepower, social institutions, and political strategy. Communalism resolves thistension by giving freedom concrete institutional form in confederated popularassemblies.Theessayconcludeswithapassionatedefenseof theEnlightenmentand a reminder that its legacy of discerning the “is” from the “ought” stillconstitutes the very core of the Left: critique directed toward unlocking thepotentialityofuniversalhumanfreedom.Today, few deny the grim reality of overlapping political, economic, and

ecologicalcrisesthatcurrentlyconfronttheworld.Yet,despiteinspiringmomentsof popular outrage and mobilization, no viable alternative social vision hasemerged; hypercompetition, austerity, and ecological degradation march on,opposedyetalsounstopped.Thepresentexhaustionofconventionalpoliticscallsforboldnewideasthatspeaktotheradicallydemocraticaspirationsatthecoreofcontemporary global movements. Bookchin’s Communalism circumvents thestalemate between the state and the street—the familiar oscillation betweenempowering but ephemeral street protest and entering the very state institutionsdesigned to uphold the present order. He expands our horizons from endlesslyopposingthevenalityofpoliticiansandcorporatepowertoaneworganizationofsociety,whichredefinespoliticsfromadetestedthingdonetoustosomethingwedoourselves,together,givingsubstancetotheterm“freedom”byallowingustotakecontrolofourlives.Bookchinoffersavisionofwhatsuchatrulyfreesocietymight look like,anda roadmapcapableof transportingus there.Therefore,weoffer this bookwith thehope that the ideasdonot lie dormanton thepage, butinspire thought and action that enables us to move from resistance to socialtransformation.

DebbieBookchinandBlairTaylor

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TheCommunalistProject

Whether the twenty-first century will be the most radical of times or the mostreactionary—or will simply lapse into a gray era of dismal mediocrity—willdependoverwhelminglyuponthekindofsocialmovementandprogramthatsocialradicalscreateoutofthetheoretical,organizational,andpoliticalwealththathasaccumulatedduringthepasttwocenturiesoftherevolutionaryera.Thedirectionwe select, from among several intersecting roads of human development, maywell determine the future of our species for centuries to come.As long as thisirrational societyendangersuswithnuclearandbiologicalweapons,wecannotignorethepossibilitythat theentirehumanenterprisemaycometoadevastatingend. Given the exquisitely elaborate technical plans that the military-industrialcomplex has devised, the self-extermination of the human species must beincluded in the futuristic scenarios that, at the turn of themillennium, themassmediaareprojecting—theendofahumanfutureassuch.Lesttheseremarksseemtooapocalyptic,Ishouldemphasizethatwealsolive

inanerawhenhumancreativity,technology,andimaginationhavethecapabilityto produce extraordinarymaterial achievements and to endowuswith societiesthatallowforadegreeof freedomthat farandawayexceeds themostdramaticand emancipatory visions projected by social theorists such as Saint-Simon,Charles Fourier, Karl Marx, and Peter Kropotkin.1 Many thinkers of thepostmodernagehaveobtuselysingledoutscienceandtechnologyastheprincipalthreatstohumanwell-being,yetfewdisciplineshaveimpartedtohumanitysuchastupendousknowledgeoftheinnermostsecretsofmatterandlife,orprovidedourspecies betterwith the ability to alter every important feature of reality and toimprovethewell-beingofhumanandnonhumanlifeforms.Wearethusinapositioneithertofollowapathtowardagrim“endofhistory,”

inwhichabanal successionofvacuousevents replacesgenuineprogress,or tomoveontoapathtowardthetruemakingofhistory,inwhichhumanitygenuinelyprogresses towarda rationalworld.Weare inaposition tochoosebetweenanignominiousfinale,possiblyincludingthecatastrophicnuclearoblivionofhistoryitself,andhistory’srationalfulfillmentinafree,materiallyabundantsocietyinanaestheticallycraftedenvironment.Preciselyatatimewhenwe,asaspecies,arecapableofproducingthemeans

foramazingobjectiveadvancesandimprovementsinthehumanconditionandinthe nonhuman natural world—advances that couldmake for a free and rational

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society—westandalmostnakedmorallybeforetheonslaughtofsocialforcesthatmay verywell lead to our physical immolation. Prognoses about the future areunderstandably very fragile and are easily distrusted. Pessimism has becomewidespread,ascapitalistsocialrelationsbecomemoredeeplyentrenchedinthehumanmind than ever before and as culture regresses appallingly, almost to avanishingpoint.Havingbroughthistorytoapointwherenearlyeverythingispossible,at least

of a material nature—and having left behind a past that was permeatedideologically by mystical and religious elements produced by the humanimagination—we are faced with a new challenge, one that has never beforeconfrontedhumanity.Wemustconsciouslycreateourownworld,notaccordingtomindless customs and destructive prejudices, but according to the canons ofreason,reflection,anddiscoursethatuniquelybelongtoourownspecies.

What factors should be decisive going forward? Of great significance is theimmense accumulation of social and political experience that is available toactiviststoday,astorehouseofknowledgethat,properlyconceived,couldbeusedtoavoidtheterribleerrorsthatourpredecessorsmadeandtosparehumanitytheterrible plagues of failed revolutions in the past. Also, of indispensableimportanceisthepotentialforanewtheoreticalspringboardthathasbeencreatedbythehistoryofideas,onethatprovidesthemeanstocatapultanemergingradicalmovementbeyondexisting social conditions intoa future that fostershumanity’semancipation.Butwemustalsobefullyawareofthescopeoftheproblemsthatweface.We

mustunderstandwithcompleteclaritywherewestandinthedevelopmentoftheprevailingcapitalist order, andwehave tograspemergent socialproblemsandaddressthemintheprogramofanewmovement.Capitalismisunquestionablythemostdynamicsocietyevertoappearinhistory.Bydefinition,tobesure,italwaysremainsasystemofcommodityexchangeinwhichobjectsthataremadeforsaleand profit pervade andmediatemost human relations. Yet capitalism is also ahighly mutable system, continually advancing the brutal maxim that whateverenterprisedoesnotgrowat theexpenseof its rivalsmustdie.Hence,“growth”and perpetual change become the very laws of life of capitalist existence.Thismeansthatcapitalismneverremainspermanentlyinonlyoneform;itmustalwaystransformtheinstitutionsthatarisefromitsbasicsocialrelations.Althoughcapitalismbecameadominantsocietyonlyinthepastfewcenturies,

itlongexistedontheperipheryofearliersocieties:inalargelycommercialform,structuredaroundtradebetweencitiesandempires;inacraftformthroughouttheEuropeanMiddleAges;inahugelyindustrialforminourowntime;andifweare

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to believe recent seers, in an informational form in the coming period. It hascreatednotonlynewtechnologiesbutalsoagreatvarietyofeconomicandsocialstructures,suchasthesmallshop,thefactory,thehugemill,andtheindustrialandcommercialcomplex.CertainlythecapitalismoftheIndustrialRevolutionhasnotcompletely disappeared, any more than the isolated peasant family and smallcraftsman of a still earlier period have been consigned to complete oblivion.Much of the past is always incorporated into the present; as Marx insistentlywarned,thereisno“purecapitalism,”andnoneoftheearlierformsofcapitalismfade away until radically new social relations are established and becomeoverwhelmingly dominant. But today, capitalism, even as it coexists with andutilizes precapitalist institutions for its own ends, now reaches into the suburbsandthecountrysidewithitsshoppingmallsandnewlystyledfactories.Indeed,itisbynomeansinconceivablethatonedayitwillreachbeyondourplanet.Inanycase,ithasproducednotonlynewcommoditiestocreateandfeednewwantsbutnewsocial andcultural issues,which in turnhavegiven rise tonewsupportersandantagonistsoftheexistingsystem.ThefamousfirstpartofMarxandEngels’sCommunistManifesto,inwhichtheycelebratecapitalism’swonders,wouldhavetobeperiodicallyrewrittentokeeppacewiththeachievements—aswellasthehorrors—producedbythebourgeoisie’sdevelopment.One of the most striking features of capitalism today is that in the Western

world the highly simplified two-class structure—the bourgeoisie and theproletariat—that Marx and Engels predicted would become dominant under“mature” capitalism has undergone a process of reconfiguration. The conflictbetween wage labor and capital, while it has by no means disappeared,nonetheless lacks the all-embracing importance that it possessed in the past.ContrarytoMarx’sexpectations,theindustrialworkingclassisnowdwindlinginnumbers and is steadily losing its traditional identity as a class, which by nomeansexcludesitfromapotentiallybroaderandperhapsmoreextensiveconflictof society as a whole against capitalist social relations. Present-day culture,social relations,cityscapes,modesofproduction,agriculture,and transportationhave remade the traditional proletarian into a largely petty bourgeois stratumwhosementalityismarkedbyitsownutopianismof“consumptionforthesakeofconsumption.”Wecanforeseeatimewhentheproletarian,whateverthecolorofhisorhercollarorplaceon theassembly line,willbecompletely replacedbyautomatedandevenminiaturizedmeansofproductionthatareoperatedbyafewwhite-coatedmanipulatorsofmachinesandbycomputers.Seenasawhole,thesocialconditionthatcapitalismhasproducedtodaystands

verymuchatoddswiththesimplisticclassprognosesadvancedbyMarxandbythe revolutionary French syndicalists. After the SecondWorld War, capitalism

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underwent an enormous transformation, creating broad new social issues withextraordinaryrapidity,issuesthatwentbeyondtraditionalproletariandemandsforimprovedwages,hours,andworkingconditions:notably,environmental,gender,hierarchical,civic,anddemocratic issues.Capitalism, ineffect,hasgeneralizedits threats tohumanity,particularlywithclimaticchanges thatmayalter theveryface of the planet, oligarchical institutions of a global scope, and rampanturbanizationthatradicallycorrodestheciviclifebasictograssrootspolitics.Hierarchy,today,isbecomingaspronouncedanissueasclass,aswitnessthe

extent to which many social analyses have singled out managers, bureaucrats,scientists, and the like as emerging, ostensibly dominant groups. New andelaborategradationsofstatusand interestscount today toanextent that theydidnot in therecentpast; theyblur theconflictbetweenwagelaborandcapital thatwas once so central, clearly defined, and militantly waged by traditionalsocialists. Class categories are now intermingled with hierarchical categoriesbased on race, gender, sexual preference, and certainly national or regionaldifferences. Status differentiations, characteristic of hierarchy, tend to convergewithclassdifferentiations,andamoreall-inclusivecapitalisticworldisemerginginwhichethnic,national,andgenderdifferencesoftensurpasstheimportanceofclassdifferencesinthepubliceye.At the same time, capitalism has produced a new, perhaps paramount

contradiction: the clashbetweenaneconomybasedonunendinggrowthand thedesiccationofthenaturalenvironment.2Thisissueanditsvastramificationscannomorebeminimized,letalonedismissed,thantheneedofhumanbeingsforfoodorair.Atpresent,themostpromisingstrugglesintheWest,wheresocialismwasborn,seemtobewagedlessaroundincomeandworkingconditionsthanaroundnuclear power, pollution, deforestation, urban blight, education, health care,community life, and the oppression of people in underdeveloped countries—aswitnessthe(albeitsporadic)antiglobalizationupsurges,inwhichblue-andwhite-collar “workers”march in the same rankswithmiddle-class humanitarians andare motivated by common social concerns. Proletarian combatants becomeindistinguishable from middle-class ones. Burly workers, whose hallmark is acombativemilitancy, nowmarchbehind “bread andpuppet” theater performers,oftenwithaconsiderablemeasureofsharedplayfulness.Membersoftheworkingandmiddleclassesnowwearmanydifferentsocialhats,sotospeak,challengingcapitalismobliquelyaswellasdirectlyonculturalaswellaseconomicgrounds.Norcanwe ignore, indecidingwhatdirectionweare to follow, the fact that

capitalism, if it is not checked,will in the future—andnot necessarily the verydistant future—differ appreciably from the system we know today. Capitalistdevelopmentcanbeexpectedtovastlyalterthesocialhorizonintheyearsahead.

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Can we suppose that factories, offices, cities, residential areas, industry,commerce, and agriculture, let alone moral values, aesthetics, media, populardesires,andthelikewillnotchangeimmenselybeforethetwenty-firstcenturyisout?Inthepastcentury,capitalism,aboveallelse,hasbroadenedsocialissues—indeed, thehistoricalsocialquestionofhowahumanity,dividedbyclassesandexploitation,willcreateasocietybasedonequality,thedevelopmentofauthenticharmony,andfreedom—toincludethosewhoseresolutionwasbarelyforeseenbytheliberatorysocialtheoristsinthenineteenthandearlytwentiethcenturies.Ourage, with its endless array of “bottom lines” and “investment choices,” nowthreatenstoturnsocietyitselfintoavastandexploitativemarketplace.3

Given the changes that we are witnessing and those that are still taking form,social radicals can no longer oppose the predatory (as well as immenselycreative)capitalistsystembyusingtheideologiesandmethodsthatwereborninthe first Industrial Revolution, when a factory proletarian seemed to be theprincipalantagonistofatextileplantowner.Norcanweuseideologiesthatwerespawnedbyconflicts thatan impoverishedpeasantryused tooppose feudalandsemifeudal landowners.None of the professedly anticapitalist ideologies of thepast—Marxism,anarchism,syndicalism,andmoregeneric formsofsocialism—retain the same relevance that they had at an earlier stage of capitalistdevelopment and in an earlier periodof technological advance.Nor can anyofthemhopetoencompassthemultitudeofnewissues,opportunities,problems,andintereststhatcapitalismhasrepeatedlycreatedovertime.Marxism was the most comprehensive and coherent effort to produce a

systematicformofsocialism,emphasizingthematerialaswellas thesubjectivehistorical preconditions of a new society. We owe much to Marx’s attempt toprovide us with a coherent and stimulating analysis of the commodity andcommodity relations, to an activist philosophy, a systematic social theory, anobjectively grounded or “scientific” concept of historical development, and aflexiblepoliticalstrategy.Marxistpolitical ideaswereeminentlyrelevant to theneedsofaterriblydisorientedproletariatandtotheparticularoppressionsthattheindustrialbourgeoisieinflicteduponitinEnglandinthe1840s,somewhatlaterinFrance, Italy,andGermany,andverypresciently inRussia in the lastdecadeofMarx’slife.UntiltheriseofthepopulistmovementinRussia(mostfamously,theNarodnayaVolya),Marx expected the emerging proletariat to become the greatmajorityofthepopulationinEuropeandNorthAmerica,andtoinevitablyengageinrevolutionaryclasswarasaresultofcapitalistexploitationandimmiseration.And especially between 1917 and 1939, long after Marx’s death, Europe wasindeed beleaguered by a mounting class war that reached the point of outright

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workers’ insurrections. In 1917, owing to an extraordinary confluence ofcircumstances—particularly with the outbreak of the First World War, whichrendered several quasi-feudalEuropean social systems terriblyunstable—Leninand theBolsheviks tried touse (butgreatlyaltered)Marx’swritings inorder totakepowerinaneconomicallybackwardempire,whosesizespannedeleventimezonesacrossEuropeandAsia.4Butforthemostpart,aswehaveseen,Marxism’seconomicinsightsbelonged

to an eraof emerging factory capitalism in thenineteenth century.Brilliant as atheory of the material preconditions for socialism, it did not address theecological, civic, and subjective forces or the efficient causes that could impelhumanity into amovement for revolutionary social change.On the contrary, fornearlyacentury,Marxismstagnatedtheoretically.Itstheoristswereoftenpuzzledbydevelopments that had passed it by and, since the 1960s, havemechanicallyappendedenvironmentalistandfeministideastoitsformulaicouvrieristoutlook.By the same token, anarchism represents, even in its authentic form, a highlyindividualistic outlook that fosters a radically unfettered lifestyle, often as asubstituteformassaction.In fact, anarchism represents the most extreme formulation of liberalism’s

ideology of unfettered autonomy, culminating in a celebration of heroic acts ofdefiance of the state.Anarchism’smythos of self-regulation (auto nomos)—theradical assertion of the individual over or even against society and thepersonalistic absence of responsibility for the collective welfare—leads to aradicalaffirmationoftheall-powerfulwillsocentraltoNietzsche’sideologicalperegrinations.Someself-professedanarchistshaveevendenouncedmasssocialactionasfutileandalientotheirprivateconcernsandmadeafetishofwhattheSpanishanarchistscalledgrupismo,asmall-groupmodeofaction that ishighlypersonalratherthansocial.Anarchism has often been confused with revolutionary syndicalism, a highly

structuredandwell-developedmassformoflibertariantradeunionismthat,unlikeanarchism,waslongcommittedtodemocraticprocedures,5todisciplineinaction,and to organized, long-range revolutionary practice to eliminate capitalism. Itsaffinity with anarchism stems from its strong libertarian bias, but bitterantagonisms between anarchists and syndicalists have a long history in nearlyevery country in Western Europe and North America, as witness the tensionsbetween the Spanish CNT and the anarchist groups associated with Tierra yLibertadearlyinthetwentiethcentury,betweentherevolutionarysyndicalistandanarchistgroups inRussiaduring the1917revolution,andbetween the IWWintheUnitedStatesandSweden,tocitethemoreillustrativecasesinthehistoryofthelibertarianlabormovement.

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Revolutionary syndicalism’s destiny has been tied in varying degrees to apathologycalledouvrierisme,or“workerism,”andwhateverphilosophy, theoryofhistory,orpoliticaleconomyitpossesseshasbeenborrowed,oftenpiecemealand indirectly, from Marx. Indeed, Georges Sorel and many other professedrevolutionary syndicalists in the early twentieth century expressly regardedthemselvesasMarxistsandevenmoreexpresslyeschewedanarchism.Moreover,revolutionary syndicalism lacks a strategy for social change beyond the generalstrike;revolutionaryuprisingssuchasthefamousOctoberandNovembergeneralstrikes in Russia during 1905 proved to be stirring but ultimately ineffectual.Indeed, as invaluable as the general strike may be as a prelude to directconfrontationwiththestate,theydecidedlydonothavethemysticalcapacitythatrevolutionary syndicalists assigned to them as means for social change. Theirlimitationsarestrikingevidencethat,asepisodicformsofdirectaction,generalstrikesarenotequatablewithrevolutionnorevenwithprofoundsocialchanges,which presuppose amassmovement and require years of gestation and a clearsenseofdirection.Indeed,revolutionarysyndicalismexudesatypicalouvrieristanti-intellectualismthatdisdainsattempts toformulateapurposiverevolutionarydirectionandhasa reverenceforproletarian“spontaneity,”which,at times,hasleditintohighlyself-destructivesituations.Lackingthemeansforananalysisoftheirsituation,theSpanishsyndicalists(andanarchists)revealedonlyaminimalcapacity to understand the situation in which they found themselves after theirvictoryoverFranco’sforcesinthesummerof1936andnocapacitytotake“thenextstep”toinstitutionalizeaworkersandpeasants’formofgovernment.WhattheseobservationsadduptoisthatMarxists,revolutionarysyndicalists,

and authentic anarchists all have a fallacious understanding of politics, whichshould be conceived as the civic arena and the institutions by which peopledemocraticallyanddirectlymanagetheircommunityaffairs. Indeed, theLefthasrepeatedlymistaken statecraft for politics by its persistent failure to understandthat the twoarenotonlyradicallydifferentbutexist in radical tension—infact,opposition—toeachother.6AsIhavewrittenelsewhere,historically,politicsdidnot emerge from the state—an apparatus whose professional machinery isdesignedtodominateandfacilitatetheexploitationofthecitizenryintheinterestsof a privileged class. Rather, politics, almost by definition, is the activeengagementoffreecitizensinthehandlingoftheirmunicipalaffairsandintheirdefenseof its freedom.Onecanalmost say thatpolitics is the“embodiment”ofwhattheFrenchrevolutionariesofthe1790scalledcivicisme.Quiteproperly,infact,thewordpoliticsitselfcontainstheGreekwordfor“city”orpolis,and itsuseinclassicalAthens,togetherwithdemocracy,connotedthedirectgoverningofthecitybyitscitizens.Centuriesofcivicdegradation,markedparticularlybythe

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formation of classes, were necessary to produce the state and its corrosiveabsorptionofthepoliticalrealm.A defining feature of the Left is precisely the Marxist, anarchist, and

revolutionarysyndicalistbeliefthatnodistinctionexists,inprinciple,betweenthepoliticalrealmandthestatistrealm.Byemphasizingthenation-state—includinga“workers’state”—asthelocusofeconomicaswellaspoliticalpower,Marx(aswell as libertarians) notoriously failed to demonstrate howworkers could fullyand directly control such a state without the mediation of an empoweredbureaucracy and essentially statist (or equivalently, in the case of libertarians,governmental)institutions.Asaresult,theMarxistsunavoidablysawthepoliticalrealm, which it designated a workers’ state, as a repressive entity, ostensiblybasedontheinterestsofasingleclass:theproletariat.Revolutionarysyndicalism,foritspart,emphasizedfactorycontrolbyworkers’

committees and confederal economic councils as the locus of social authority,thereby simply bypassing any popular institutions that existed outside theeconomy.Oddly,thiswaseconomicdeterminismwithavengeance,which,testedby the experiences of the Spanish revolution of 1936, proved completelyineffectual.Avastdomainofrealgovernmentalpower,frommilitaryaffairstotheadministrationofjustice,felltotheStalinistsandtheliberalsofSpain,whousedtheirauthority tosubvert the libertarianmovementandwith it, the revolutionaryachievementsofthesyndicalistworkersinJuly1936,orwhatwasdourlycalledbyonenovelist“TheBriefSummerofSpanishAnarchism.”Asforanarchism,Bakuninexpressedthetypicalviewofitsadherentsin1871

when he wrote that the new social order could be created “only through thedevelopmentandorganizationofthenonpoliticalorantipoliticalsocialpowerofthe working class in city and country,” thereby rejecting with characteristicinconsistency the verymunicipal politics that he sanctioned in Italy around thesame year. Accordingly, anarchists have long regarded every government as astate and condemned it—a view that is a recipe for the elimination of anyorganized social life whatever. While the state is the instrument by which anoppressiveandexploitativeclassregulatesandcoercivelycontrols thebehaviorofanexploitedclassbyarulingclass,agovernment—orbetterstill,apolity—isanensembleofinstitutionsdesignedtodealwiththeproblemsofconsociationallife in an orderly and hopefully fairmanner. Every institutionalized associationthatconstitutesasystemforhandlingpublicaffairs—withorwithoutthepresenceof a state—is necessarily a government. By contrast, every state, althoughnecessarily a form of government, is a force for class repression and control.Annoying as it must seem to Marxists and anarchists alike, the cry for aconstitution,foraresponsibleandaresponsivegovernment,andevenforlawor

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nomoshasbeenclearlyarticulated—andcommitted toprint!—by theoppressedfor centuries against the capricious rule exercised by monarchs, nobles, andbureaucrats.Thelibertarianoppositiontolaw,nottospeakofgovernmentassuch,hasbeenassillyastheimageofasnakeswallowingitstail.Whatremainsintheendisnothingbutaretinalafterimagethathasnoexistentialreality.Theissuesraisedintheprecedingpagesareofmorethanacademicinterest.As

we enter the twenty-first century, social radicals need a socialism—libertarianand revolutionary—that is neither an extension of the peasant-craft“associationism”thatliesatthecoreofanarchismnortheproletarianismthatliesat thecoreof revolutionarysyndicalismandMarxism.However fashionable thetraditionalideologies(particularlyanarchism)maybeamongyoungpeopletoday,a trulyprogressivesocialism that is informedby libertarianaswellasMarxianideasbut transcends theseolder ideologiesmustprovide intellectual leadership.For political radicals today to simply resuscitate Marxism, anarchism, orrevolutionarysyndicalismandendowthemwithideologicalimmortalitywouldbeobstructive to the development of a relevant radical movement. A new andcomprehensive revolutionary outlook is needed, one that is capable ofsystematicallyaddressingthegeneralizedissuesthatmaypotentiallybringmostofsocietyintooppositiontoanever-evolvingandchangingcapitalistsystem.The clash between a predatory society based on indefinite expansion and

nonhumannaturehasgiven rise toanensembleof ideas thathasemergedas theexplication of the present social crisis and meaningful radical change. Socialecology, a coherent vision of social development that intertwines the mutualimpactofhierarchyandclassonthecivilizingofhumanity,hasfordecadesarguedthat wemust reorder social relations so that humanity can live in a protectivebalancewiththenaturalworld.7Contrary to the simplistic ideology of “eco-anarchism,” social ecology

maintains that an ecologically oriented society can be progressive rather thanregressive,placingastrongemphasisnotonprimitivism,austerity,anddenialbutonmaterialpleasureandease.Ifasocietyistobecapableofmakinglifenotonlyvastlyenjoyableforitsmembersbutalsoleisurelyenoughthattheycanengageinthe intellectual and cultural self-cultivation that is necessary for creatingcivilizationandavibrantpoliticallife,itmustnotdenigratetechnicsandsciencebut bring them into accordwithvisionsof humanhappiness and leisure.Socialecologyisanecologynotofhungerandmaterialdeprivationbutofplenty;itseeksthe creation of a rational society in which waste, indeed excess, will becontrolledbyanewsystemofvalues;andwhenorifshortagesariseasaresultofirrational behavior, popular assemblies will establish rational standards ofconsumption by democratic processes. In short, social ecology favors

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management, plans, and regulations formulated democratically by popularassemblies,notfreewheelingformsofbehaviorthathavetheirorigininindividualeccentricities.

It ismycontention thatCommunalism is theoverarchingpoliticalcategorymostsuitable to encompass the fully thought-out and systematic views of socialecology, including libertarian municipalism and dialectical naturalism. As anideology,CommunalismdrawsonthebestoftheolderLeftideologies—Marxismandanarchism,moreproperlythelibertariansocialisttradition—whileofferingawider andmore relevant scope forour time.FromMarxism, it draws thebasicproject of formulating a rationally systematic and coherent socialism thatintegrates philosophy, history, economics, and politics.Avowedly dialectical, itattemptstoinfusetheorywithpractice.Fromanarchism,itdrawsitscommitmentto antistatism and confederalism, as well as its recognition that hierarchy is abasicproblemthatcanbeovercomeonlybyalibertariansocialistsociety.8The choice of the term Communalism to encompass the philosophical,

historical,political,andorganizationalcomponentsofasocialismforthetwenty-first century has not been an offhanded one. The word originated in the ParisCommuneof1871,whenthearmedpeopleoftheFrenchcapitalraisedbarricadesnotonlytodefendthecitycouncilofParisanditsadministrativesubstructuresbutalso to create a nationwide confederation of cities and towns to replace therepublican nation-state. Communalism as an ideology is not sullied by theindividualismandtheoftenexplicitantirationalismofanarchism;nordoesitcarrythehistoricalburdenofMarxism’sauthoritarianismasembodiedinBolshevism.Itdoes not focus on the factory as its principal social arena or on the industrialproletariatasitsmainhistoricalagent;anditdoesnotreducethefreecommunityof the future to a fanciful medieval village. Its most important goal is clearlyspelled out in a conventional dictionary definition:Communalism, according totheAmericanHeritageDictionaryoftheEnglishLanguage,is“atheoryorsystemofgovernmentinwhichvirtuallyautonomouslocalcommunitiesarelooselyboundinafederation.”9Communalismseeks to recapture themeaningofpolitics in itsbroadest,most

emancipatorysense,indeed,tofulfillthehistoricpotentialofthemunicipalityasthedevelopmentalarenaofmindanddiscourse.Itconceptualizesthemunicipality,potentially at least, as a transformative development beyond organic evolutioninto the domain of social evolution. The city is the domain where the archaicblood-tie that was once limited to the unification of families and tribes, to theexclusion of outsiders, was—juridically, at least—dissolved. It became thedomainwhere hierarchies based on parochial and sociobiological attributes of

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kinship,gender,andagecouldbeeliminatedandreplacedbyafreesocietybasedonasharedcommonhumanity.Potentially,itremainsthedomainwheretheonce-fearedstrangercanbefullyabsorbedintothecommunity—initiallyasaprotectedresident of a common territory and eventually as a citizen, engaged in makingpolicydecisionsinthepublicarena.Itisaboveallthedomainwhereinstitutionsandvalueshavetheirrootsnotinzoologybutincivilhumanactivity.Lookingbeyondthesehistoricalfunctions,themunicipalityconstitutestheonly

domain for an association based on the free exchange of ideas and a creativeendeavortobringthecapacitiesofconsciousnesstotheserviceoffreedom.Itisthe domain where a mere animalistic adaptation to an existing and pregivenenvironment canbe radically supplantedbyproactive, rational intervention intotheworld—indeed,aworldyettobemadeandmoldedbyreason—withaviewtowardending theenvironmental, social,andpolitical insults towhichhumanityand the biosphere have been subjected by classes and hierarchies. Freed ofdomination as well as material exploitation—indeed, re-created as a rationalarena for human creativity in all spheres of life—themunicipality becomes theethicalspaceforthegoodlife.Communalismisthusnocontrivedproductofmerefancy:itexpressesanabidingconceptandpracticeofpoliticallife,formedbyadialecticofsocialdevelopmentandreason.As an explicitly political body of ideas, Communalism seeks to recover and

advance the development of the city in a form that accords with its greatestpotentialities and historical traditions. This is not to say that Communalismaccepts the municipality as it is today. Quite to the contrary, the modernmunicipalityisinfusedwithmanystatistfeaturesandoftenfunctionsasanagentofthebourgeoisnation-state.Today,when thenation-statestill seemssupreme, therights that modern municipalities possess cannot be dismissed as theepiphenomenaofmorebasiceconomic relations. Indeed, toagreatdegree, theyarethehard-wongainsofcommoners,wholongdefendedthemagainstassaultsbyrulingclassesoverthecourseofhistory—evenagainstthebourgeoisieitself.The concrete political dimension of Communalism is known as libertarian

municipalism.10 In its libertarianmunicipalistprogram,Communalismresolutelyseeks to eliminate statist municipal structures and replace them with theinstitutionsofalibertarianpolity.Itseekstoradicallyrestructurecities’governinginstitutions intopopular democratic assemblies basedonneighborhoods, towns,andvillages.Inthesepopularassemblies,citizens—includingthemiddleclassesaswell as theworking classes—dealwith community affairs on a face-to-facebasis, making policy decisions in a direct democracy and giving reality to theidealofahumanistic,rationalsociety.Minimally, ifweare tohave thekindof free social life towhichweaspire,

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democracyshouldbeourformofasharedpoliticallife.Toaddressproblemsandissues that transcend the boundaries of a single municipality, in turn, thedemocratizedmunicipalitiesshouldjointogethertoformabroaderconfederation.These assemblies and confederations, by their very existence, could thenchallenge the legitimacy of the state and statist forms of power. They couldexpressly be aimed at replacing state power and statecraftwith popular powerand a socially rational transformative politics. And they would become arenaswhereclassconflictscouldbeplayedoutandwhereclassescouldbeeliminated.Libertarianmunicipalistsdonotdeludethemselvesthatthestatewillviewwith

equanimitytheirattemptstoreplaceprofessionalizedpowerwithpopularpower.They harbor no illusions that the ruling classes will indifferently allow aCommunalistmovement to demand rights that infringeon the state’s sovereigntyover townsandcities.Historically, regions, localities,andaboveall townsandcitieshavedesperatelystruggledtoreclaimtheirlocalsovereigntyfromthestate(albeit not always for high-minded purposes).Communalists’ attempt to restorethepowersoftownsandcitiesandtoknitthemtogetherintoconfederationscanbeexpected to evoke increasing resistance fromnational institutions.That the newpopular-assemblyistmunicipalconfederationswillembodyadualpoweragainstthestate thatbecomesasourceofgrowingpolitical tension isobvious.EitheraCommunalist movement will be radicalized by this tension and will resolutelyfaceallitsconsequencesoritwillsurelysinkintoamorassofcompromisesthatabsorb it back into the social order that it once sought to change. How themovementmeetsthischallengeisaclearmeasureofitsseriousnessinseekingtochangetheexistingpoliticalsystemandthesocialconsciousnessitdevelopsasasourceofpubliceducationandleadership.Communalismconstitutesacritiqueofhierarchicalandcapitalist societyasa

whole.Itseekstoalternotonlythepoliticallifeofsocietybutalsoitseconomiclife. On this score, its aim is not to nationalize the economy or retain privateownershipofthemeansofproductionbuttomunicipalizetheeconomy.Itseekstointegratethemeansofproductionintotheexistentiallifeofthemunicipalitysuchthat every productive enterprise falls under the purview of the local assembly,which decides how itwill function tomeet the interests of the community as awhole. The separation between life and work, so prevalent in the moderncapitalist economy, must be overcome so that citizens’ desires and needs, theartfulchallengesofcreationinthecourseofproduction,androleofproductioninfashioningthoughtandself-definitionarenotlost.“Humanitymakesitself,”tocitethe title of V. Gordon Childe’s book on the urban revolution at the end of theNeolithic age and the rise of cities, and it does so not only intellectually andaestheticallybutbyexpandinghumanneedsaswellastheproductivemethodsfor

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satisfyingthem.Wediscoverourselves—ourpotentialitiesandtheiractualization—throughcreativeandusefulworkthatnotonlytransformsthenaturalworldbutleadstoourself-formationandself-definition.We must also avoid the parochialism and ultimately the desires for

proprietorship that have afflicted somany self-managedenterprises, such as the“collectives”intheRussianandSpanishrevolutions.Notenoughhasbeenwrittenaboutthedriftamongmany“socialistic”self-managedenterprises,evenunderthered and red-and-black flags, respectively, of revolutionary Russia andrevolutionary Spain, toward forms of collective capitalism that ultimately ledmany of these concerns to compete with one another for raw materials andmarkets.11Most importantly, in Communalist political life, workers of different

occupations would take their seats in popular assemblies not as workers—printers, plumbers, foundry workers, and the like, with special occupationalinterests to advance—but as citizens, whose overriding concern should be thegeneralinterestofthesocietyinwhichtheylive.Citizensshouldbefreedoftheirparticularistic identity as workers, specialists, and individuals concernedprimarilywiththeirownparticularisticinterests.Municipallifeshouldbecomeaschool for the formation of citizens, both by absorbing new citizens and byeducatingtheyoung,whiletheassembliesthemselvesshouldfunctionnotonlyaspermanentdecision-making institutionsbutasarenas foreducating thepeople inhandlingcomplexcivicandregionalaffairs.12

InaCommunalistwayof life, conventional economics,with its focusonpricesand scarce resources,would be replaced by ethics,with its concern for humanneedsand thegood life.Humansolidarity—orphilia, as theGreekscalled it—would replacematerial gain and egotism.Municipal assemblieswould becomenot only vital arenas for civic life and decision-making but centers where theshadowyworldofeconomiclogistics,properlycoordinatedproduction,andcivicoperationswouldbedemystifiedandopenedto thescrutinyandparticipationofthe citizenry as a whole. The emergence of the new citizen would mark atranscendence of the particularistic class being of traditional socialism and theformationofthe“newman,”whichtheRussianrevolutionarieshopedtheycouldeventuallyachieve.Humanitywouldnowbeabletorisetotheuniversalstateofconsciousnessandrationalitythatthegreatutopiansofthenineteenthcenturyandthe Marxists hoped their efforts would create, opening the way to humanity’sfulfillmentasaspeciesthatembodiesreasonratherthanmaterialinterestandthataffords material postscarcity rather than an austere harmony enforced by amoralityofscarcityandmaterialdeprivation.13

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Classical Athenian democracy of the fifth century BCE, the source of theWestern democratic tradition, was based on face-to-face decision-making incommunal assemblies of the people and confederations of those municipalassemblies. For more than two millennia, the political writings of Aristotlerecurrently served to heighten our awareness of the city as the arena for thefulfillment of human potentialities for reason, self-consciousness, and the goodlife.Appropriately,Aristotletracedtheemergenceofthepolisfromthefamilyoroikos,thatis,therealmofnecessity,wherehumanbeingssatisfiedtheirbasicallyanimalistic needs and where authority rested with the eldest male. But theassociationofseveralfamilies,heobserved,“aim[ed]atsomethingmorethanthesupply of daily needs”;14 this aim initiated the earliest political formation, thevillage. Aristotle famously describedman (by which hemeant the adult Greekmale)15 as a “political animal” (politikon zoon), who presided over familymembersnotonlytomeettheirmaterialneedsbutasthematerialpreconditionforhis participation in political life, in which discourse and reason replacedmindlessdeeds,custom,andviolence.Thus,“whenseveralvillagesareunitedinasinglecompletecommunity(koinonan),largeenoughtobenearlyorquiteself-sufficing,”hecontinued,“thepolis comes into existence, originating in thebareneedsoflife,andcontinuinginexistenceforthesakeofagoodlife.”16For Aristotle, and we may assume also for the ancient Athenians, the

municipality’s proper functions were thus not strictly instrumental or eveneconomic.As the localeofhumanconsociation, themunicipality, and the socialand political arrangements that people living there constructed, was humanity’stelos, the arenapar excellencewherehumanbeings, over the courseof history,could actualize their potentiality for reason, self-consciousness, and creativity.Thus, for the ancient Athenians, politics denoted not only the handling of thepractical affairs of a polity but civic activities that were charged with moralobligationtoone’scommunity.Allcitizensofacitywereexpectedtoparticipateincivicactivitiesasethicalbeings.ExamplesofmunicipaldemocracywerenotlimitedtoancientAthens.Quiteto

the contrary, long before class differentiations gave rise to the state, manyrelatively secular towns produced the earliest institutional structures of localdemocracy.Assemblies of the peoplemay have existed in ancient Sumer at theverybeginningoftheso-called“urbanrevolution”somesevenoreightthousandyears ago.They clearly appeared among theGreeks, and until the defeat of theGracchusbrothers,theywerepopularcentersofpowerinrepublicanRome.Theywere nearly ubiquitous in the medieval towns of Europe and even in Russia,notably in Novgorod and Pskov, which, for a time, were among the mostdemocratic cities in the Slavic world. The assembly, it should be emphasized,

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begantoapproximateitstrulymodernformintheneighborhoodParisiansectionsof1793,when theybecame the authenticmotive forcesof theGreatRevolutionandconsciousagentsforthemakingofanewbodypolitic.Thattheywerenevergiven theconsideration theydeserve in the literatureondemocracy,particularlydemocratic Marxist tendencies and revolutionary syndicalists, is dramaticevidenceoftheflawsthatexistedintherevolutionarytradition.Thesedemocraticmunicipalinstitutionsnormallyexistedincombativetension

withgraspingmonarchs,feudallords,wealthyfamilies,andfreebootinginvadersuntil theywerecrushed, frequently inbloody struggles. It cannotbeemphasizedtoostrongly thateverygreat revolution inmodernhistoryhadacivicdimensionthathasbeensmotheredinradicalhistoriesbyanemphasisonclassantagonisms,however important these antagonismshavebeen.Thus, it is unthinkable that theEnglishRevolutionofthe1640scanbeunderstoodwithoutsinglingoutLondonasits terrain; or, by the same token, any discussions of the various FrenchRevolutions without focusing on Paris, or the Russian Revolutions withoutdwelling on Petrograd, or the Spanish Revolution of 1936 without citingBarcelonaas itsmostadvancedsocialcenter.Thiscentralityof thecity isnotameregeographicfact;itis,aboveall,aprofoundlypoliticalone,whichinvolvedthe ways in which revolutionary masses aggregated and debated, the civictraditions that nourished them, and the environment that fostered theirrevolutionaryviews.Libertarian municipalism is an integral part of the Communalist framework,

indeed its praxis, just as Communalism as a systematic body of revolutionarythoughtismeaninglesswithoutlibertarianmunicipalism.ThedifferencesbetweenCommunalismandauthenticor“pure”anarchism,letaloneMarxism,aremuchtoogreattobespannedbyaprefixsuchasanarcho-,social,neo-,orevenlibertarian.AnyattempttoreduceCommunalismtoamerevariantofanarchismwouldbetodeny the integrity of both ideas; indeed, to ignore their conflicting concepts ofdemocracy,organization,elections,government,andthelike.GustaveLefrançais,the Paris Communard who may have coined this political term, adamantlydeclaredthathewas“aCommunalist,notananarchist.”17

Aboveall,Communalism isengagedwith theproblemofpower.18 Inmarkedcontrasttothevariouskindsofcommunitarianenterprisesfavoredbymanyself-designatedanarchists,suchas“people’s”garages,printshops, foodco-ops,andbackyardgardens,adherentsofCommunalismmobilizethemselvestoelectorallyengageinapotentiallyimportantcenterofpower—themunicipalcouncil—andtryto compel it to create legislatively potent neighborhood assemblies. Theseassemblies,itshouldbeemphasized,wouldmakeeveryefforttodelegitimateanddeposethestatistorgansthatcurrentlycontroltheirvillages,towns,orcitiesand

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thereafter act as the real engines in the exercise of power. Once a number ofmunicipalities are democratized along Communalist lines, they wouldmethodically confederate into municipal leagues and challenge the role of thenation-state and, through popular assemblies and confederal councils, try toacquirecontrolovereconomicandpoliticallife.Finally,Communalism, incontrast toanarchism,decidedlycalls fordecision-

makingbymajorityvotingastheonlyequitablewayforalargenumberofpeopletomakedecisions.Authenticanarchistsclaimthatthisprinciple—the“rule”oftheminoritybythemajority—isauthoritarianandproposeinsteadtomakedecisionsbyconsensus.Consensus,inwhichsingleindividualscanvetomajoritydecisions,threatens to abolish society as such. A free society is not one in which itsmembers, like Homer’s lotus-eaters, live in a state of bliss without memory,temptation, or knowledge. Like it or not, humanity has eaten of the fruit ofknowledge, and itsmemories are ladenwith history and experience. In a livedmode of freedom—contrary to mere café chatter—the rights of minorities toexpress theirdissentingviewswillalwaysbeprotectedas fullyas the rightsofmajorities.Anyabridgementsof thoserightswouldbeinstantlycorrectedbythecommunity—hopefully gently, but if unavoidable, forcefully—lest social lifecollapseintosheerchaos.Indeed,theviewsofaminoritywouldbetreasuredasapotentialsourceofnewinsightsandnascent truths that, ifabridged,woulddenysociety the sources of creativity and developmental advances—for new ideasgenerally emerge from inspiredminorities that graduallygain the centrality theydeserve at a given time and place—until, again, they too are challenged as theconventionalwisdomofaperiodthatisbeginningtopassawayandrequiresnew(minority)viewstoreplacefrozenorthodoxies.

It remains to ask, How are we to achieve this rational society? One anarchistwriter would have it that the good society (or a true “natural” disposition ofaffairs, including a “natural man”) exists beneath the oppressive burdens ofcivilizationlikefertilesoilbeneaththesnow.Itfollowsfromthismentalitythatallwe are obliged to do to achieve the good society is to somehow eliminate thesnow,which is to say capitalism, nation-states, churches, conventional schools,andotheralmostendlesstypesofinstitutionsthatperverselyembodydominationin one form or another. Presumably, an anarchist society—once state,governmental,andculturalinstitutionsaremerelyremoved—wouldemergeintact,ready to functionand thriveasa free society.Sucha“society,” ifonecanevencallitsuch,wouldnotrequirethatweproactivelycreateit;wewouldsimplyletthe snow above it melt away. The process of rationally creating a freeCommunalistsociety,alas,willrequiresubstantiallymorethoughtandworkthan

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embracingamystifiedconceptofaboriginalinnocenceandbliss.ACommunalistsocietyshouldrest,aboveall,on theeffortsofanewradical

organization to change the world—one that has a new political vocabulary toexplain its goals, and a new program and theoretical framework tomake thosegoalscoherent.Itwould,aboveall,requirededicatedindividualswhoarewillingtotakeontheresponsibilitiesofeducationandleadership.Unlesswordsarenottobecomecompletelymystifiedandobscurearealitythatexistsbeforeourveryeyes,itshouldminimallybeacknowledgedthatleadershipalwaysexistsanddoesnotdisappearbecause it iscloudedbyeuphemismssuchas“militants”or,as inSpain,“influentialmilitants.”Itmustalsobeacknowledgedthatmanyindividualsinearliergroups, like theCNT,werenot just“influentialmilitants”butoutrightleaders,whoseviewsweregivenmoreconsideration—anddeservedlyso!—thanthose of others because they were based on more experience, knowledge, andwisdom,aswellasthepsychologicaltraitsthatwereneededtoprovideeffectiveguidance. A serious libertarian approach to leadership would indeedacknowledge the reality and crucial importance of leaders—all the more toestablishthegreatlyneededformalstructuresandregulationsthatcaneffectivelycontrolandmodifytheactivitiesofleadersandrecallthemwhenthemembershipdecidestheirrespectisbeingmisusedorwhenleadershipbecomesanexerciseintheabuseofpower.Alibertarianmunicipalistmovementshouldfunction,notwiththeadherenceof

flippant and tentativemembers,butwithpeoplewhohavebeen schooled in themovement’sideas,procedures,andactivities.Theyshould,ineffect,demonstratea serious commitment to their organization—an organizationwhose structure islaid out explicitly in a formal constitution and appropriate bylaws. Without ademocraticallyformulatedandapprovedinstitutionalframeworkwhosemembersand leaders can be held accountable, clearly articulated standards ofresponsibility cease to exist. Indeed, it is precisely when a membership is nolonger responsible to its constitutional and regulatory provisions thatauthoritarianism develops and eventually leads to the movement’s immolation.Freedomfromauthoritarianismcanbestbeassuredonlybytheclear,concise,anddetailed allocation of power, not by pretensions that power and leadership areformsof“rule”orbylibertarianmetaphorsthatconcealtheirreality.Ithasbeenpreciselywhenanorganizationfailstoarticulatetheseregulatorydetailsthattheconditionsemergeforitsdegenerationanddecay.Ironically, no stratum has been more insistent in demanding its freedom to

exercise its will against regulation than chiefs, monarchs, nobles, and thebourgeoisie; similarly, even well-meaning anarchists have seen individualautonomy as the true expression of freedom from the “artificialities” of

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civilization.Intherealmoftruefreedom,thatis,freedomthathasbeenactualizedas the result of consciousness, knowledge, and necessity, to knowwhatwe canand cannot do is more cleanly honest and true to reality than to avert theresponsibilityofknowingthelimitsofthelivedworld.AsMarxobservedmorethanacenturyandahalfago,“Menmaketheirownhistory,buttheydonotmakeitjustastheyplease.”TheneedfortheinternationalLefttoadvancecourageouslybeyondaMarxist,

anarchist, syndicalist, or vague socialist framework toward a Communalistframework is particularly compelling today. Rarely in the history of leftistpoliticalideashaveideologiesbeensowildlyandirresponsiblymuddled;rarelyhas ideology itself been so disparaged; rarely has the cry for “Unity!” on anytermsbeenheardwith suchdesperation.Tobe sure, thevarious tendencies thatopposecapitalismshould indeedunitearoundefforts todiscredit andultimatelyefface the market system. To such ends, unity is an invaluable desideratum: aunitedfrontoftheentireLeftisneededinordertocountertheentrenchedsystem—indeed, culture—of commodity production and exchange, and to defend theresidual rights that themasses havewon in earlier struggles against oppressivegovernmentsandsocialsystems.Theurgencyofthisneed,however,doesnotrequiremovementparticipantsto

abandon mutual criticism or to stifle their criticism of the authoritarian traitspresent in anticapitalist organization. Least of all does it require them tocompromisetheintegrityandidentityoftheirvariousprograms.Thevastmajorityofparticipants in today’smovementare inexperiencedyoung radicalswhohavecome of age in an era of postmodernist relativism. As a consequence, themovement is marked by a chilling eclecticism, in which tentative opinions arechaoticallymismarriedtoidealsthatshouldrestonsoundlyobjectivepremises.19In a milieu where the clear expression of ideas is not valued and terms areinappropriatelyused,andwhereargumentationisdisparagedas“aggressive”andworse, “divisive,” it becomes difficult to formulate ideas in the crucible ofdebate. Ideas grow and mature best, in fact, not in the silence and controlledhumidity of an ideological nursery but in the tumult of dispute and mutualcriticism.Followingrevolutionarysocialistpracticesofthepast,Communalistswouldtry

to formulate a minimum program that calls for the satisfaction of immediateconcerns, such as improved wages and shelter or adequate park space andtransportation. Thisminimum programwould aim to satisfy themost elementalneedsofthepeople,toimprovetheiraccesstotheresourcesthatmakedailylifetolerable. Themaximumprogram, by contrast,would present an image ofwhathuman life could be like under libertarian socialism, at least as far as such a

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societyisforeseeableinaworldthatiscontinuallychangingundertheimpactofseeminglyunendingindustrialrevolutions.Evenmore,however,Communalistswouldseetheirprogramandpracticeasa

process. Indeed,a transitionalprograminwhicheachnewdemandprovides thespringboardforescalatingdemandsthatleadtowardmoreradicalandeventuallyrevolutionary demands. One of the most striking examples of a transitionaldemandwas the programmatic call in the late nineteenth century by theSecondInternational for a popularmilitia to replace a professional army. In still othercases,revolutionarysocialistsdemandedthatrailroadsbepublicallyowned(or,as revolutionary syndicalists might have demanded, be controlled by railroadworkers)ratherthanprivatelyownedandoperated.Noneofthesedemandswerein themselves revolutionary, but they opened pathways, politically, torevolutionary forms of ownership and operation, which, in turn, could beescalated to achieve the movement’s maximum program. Others might criticizesuchstep-by-stependeavorsas“reformist,”butCommunalistsdonotcontendthataCommunalistsocietycanbelegislatedintoexistence.Whatthesedemandstrytoachieve, in theshort term,arenewrulesofengagementbetween thepeopleandcapital—rulesthatareallthemoreneededatatimewhen“directaction”isbeingconfusedwithprotestsofmereeventswhoseagendaissetentirelybytherulingclasses.On thewhole,Communalism is trying to rescue a realmofpublic action and

discoursethatiseitherdisappearingorthatisbeingreducedtooften-meaninglessengagementswith the police, or to street theater that, however artfully, reducesserious issues to simplistic performances that have no instructive influence. Bycontrast,Communalists try tobuild lastingorganizationsandinstitutions thatcanplayasociallytransformativeroleintherealworld.Significantly,Communalistsdonothesitatetoruncandidatesinmunicipalelectionswho,ifelected,wouldusewhat real power their offices confer to legislate popular assemblies intoexistence.Theseassemblies, in turn,wouldhave thepowerultimately to createeffective forms of town-meeting government. Inasmuch as the emergence of thecity—andcitycouncils—longprecededtheemergenceofclasssociety,councilsbasedonpopularassembliesarenot inherently statistorgans,and toparticipateseriouslyinmunicipalelectionscountervailsreformistsocialistattemptstoelectstatist delegates by offering the historical libertarian vision of municipalconfederations as a practical, combative, and politically credible popularalternative to state power. Indeed, Communalist candidacies, which explicitlydenounce parliamentary candidacies as opportunist, keep alive the debate overhowlibertariansocialismcanbeachieved—adebatethathasbeenlanguishingforyears.

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Thereshouldbenoself-deceptionabouttheopportunitiesthatexistasameansoftransformingourirrationalsocietyintoarationalone.Ourchoicesonhowtotransformtheexistingsocietyarestillon the tableofhistoryandarefacedwithimmense problems. But unless present and future generations are beaten intocomplete submission by a culture based on queasy calculation as well as bypolicewith teargasandwatercannons,wecannotdesist fromfightingforwhatfreedoms we have and try to expand them into a free society wherever theopportunity todo so emerges.At any rate,wenowknow, in the lightof all theweaponryandmeansofecologicaldestructionthatareathand, that theneedforradicalchangecannotbeindefinitelydeferred.Whatisclearisthathumanbeingsaremuchtoo intelligentnot tohavearationalsociety; themostseriousquestionwefaceiswhethertheyarerationalenoughtoachieveone.

November2002

1Manylesswell-knownnamescouldbeaddedtothislist,butonethatinparticularIwouldlikeverymuchtosingleoutisthegallantleaderoftheLeftSocialistRevolutionaryParty,MariaSpiridonova,whosesupporterswerevirtuallyaloneinproposingaworkablerevolutionaryprogramfor theRussianpeople in1917–18.TheirfailuretoimplementtheirpoliticalinsightsandreplacetheBolsheviks(withwhomtheyinitiallyjoinedinformingthefirstSovietgovernment)notonlyledtotheirdefeatbutcontributedtothedisastrousfailureofrevolutionarymovementsinthecenturythatfollowed.2Ifranklyregardthiscontradictionasmorefundamentalthantheoften-indiscernibletendencyoftherateof

profit to decline and thereby to render capitalist exchange inoperable—a contradiction to which Marxistsassignedadecisiveroleinthenineteenthandearlytwentiethcenturies.3Contrary toMarx’sassertion that a societydisappearsonlywhen ithasexhausted its capacity fornew

technological developments, capitalism is in a state of permanent technological revolution—at times,frighteningly so.Marx erred on this score: it will take more than technological stagnation to terminate thissystemofsocialrelations.Asnewissueschallengethevalidityoftheentiresystem,thepoliticalandecologicaldomainswillbecomeallthemoreimportant.Alternatively,wearefacedwiththeprospectthatcapitalismmaypulldowntheentireworldandleavebehindlittlemorethanashesandruin—achieving,inshort,the“capitalistbarbarism”ofwhichRosaLuxemburgwarnedinher“Junius”essay.4Iusethewordextraordinarybecause,byMarxiststandards,Europewasstillobjectivelyunpreparedfor

asocialistrevolutionin1914.Muchofthecontinent,infact,hadyettobecolonizedbythecapitalistmarketorbourgeois social relations. The proletariat—still a very conspicuous minority of the population in a sea ofpeasantsandsmallproducers—hadyet tomatureasaclass intoasignificant force.Despite theopprobriumthathasbeenheapedonPlekhanov,Kautsky,Bernsteinetal.,theyhadabetterunderstandingofthefailureofMarxist socialism to embed itself in proletarian consciousness than did Lenin. Luxemburg, in any case,straddled the so-called “social-patriotic” and “internationalist” camps in her image of a Marxist party’sfunction,incontrasttoLenin,herprincipalopponentintheso-called“organizationalquestion”intheLeftofthewartimesocialists,whowaspreparedtoestablisha“proletariandictatorship”underallandanycircumstances.TheFirstWorldWarwasbynomeansinevitable,anditgenerateddemocraticandnationalistrevolutionsratherthanproletarianones.(Russia,inthisrespect,wasnomorea“workers’state”underBolshevikrulethanweretheHungarianandBavarian“soviet”republics.)Notuntil1939wasEuropeplacedinapositionwhereaworldwarwasinevitable.TherevolutionaryLeft(towhichIbelongedatthetime)franklyerredprofoundlywhenittook a so-called “internationalist” position and refused to support the Allies (their imperialist pathologiesnotwithstanding)againstthevanguardofworldfascism,theThirdReich.5Kropotkin,forexample,rejecteddemocraticdecision-makingprocedures:“Majorityruleisasdefectiveas

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anyotherkindofrule,”heasserted.SeePeterKropotkin,“AnarchistCommunism:ItsBasisandPrinciples,”inKropotkin’sRevolutionaryPamphlets, editedbyRogerN.Baldwin (1927; reprintedbyNewYork:Dover,1970),68.6 I have made the distinction between politics and statecraft in, for example, Murray Bookchin, From

Urbanization toCities:TowardaNewPoliticsofCitizenship (1987; reprintedbyLondon:Cassell, 1992),41–3,59–61.7 Several years ago, while I still identifiedmyself as an anarchist, I attempted to formulate a distinction

between “social” and “lifestyle” anarchism, and I wrote an article that identified Communalism as “thedemocraticdimensionofanarchism”(seeLeftGreenPerspectives,no.31,October1994).InolongerbelievethatCommunalismisamere“dimension”ofanarchism,democraticorotherwise;rather,itisadistinctideologywitharevolutionarytraditionthathasyettobeexplored.8 To be sure, these points undergo modification in Communalism: for example, Marxism’s historical

materialism, explaining the rise of class societies, is expanded by social ecology’s explanation of theanthropological and historical rise of hierarchy. Marxian dialectical materialism, in turn, is transcended bydialectical naturalism; and the anarcho-communist notion of a very loose “federation of autonomouscommunes”isreplacedwithaconfederationfromwhichitscomponents,functioninginademocraticmannerthroughcitizens’assemblies,maywithdrawonlywiththeapprovaloftheconfederationasawhole.9Whatissosurprisingaboutthisminimalistdictionarydefinitionis itsoverallaccuracy:Iwouldtakeissue

only with its formulations “virtually autonomous” and “loosely bound,” which suggest a parochial andparticularistic,evenirresponsiblerelationshipofthecomponentsofaconfederationtothewhole.10Myextensivewritingsonlibertarianmunicipalismdatebacktotheearly1970s,with“SpringOffensives

andSummerVacations,”Anarchos,no.4,1972.Themoresignificantworks includeFromUrbanization toCities, 1987, reprinted by London: Cassell, 1992; “Theses on Libertarian Municipalism,”Our Generation[Montreal], vol. 16, nos. 3–4, Spring/Summer 1985; “Radical Politics in an Era of Advanced Capitalism,”Green Perspectives, no. 18, Nov. 1989; “The Meaning of Confederalism,” Green Perspectives, no. 20,November1990;“LibertarianMunicipalism:AnOverview,”GreenPerspectives, no. 24,October1991; andTheLimitsoftheCity,NewYork:HarperColophon,1974.11Foronesuchdiscussion,seeMurrayBookchin,“TheGhostofAnarchosyndicalism,”AnarchistStudies,

vol.1,no.1,Spring1993.12OneofthegreattragediesoftheRussianRevolutionof1917andtheSpanishRevolutionof1936wasthe

failure of the masses to acquire more than the scantest knowledge of social logistics and the complexinterlinkagesinvolvedinprovidingforthenecessitiesoflifeinamodernsociety.Inasmuchasthosewhohadtheexpertise involved inmanagingproductiveenterprises and inmakingcities functionalwere supportersofthe old regime, workers were in fact unable to actually take over the full control of factories. They wereobliged instead todependon“bourgeoisspecialists” tooperate them, individualswhosteadilymade themthevictimsofatechnocraticelite.13Ihavepreviouslydiscussed this transformationofworkersfrommereclassbeings intocitizens,among

otherplaces,inFromUrbanizationtoCities,1987,reprintedbyLondon:Cassell,1995;andin“WorkersandthePeaceMovement,”1983,publishedinTheModernCrisis,Montreal:BlackRoseBooks,1987.14Aristotle,Politics(1252[b]16),trans.BenjaminJowett, inTheCompleteWorksofAristotle,Revised

OxfordTranslation,ed.J.Barnes,Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,1984,vol.2,1987.15Asalibertarianidealforthefutureofhumanityandagenuinedomainoffreedom,theAthenianpolisfalls

farshortofthecity’sultimatepromise.Itspopulationincludedslaves,subordinatedwomen,andfranchiselessresidentaliens.Onlyaminorityofmalecitizenspossessedcivicrights,andtheyranthecitywithoutconsultinga largerpopulation.Materially, thestabilityof thepolisdependeduponthe laborof itsnoncitizens.Theseareamongtheseveralmonumentalfailingsthatlatermunicipalitieswouldhavetocorrect.Thepolisissignificant,however, not as an example of an emancipated community but for the successful functioning of its freeinstitutions.16Aristotle,Politics (1252[b]29–30), trans.Jowett;emphasisadded.ThewordsfromtheoriginalGreek

textmaybe found in theLoebClassicalLibrary edition:Aristotle,Politics, trans.H.Rackham (Cambridge,MA:HarvardUniversityPress,1972).17LefrançaisisquotedinPeterKropotkin,MemoirsofaRevolutionist,NewYork:HorizonPress,1968,

393.Itoowouldbeobligedtodaytomakethesamestatement.Inthelate1950s,whenanarchismintheUnited

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Stateswasabarelydiscerniblepresence,itseemedlikeasufficientlyclearfieldinwhichIcoulddevelopsocialecology,aswellasthephilosophicalandpoliticalideasthatwouldeventuallybecomedialecticalnaturalismandlibertarianmunicipalism.Iwellknewthattheseviewswerenotconsistentwithtraditionalanarchistideas,leastofallpostscarcity,whichimpliedthatamodernlibertariansocietyrestedonadvancedmaterialpreconditions.Today, I find that anarchism remains the very simplistic individualistic and antirationalist psychology it hasalwaysbeen.Myattempttoretainanarchismunderthenameof“socialanarchism”haslargelybeenafailure,and I now find that the term I have used to denotemy viewsmust be replacedwithCommunalism,whichcoherentlyintegratesandgoesbeyondthemostviablefeaturesoftheanarchistandMarxisttraditions.Recentattemptstousethewordanarchismasalevelertominimizetheabundantandcontradictorydifferencesthataregroupedunder that termandevencelebrate itsopenness to“differences”make itadiffusecatch-all fortendenciesthatproperlyshouldbeinsharpconflictwithoneanother.18 For a discussion of the very real problems created by anarchists’ disdain for power during the 1936

SpanishRevolution,seethearticle,“AnarchismandPowerintheSpanishRevolution.”19 I should note that by objective, I do not refer merely to existential entities and events but also to

potentialitiesthatcanberationallyconceived,nurtured,andintimeactualizedintowhatwewouldnarrowlycallrealities.Ifmeresubstantialitywereallthatthetermobjectivemeant,noidealorpromiseoffreedomwouldbeanobjectivelyvalidgoalunlessitexistedunderourverynoses.

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TheEcologicalCrisisandtheNeedtoRemakeSociety

Inaddressingthesourcesofourpresentecologicalandsocialproblems,perhapsthemostfundamentalmessagethatsocialecologyadvancesisthattheveryideaofdominating nature stems from the domination of human by human. The primaryimplication of this most basic message is a call for a politics and even aneconomics that offer a democratic alternative to the nation-state and themarketsociety.HereIofferabroadsketchoftheseissuestolaythegroundworkforthechangesnecessaryinmovingtowardafreeandecologicalsociety.First,themostfundamentalroutetoaresolutionofourecologicalproblemsis

social incharacter.That is to say, ifweare facedwith theprospectofoutrightecological catastrophe, toward which so many knowledgeable people andinstitutions claimwe are headed today, it is because the historic domination ofhumanbyhumanhasbeenextendedoutwardfromsocietyintothenaturalworld.Until domination as such is removed from social life and replaced by a trulycommunitarian, egalitarian, and sharing society, powerful ideological,technological,andsystemicforceswillbeusedbytheexistingsocietytodegradetheenvironment, indeed theentirebiosphere.Hence,more thanever today, it isimperative that we develop the consciousness and the movement to removedomination from society, indeed from our everyday lives—in relationshipsbetween the young and the elderly, between women and men, in educationalinstitutions and workplaces, and in our attitude toward the natural world. Topermitthepoisonofdomination—andadomineeringsensibility—topersistis,atthis time, to ignore the most basic roots of our ecological as well as socialproblemsandtheirsources,whichcanbetracedbacktotheveryinceptionofourcivilization.Second, and more specifically, the modern market society that we call

capitalism and its alter ego, “state socialism,” have brought all the historicproblemsofdominationtoahead.Theconsequencesofthis“growordie”marketeconomymustinexorablyleadtothedestructionofthenaturalbasisforcomplexlifeforms,includinghumanity.Itisalltoocommonthesedays,however,tosingleout eitherpopulationgrowthor technology,orboth, toblame for the ecologicaldislocationsthatbesetus.Butwecannotsingleouteitheroftheseas“causes”ofproblems whose most deep-seated roots actually lie in the market economy.Attemptstofocusonthesealleged“causes”arescandalouslydeceptiveandshiftourfocusawayfromthesocialissueswemustresolve.

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IntheAmericanexperience,peopleonlyagenerationortworemovedfrommyown slashed theirway through thevast forests of theWest, nearly exterminatedmillions of bison, plowed fertile grasslands, and laidwaste to a vast part of acontinent—all using only hand axes, simple plows, horse-drawn vehicles, andsimple hand tools. It required no technological revolution to create the presentdevastationofwhathadoncebeenavastandfecundregioncapable,withrationalmanagement,ofsustainingbothhumanandnonhumanlife.WhatbroughtsomuchruintothelandwasnotthetechnologicalimplementsthatthoseearliergenerationsofAmericansusedbut the insanedriveofentrepreneurs to succeed in thebitterstruggleofthemarketplace,toexpandanddevourtherichesoftheircompetitorslesttheybedevouredinturnbytheirrivals.Inmyownlifetime,millionsofsmallAmericanfarmersweredrivenfromtheirhomesnotonlybynaturaldisastersbutbyhugeagriculturalcorporationsthatturnedsomuchofthelandscapeintoavastindustrialsystemforcultivatingfood.Not only has a society based on endless, wasteful growth devastated entire

regions,indeedacontinent,withonlyasimpletechnology,theecologicalcrisisithas produced is systemic—and not a matter of misinformation, spiritualinsensitivity,orlackofmoralintegrity.Thepresentsocialillnessliesnotonlyintheoutlookthatpervadesthepresentsociety;itliesaboveallintheverystructureand lawof life in the system itself, in its imperative,whichno entrepreneur orcorporationcanignorewithoutfacingdestruction:growth,moregrowth,andstillmore growth. Blaming technology for the ecological crisis serves, howeverunintentionally, to blindus to theways technology could in fact play a creativerole in a rational, ecological society. In such a society, the intelligent use of asophisticated technologywould be direly needed to restore the vast ecologicaldamagethathasalreadybeeninflictedonthebiosphere,muchofwhichwillnotrepairitselfwithoutcreativehumanintervention.Along with technology, population is commonly singled out for blame as an

alleged “cause” of the ecological crisis. But population is by no means theoverwhelmingthreatthatsomedisciplesofMalthusintoday’secologymovementswould have us believe. People do not reproduce like the fruit flies that are sooften cited as examples ofmindless reproductive growth. They are products ofculture, aswell as biological nature.Given decent living standards, reasonablyeducated families often have fewer children in order to improve the quality oftheirlives.Giveneducation,moreover,andaconsciousnessofgenderoppression,womennolongerallowthemselvestobereducedtomerereproductivefactories.Instead, they stake out claims as humans with all the rights to meaningful andcreative lives. Ironically, technology has played amajor role in eliminating thedomesticdrudgerythatforcenturiesculturallystupefiedwomenandreducedthem

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tomereservantsofmenandmen’sdesiretohavechildren—preferablysons,tobesure.Inanycase,evenifpopulationweretodeclineforanunspecifiedreason,thelargecorporationswould try togetpeople tobuymoreandstillmore to rendereconomicexpansionpossible.Failingtoattainalargeenoughdomesticconsumersmarketinwhichtoexpand,corporatemindswouldturntointernationalmarkets—ortothatmostlucrativeofallmarkets,themilitary.Finally, well-meaning people who regard New Age moralism,

psychotherapeutic approaches, or personal lifestyle changes as the key toresolvingthepresentecologicalcrisisaredestinedtobetragicallydisappointed.Nomatterhowmuchthissocietypaints itselfgreenororatesontheneedforanecologicaloutlook, thewaysociety literallybreathescannotbeundoneunless itundergoes profound structural changes: namely, by replacing competition withcooperation, and profit-seekingwith relationships based on sharing andmutualconcern.Given the presentmarket economy, a corporation or entrepreneurwhotried to produce goods in accordancewith even aminimally decent ecologicaloutlookwouldrapidlybedevouredbyarival inamarketplacewhoseselectiveprocess of competition rewards themost villainous at the expense of the mostvirtuous. After all, “business is business,” as the maxim has it. And businessallowsnoroomforpeoplewhoarerestrainedbyconscienceormoralqualms,asthe many scandals in the “business community” attest. Attempting to win the“business community” to an ecological sensibility, let alone to ecologicallybeneficial practices,would be like asking predatory sharks to live on grass or“persuading”lionstolovinglyliedownbesidelambs.Thefactisthatweareconfrontedbyathoroughlyirrationalsocialsystem,not

simply by predatory individuals who can be won over to ecological ideas bymoral arguments, psychotherapy, or even the challenges of a troubled public totheirproductsandbehavior.Itislessthattheseentrepreneurscontrolthepresentsystemofsavagecompetitionandendlessgrowththanitisthatthepresentsystemof savage competition and growth controls them. The stagnation of New Ageideology today in the United States attests to its tragic failure to “improve” asocialsystemthatmustbecompletelyreplacedifwearetoresolveourecologicalcrisis.Onecanonlycommendtheindividualswhobyvirtueoftheirconsumptionhabits, recycling activities, and appeals for a new sensibility undertake publicactivitiestostopecologicaldegradation.Eachsurelydoeshisorherpart.Butitwillrequireamuchgreatereffort—anorganized,clearlyconscious,andforward-looking political movement—to meet the basic challenges posed by ouraggressivelyanti-ecologicalsociety.Yes,weasindividualsshouldchangeourlifestylesasmuchaspossible,butit

is theutmost shortsightedness tobelieve that that isall,orevenprimarily,what

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wehave to do.Weneed to restructure the entire society, even aswe engage inlifestyle changes and single-issue struggles against pollution, nuclear powerplants, theexcessiveuseoffossilfuels, thedestructionofsoil,andsoforth.Wemust have a coherent analysis of the deep-seated hierarchical relationships andsystems of domination, as well as of class relationships and economicexploitationthatdegradepeopleaswellastheenvironment.Here,wemustmovebeyondtheinsightsprovidedbytheMarxists,syndicalists,andevenmanyliberaleconomistswhoforyearsreducedmostsocialantagonismsandproblemstoclassanalysis.Class struggle and economic exploitation still exist, andMarxist classanalysisrevealsinequitiesaboutthepresentsocialorderthatareintolerable.ButtheMarxianandliberalbeliefthatcapitalismhasplayeda“revolutionary

role” in destroying traditional communities and that technological advancesseekingto“conquer”natureareapreconditionforfreedomringsterriblyhollowtoday when many of these very advances are being used to make the mostformidable weapons and means of surveillance the world has ever seen. Norcould the Marxian socialists of the 1930s have anticipated how successfullycapitalismwoulduse its technologicalprowess toco-opt theworkingclassandevendiminishitsnumbersinrelationshiptotherestofthepopulation.Yes, class struggles still exist, but they occur farther and farther below the

threshold of class war.Workers, as I can attest frommy own experience as afoundrymanandasanautoworkerforGeneralMotors,donot regard themselvesasmindlessadjunctstomachinesorasfactorydwellersorevenas“instrumentsofhistory,”asMarxistsmightputit.Theyregardthemselvesaslivinghumanbeings:asfathersandmothers,assonsanddaughters,aspeoplewithdreamsandvisions,asmembersofcommunities—notonlyoftradeunions.Livingintownsandcities,their eminently human aspirations gowell beyond their “historic role” as classagentsof“history.”Theysufferfromthepollutionoftheircommunitiesaswellasfromtheirfactories,andtheyareasconcernedaboutthewelfareoftheirchildren,companions, neighbors, and communities as they are about their jobs andwagescales.Theoverly economistic focusof traditional socialismand syndicalismhas in

recentyearscausedthesemovementstolagbehindemergingecologicalissuesandvisions—astheylagged,Imayadd,behindfeministconcerns,culturalissues,andurban issues, all of which often cut across class lines to include middle-classpeople,intellectuals,smallproprietors,andevensomebourgeois.Theirfailuretoconfront hierarchy—not only class and domination, not only economicexploitation—has often alienatedwomen from socialism and syndicalism to theextent that they awakened to the ages-old reality that they have been oppressedirrespective of their class status. Similarly, broad community concerns like

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pollution afflict people as such, whatever the class to which they belong.Disasters like themeltdownof theChernobyl reactor inUkraine justlypanickedeveryoneexposedtoradiationfromtheplant,notsimplyworkersandpeasants.Indeed, even if we were to achieve a classless society free of economic

exploitation,wouldwereadilyachievearationalsociety?Wouldwomen,youngpeople,theinfirm,theelderly,peopleofcolor,variousoppressedethnicgroups—thelistis,infact,enormous—befreeofdomination?Theanswerisacategoricalno—a fact to which women can certainly attest, even within the socialist andsyndicalist movements themselves. Without eliminating the ancient hierarchicalanddomineeringstructuresfromwhichclassesandthestateactuallyemerged,wewouldhavemadeonlyapartofthechangesneededtoachievearationalsociety.There would still be a historic toxicant in a socialist or syndicalist society—hierarchy—that would continually erode its highest ideals, namely, theachievementofatrulyfreeandecologicalsociety.Perhapsthemostdisquietingfeatureofmanyradicalgroupstoday,particularly

socialistswhomay accept the foregoing observation, is their commitment to atleast a minimal state that would coordinate and administer a classless andegalitariansociety—anonhierarchicalone,noless!OnehearsthisargumentfromAndreGorzandmanyotherswho,presumablybecauseof the“complexities”ofmodernsociety,cannotconceiveoftheadministrationofeconomicaffairswithoutsomekindofcoercivemechanism,albeitonewitha“humanface.”This logistical and in some cases frankly authoritarian view of the human

condition (as expressed in the writings of Arne Naess, the father of DeepEcology)remindsoneofadogchasingitstail.Simplybecausethe“tail”isthere—ametaphorforeconomic“complexity”ormarketsystemsofdistribution—doesnotmeanthat themetaphorical“dog”mustchaseit incircles that leadnowhere.The “tail”we have toworry about can be rationally simplified by reducing oreliminating commercial bureaucracies, needless reliance on goods from abroadthat can be produced by recycling at home, and the underutilization of localresources that are now ignored because they are not “competitively” priced: inshort, eliminating the vast paraphernalia of goods and services that may beindispensabletoprofit-makingandcompetitionbutnottotherationaldistributionof goods in a cooperative society. The painful reality is that most excuses inradical theoryforpreservinga“minimalstate”stemfromthemyopicvisionsofecosocialistswhocanacceptthepresentsystemofproductionandexchangeasitis to one degree or another—not as it should be in a moral economy. Soconceived, production and distribution seem more formidable—with theirbureaucratic machinery, irrational division of labor, and “global” nature—thanthey actually need be. Itwould take no greatwisdom or array of computers to

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show with even a grain of imagination how the present “global” system ofproductionanddistributioncanbesimplifiedandstillprovideadecentstandardof living for everyone. Indeed, it tookonly some five years to rebuild a ruinedGermany after the SecondWorldWar, far longer than itwould require thinkingpeopletodaytoremovethestatistandbureaucraticapparatusforadministeringtheglobaldistributionofgoodsandresources.Whatisevenmoredisquietingisthenaïvebeliefthata“minimalstate”could

indeed remain “minimal.” If history has shown anything, it is that the state, farfrombeingonlyan instrumentofa rulingelite,becomesanorganismin itsownright that grows as unrelentingly as a cancer. Anarchism, in this respect, hasexhibited a prescience that discloses the terrifying weakness of the traditionalsocialistcommitmenttoastate—proletarian,socialdemocratic,or“minimal.”Tocreateastateistoinstitutionalizepowerintheformofamachinethatexistsapartfromthepeople.Itistoprofessionalizeruleandpolicymaking,tocreateadistinctinterest (be it ofbureaucrats, deputies, commissars, legislators, themilitary, thepolice,adnauseam)that,howeverweakorhoweverwellintentioneditmaybeatfirst,eventuallytakesonacorruptivepowerofitsown.When,overthecourseofhistory, have states—however “minimal”—ever dissolved themselves orconstrained their own growth intomassivemalignancies?When have they everremained“minimal”?Thedeteriorationof theGermanGreens—theso-called“nonpartyparty” that,

afteritsacquisitionofaplaceintheBundestag,hasnowbecomeacrudepoliticalmachine—is dramatic evidence that power corrupts with a vengeance. Theidealists who helped found the organization and sought to use the Bundestagmerely as a “platform” for their radical message have by now either left it indisgustorhavethemselvesbecomeratherunsavoryexamplesofwantonpoliticalcareerism.Onewouldhave tobeutterlynaïveorsimplyblind to the lessonsofhistory to ignore thefact that thestate,“minimal”ornot,absorbsandultimatelydigestsevenitsmostwell-meaningcriticsoncetheyenterit.Itisnotthatstatistsuse the state to abolish it or “minimalize” its effects; it is, rather, the state thatcorruptseventhemostidealisticantistatistswhoflirtwithit.Finally,themostdisturbingfeatureofstatism—even“minimalstatism”—isthat

it completely undermines a politics based on confederalism. One of the mostunfortunatefeaturesoftraditionalsocialisthistory,Marxianandotherwise,isthatitemergedinaneraofnation-statebuilding.TheJacobinmodelofacentralizedrevolutionary state was accepted almost uncritically by nineteenth-centurysocialistsandbecameanintegralpartoftherevolutionarytradition—atradition,Imayadd, thatmistakenly associated itselfwith thenationalistic emphasis of theFrenchRevolution,asseeninthe“Marseillaise”andinitsadulationoflapatrie.

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Marx’sviewthat theFrenchrevolutionwasbasicallyamodel for formulatingarevolutionarystrategy—hemistakenlyclaimedthatitsJacobinformwasthemost“classical”of the“bourgeois” revolutions—hashadadisastrouseffectupon therevolutionary tradition. Lenin adapted this vision so completely that theBolsheviks were rightly considered the “Jacobins” of the Russian socialistmovement,andofcourse,Stalinusedtechniquessuchaspurges,showtrials,andbruteforcewithlethaleffectsforthesocialistprojectasawhole.Thenotionthathumanfreedomcanbeachieved,muchlessperpetuated,through

astateofanykindismonstrouslyoxymoronic—acontradictioninterms.Attemptsto justify the existence of a cancerous phenomenon like the state and the use ofstatistmeasures or “statecraft”—so oftenmistakenly called “politics,”which isactually the self-managementof thepolis—excludea radicallydifferent formofsocial management, namely, confederalism. In fact, for centuries, democraticforms of confederalism, inwhichmunicipalitieswere coordinated bymandatedand recallabledeputieswhowerealwaysunderpublic scrutiny,havecompetedwith statist forms and constituted a challenging alternative to centralization,bureaucratization, and the professionalization of power in the hands of elitebodies. Let me emphasize that confederalism should not be confused withfederalism, which is simply a continuation of nation-states in a network ofagreementsthatpreservetheprerogativesofpolicymakingwithlittleifanycitizeninvolvement. Federalism is simply the state writ large, indeed, the furthercentralization of already centralized states, as in the United States’ federalrepublic, the European Community, and the recently formed Commonwealth ofIndependent States—all collections of huge continental super-states that evenfurtherremovewhatevercontrolpeoplehaveovernation-states.A confederalist alternative would be based on a network of policymaking

popular assemblies with recallable deputies to local and regional confederalcouncils—councilswhosesolefunction,Imustemphasize,wouldbetoadjudicatedifferences and undertake strictly administrative tasks. One could scarcelyadvancesuchaprospectbymakinguseofastateformationofanykind,howeverminimal.Indeed,tojugglestatistandconfederalperspectivesinaverbalgamebydistinguishing “minimal” from “maximal” is to confuse the basis for a newpoliticsstructuredaroundparticipatorydemocracy.AmongGreens in theUnitedStates,therehavealreadybeentendenciesthatabsurdlycallfor“decentralization”and“grassrootsdemocracy”whileseekingtoruncandidatesforstateandnationaloffices, that is, for statist institutions, one of whose essential functions is toconfine, restrict, and essentially suppress local democratic institutions andinitiatives. Indeed, as I have emphasized in other books and essays, whenlibertarians of all kinds, but particularly anarchists and ecosocialists, engage in

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confederalmunicipalistpoliticsandrunformunicipalpublicoffice,theyarenotmerely seeking to remake cities, towns, and villages on the basis of fullydemocratic confederal networks, they are running against the state andparliamentaryoffices.Hence,tocallfora“minimalstate,”evenasacoordinativeinstitution,asAndreGorzandothershavedone,istoobscureandcountervailanyefforttoreplacethenation-statewithaconfederationofmunicipalities.It is to thecreditofearlyanarchismand,more recently, to theeco-anarchism

thatliesatthecoreofsocialecology,thatitfirmlyrejectsthetraditionalsocialistorientationtowardstatepowerandrecognizesthecorruptiveroleofparticipatingin parliamentary elections.What is regrettable is that this rejection, so clearlycorroboratedbythecorruptionofstatistsocialists,Greens,andmembersofotherprofessedradicalmovements,wasnotsufficientlynuancedtodistinguishactivityon themunicipal level (which evenMikhail Bakunin regarded as valid) as thebasis of politics in the Hellenic sense: that is to say, to distinguish electoralactivityon the local level fromelectoral activityon theprovincial andnationallevels,whichreallyconstitutestatecraft.Social ecology, whatever its other value or failings, represents a coherent

interpretationoftheenormousecologicalandsocialproblemswefacetoday.Itsphilosophy, social theory, and political practice form a vital alternative to theideologicalstagnationand tragic failureof thepresentsocialist, syndicalist,andradicalprojectsthatweresomuchinvogueevenasrecentlyasthe1960s.Asto“alternatives”thatofferusNewAgeormysticalecologicalsolutions,whatcouldbemorenaïvethantobelievethatasocietywhoseverymetabolismisbasedongrowth, production for its own sake, hierarchy, classes, domination, andexploitation could be changed simply bymoral suasion, individual action, or aprimitivismthatessentiallyviewstechnologyasacurseandthatfocusesvariouslyondemographic growth and personalmodes of consumption as primary issues?Wemustgettotheheartofthecrisiswefaceanddevelopapopularpoliticsthatwill eschew statismat one extreme andNewAgeprivatismat theother. If thisgoalisdismissedasutopian,Iamobligedtoquestionwhatmanyradicalstodaywouldcall“realism.”

January1992

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APoliticsfortheTwenty-FirstCentury

It would be helpful to place libertarian municipalism in a broad historicalperspective,allthemoretounderstanditsrevolutionarycharacterinhumanaffairsgenerally as well as its place in the repertoire of antistatist practices. Thecommune, the town or city, or more broadly, the municipality, is not merely a“space”createdbyagivendensityofhumanhabitations.Intermsofitshistoryasacivilizingtendencyinhumanity’sdevelopment,themunicipalityisintegrallypartof the sweeping process whereby human beings began to dissolve biologicallyconditioned social relations based on real or fictitious blood ties, with theirprimordialhostilityto“strangers,”andslowlyreplacethembylargelysocialandrationalinstitutions,rights,anddutiesthatincreasinglyencompassedallresidentsofanurbanspace, irrespectiveofconsanguinityandbiological facts.The town,city, municipality, or commune (the equivalent word, in Latin countries, for“municipality”)wastheemergingcivicsubstitute,basedonresidenceandsocialinterests,forthetribalbloodgroup,whichhadbeenbasedonmythsofacommonancestry. The municipality, however slowly and incompletely, formed thenecessarycondition forhumanassociationbasedon rationaldiscourse,materialinterest,andasecularculture,irrespectiveofandofteninconflictwithancestralrootsandbloodties.Indeed, thefact thatpeoplecangather in localassemblies,discuss and share creatively in the exchange of ideas without any hostility orsuspicion, despite disparate ethnic, linguistic, and national backgrounds, is agrand historic achievement of civilization, one that is the work of centuriesinvolving a painful discarding of primordial definitions of ancestry and thereplacement of these archaic definitions by reason, knowledge, and a growingsenseofourstatusasmembersofacommonhumanity.Ingreatpart,thishumanizingdevelopmentwastheworkofthemunicipality—

the increasingly free space inwhichpeople, aspeople,began to seeeachotherrealistically, steadily unfettered by archaic notions of biological ties, tribalaffiliations, and a mystical, tradition-laden, and parochial identity. I do notcontendthat thisprocessofcivilization,atermthatderivesfromtheLatinwordfor city and citizenship, has been completely achieved.Far from it:without theexistenceofarationalsociety,themunicipalitycaneasilybecomeamegalopolis,inwhichcommunity,howeversecular,isreplacedbyatomizationandaninhumansocial scale beyond the comprehension of its citizens—indeed, the space forclass,racial,religious,andotherirrationalconflicts.

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But both historically and contemporaneously, citification forms the necessarycondition—albeitbynomeansfullyactualized—fortherealizationofhumanity’spotentiality tobecomefullyhuman, rational,andcollectivistic, therebysheddingdivisionsbasedonpresumedbloodaffiliationsanddifferences,mindlesscustom,fearfulimaginaries,andanonrational,oftenintuitional,notionofrightsandduties.Hence, the municipality is the potential arena for realizing the great goal of

transforming parochialized human beings into truly universal human beings, agenuine humanitas, divested of the darker brutish attributes of the primordialworld.Themunicipalityinwhichallhumanbeingscanbecitizens,irrespectiveoftheirethnicbackgroundandideologicalconvictions,constitutesthetruearenaofalibertarian communist society. Metaphorically speaking, it is not only adesideratumforrationalhumanbeings,withoutwhichafreesocietyisimpossible,itisalsothefutureofarationalhumanity,theindispensablespaceforactualizinghumanity’spotentialitiesforfreedomandself-consciousness.Idonotpresumetoclaimthataconfederationoflibertarianmunicipalities—a

Commune of communes—has ever existed in the past. Yet, no matter howfrequentlyIdisclaimtheexistenceofanyhistorical“models”and“paradigms”forlibertarianmunicipalities,mycritics still try to saddlemewith themany socialdefectsofAthens,revolutionaryNewEnglandtowns,andthelike,assomehowanintegralpartofmy“ideals.”Iprivilegenosinglecityorgroupofcities—betheyclassicalAthens, thefreecitiesof themedievalworld, the townmeetingsof theAmerican Revolution, the sections of the Great French Revolution, or theanarchosyndicalistcollectivesthatemergedintheSpanishRevolution—asthefullactualization, still less the comprehensive “models” or “paradigms,” of thelibertarianmunicipalistvision.Yet significant features—despite various, often unavoidable distortions—

existed among all of these municipalities and the federations that they formed.Theirvalueforusliesinthefactthatwecanlearnfromallofthemaboutthewaysinwhichtheypracticedthedemocraticpreceptsbywhichtheywereguided.Andwecanincorporatethebestoftheirinstitutionsforourownandfuturetimes,studytheirdefects,andgaininspirationfromthefactthattheydidexistandfunctionedwithvaryingdegreesofsuccessforgenerations,ifnotcenturies.Atpresent,Ithinkitisimportanttorecognizethatwhenweadvanceapolitics

of libertarianmunicipalism, we are not engaged in discussing amere tactic orstrategy for creating a public sphere. Rather, we are trying to create a newpoliticalculturethatisnotonlyconsistentwithanarchistcommunistgoalsbutthatincludesrealeffortstoactualizethesegoals,fullycognizantofallthedifficultiesthat faceusand the revolutionary implications that theyhold forus in theyearsahead.

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Letmenoteherethatthe“neighborhood”isnotmerelytheplacewherepeoplemaketheirhomes,reartheirchildren,andpurchasemanyoftheirgoods.Underamore political coloration, so to speak, a neighborhoodmaywell include thosevitalspaceswherepeoplecongregatetodiscusspoliticalaswellassocialissues.Indeed, it is the extent towhichpublic issues areopenlydiscussed in a cityortown that truly defines the neighborhood as an important political and powerspace.By this, I do not mean only an assembly, where citizens discuss and gird

themselves to fight for specific policies; I also mean the neighborhood as thecenterofatown,wherecitizensmaygatherasalargegrouptosharetheirviewsandgivepublicexpressiontotheirpolicies.ThiswasthefunctionoftheAthenianagora, for example, and the town squares in theMiddle Ages. The spaces forpoliticallifemaybemultiple,buttheyaregenerallyhighlyspecificanddefinable,notrandomoradhoc.Suchessentiallypoliticalneighborhoodshaveoftenappearedintimesofunrest,

whensizablenumbersofindividualsspontaneouslyoccupyspacesfordiscussion,asintheHellenicagora.IrecallthemduringmyownyouthinNewYorkCity,inUnionSquareandCrotonaPark,wherehundredsandpossibly thousandsofmenandwomen appearedweekly to informally discuss the issues of the day.HydePark inLondonconstitutedsuchacivicspace,asdid thePalais-Royal inParis,whichwasthebreedinggroundoftheGreatFrenchRevolutionandtheRevolutionof1830.And during the early days of the 1848 revolution in Paris, scores (possibly

hundreds) of neighborhood assembly halls existed as clubs and forums andpotentiallyformedthebasisforarestorationoftheolderneighborhoodsectionsof1793.Thebestestimatesindicatethatclubmembershipdidnotexceed70,000outof a total population of about amillion residents.Yet, had this clubmovementbeencoordinatedbyanactiveandpoliticallycoherentrevolutionaryorganization,itcouldhavebecomeaformidable,possiblyasuccessfulforce,duringtheweeksofcrisisthatledtotheJuneinsurrectionoftheParisianworkers.Thereisnoreason,inprinciple,whysuchspacesandthepeoplewhoregularly

occupy them cannot become citizens’ assemblies as well. Indeed, like certainsections in the Great French Revolution, they may well take a leading role insparkingarevolutionandpushingitforwardtoitslogicalconclusion.

A problem exists in anarchist communist theory: it fails to acknowledge that apolitical sphere, distinguishable from the state and potentially libertarian in itspossibilities,must be acknowledged and its potentialities for a truly libertarianpolitics explored. We cannot content ourselves with simplistically dividing

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civilization intoaworkadayworldofeveryday life that isproperly social, as Icallit,inwhichwereproducetheconditionsofourindividualexistenceatwork,inthehome,andamongourfriends,and,ofcourse,thestate,whichreducesusatbest to docile observers of the activities of professionals who administer ourcivic andnational affairs.Between these twoworlds is still anotherworld, therealmofthepolitical,whereourancestorsinthepast,atvarioustimesandplaceshistorically, exercised varying, sometimes complete control over the communeandtheconfederationtowhichitbelonged.Itisalacunainanarchistcommunisttheorythatthepoliticalwasconflatedwith

thestate,therebyeffacingamajordistinctionbetweenapoliticalsphereinwhichpeopleinvaryingdegreesexercisedpower,oftenthroughdirectassemblies,overtheircivicenvironment,andthestate,inwhichpeoplehadnodirectcontrol,oftennocontrolatall,overthatenvironment.Ifpoliticsisdenaturedtomeanlittlemorethanstatecraftandthemanipulation

ofpeoplebytheirso-called“representatives,”thenaconditionthathasacquiredvaryingformsofexpressionintheclassicalAthenianassembly,popularmedievalcivic assemblies, townmeetings, and the revolutionary sectional assemblies ofParis, is conveniently erased and the multitudinous institutions for managing amunicipality become reducible to the behavior of cynical parliamentarians orworse. It is a gross simplification of historical development and the world inwhichwelivetoseethepoliticalsimplyasthepracticeofstatecraft.Justasthetribe emerged long before the city, so the city emerged long before the state—indeed, often in opposition to it. Mesopotamian cities, appearing in the landbetween the Tigris and Euphrates rivers some six thousand years ago, arebelieved to have been managed by popular assemblies long before they wereforced by intercity conflicts to establish state-like institutions and ultimatelydespotic imperial institutions. It was in these early cities that politics, that is,popularwaysofmanaging the city,wereborn andmayverywell have thrived.The state followed later and elaborated itself institutionally, often in bitteroppositiontotendenciesthattriedtorestorepopularcontrolovercivicaffairs.Norcanweaffordtoignorethefactthatthesameconflictalsoemergedinearly

AthensandprobablyotherGreekpoleislongbeforethedevelopmentofthestatereached a relatively high degree of completion. One can see the recurrence ofsimilarconflictsinthestruggleoftheGracchibrothersandpopularassembliesinRomeagainsttheelitistSenateand,repeatedly,inthemedievalcities,longbeforetheriseoflatemedievalaristocraciesandtheBaroquemonarchiesofthefifteenthandsixteenthcenturies.KropotkindidnotwritenonsensewhenhepointedtothefreecitiesofEurope,markednotbytheexistenceofstatesbutbytheirabsence.Indeed, let us also acknowledge that the state itself underwent a process of

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development and differentiation, at times developing no further than a loose,almostminimalsystemofcoercion,atothertimesextendingfurtherintoanever-growingapparatus,andfinally,inthiscenturyinparticular,acquiringtotalitariancontrol over every aspect of human existence—an apparatus that was only toofamiliar thousands of years ago in Asia and even in Indian America in pre-Columbian times. The classical Athenian state was only partially statist; itconstituted a fraternity, often riven by class conflicts, of select citizens whocollectivelyoppressedslaves,women,andevenforeignresidents.Themedievalstatewasoftenamuchlooserstateformationthan,say,theRomanimperialstate,andatvarious times inhistory(one thinksof thecomuñeros inSpainduring thesixteenthcenturyandthesectionsinFranceduringtheeighteenth),thestatealmostcompletely collapsed and direct democracies based on communalist politicalprinciplesplayedahegemonicroleinsocialaffairs.Libertarian municipalism is concerned with the political sphere, including

aspectsofbasiccivic importance, suchas theeconomic. Itdoesnotdrawstrictimpenetrablebarriersbetweenthetwotothepointwheretheyareimplacablysetagainsteachother.Libertarianmunicipalismcallsforthemunicipalizationoftheeconomy and, where material interests between communities overlap, theconfederalizationoftheeconomy.Nor are libertarianmunicipalists indifferent to themany cultural factors that

mustplayaroleintheformationoftruecitizens,indeed,roundedhumanbeings.But at the same time, let us not reduce every cultural desideratum to the socialsphere—tocreatethemyththatthemunicipalitycanbereducedtoafamily—andignoreitsoverlapwiththepolitical.Thedistinctionsbetweenthemwillonlybelost in that poststructural homogenization of everything, making their uniqueidentitiesalmostcompletelymeaninglessandpotentially,infact,totalitarian.Thus,thelibertarianmunicipalistarenamaybeaschoolforeducatingitsyouth

anditsmaturecitizens;butwhatmakesitparticularlysignificant,especiallyatthistime, is that it is a sphere of power relations that must be crystallized againstcapitalism, themarketplace, the forces for ecological destruction, and the state.Indeed,withoutamovement thatkeeps thisneedcompletely inmind, libertarianmunicipalism can easily degenerate in this age of academic specialization intoanothersubjectinaclassroomcurriculum.Finally, libertarian municipalism rests its politics today on the historically

preemptiveroleof thecity inrelationto thestate,andaboveallonthefact thatcivic institutions still exist, however distorted they may appear or howevercaptivetothestatetheymaybe,institutionsthatcanbeenlarged,radicalized,andeventuallyaimedattheeliminationofthestate.Thecitycouncil,howeverfeebleitspowersmaybe,stillexistsastheremnantofthecommuneswithwhichitwas

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identified in the past, especially in the Great French Revolution and the ParisCommune of 1871. The possibility of re-creating a sectional democracy stillremains,assumingeitheralegalorextralegalform.WemustbearinmindthattheFrench revolutionary sections did not have any prior tradition onwhich to resttheir claims to legitimacy—indeed, they actually emerged from the elitistassemblies or districts of 1789, which the monarchy had created to elect theParisiandeputiestotheEstatesGeneral—exceptthattheyrefusedtodisbandaftertheycompletedtheirelectoralroleandremainedaswatchdogsoverthebehavioroftheEstatesinVersailles.We, too, are faced with the task of restructuring and expanding the civic

democratic institutions thatstillexist,howevervestigial their formsandpowersmaybe;ofattemptingtobasethemonoldornewpopularassemblies—and,tobequitecategorical,ofcreatingnewlegalor,mostemphatically,extralegalpopulardemocratic institutionswherevestigesofcivicdemocracydonotexist. Indoingso,wearedirelyinneedofamovement—indeed,aresponsible,well-structured,and programmatically coherent organization—that can provide the educationalresources, means of mobilization, and vital ideas for achieving our libertariancommunistandmunicipalistgoals.Our program should be flexible in the special sense that it poses minimum

demandsthatweseektoachieveatonce,giventhepoliticalsophisticationofthecommunityinwhichwefunction.Butsuchdemandswouldeasilydegenerateintoreformismiftheydidnotescalateintoabodyoftransitionaldemandsthatwouldultimatelyleadtoourmaximumdemandsforalibertariancommunistsociety.Nor canwe give up our seemingly utopian vision that the greatmetropolitan

areascanbestructurallydecentralized.CitiesonthescaleofNewYork,London,andParis,nottospeakofMexicoCity,BuenosAires,Bombay,andthelike,mustultimatelybeparceledintosmallercitiesanddecentralizedtoapointwheretheyareonceagainhumanlyscaledcommunities,nothugeandincomprehensibleurbanbelts. Libertarianmunicipalism takes its immediate point of departure from theexisting factsofurban life,manyofwhich are beyond the comprehensionof itsresidents.But it always strives tophysically aswell aspolitically fragment thegreatcitiesuntilitachievesthegreatanarchistcommunistandevenMarxiangoalofscalingallcitiestohumandimensions.

Perhaps the most common criticism that both Marxists and anarchists havepresented is the claim that modern cities are too huge to be organized aroundworkable popular assemblies. Some critics assume that if we are to have truedemocracy,everyonefromagezerotoonehundred,irrespectiveofhealth,mentalcondition, or disposition,must be included in a popular assembly—and that an

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assemblymustbeassmallasan“affinitygroup.”Butinlargeworldcities,thesecritics suggest, which have several million residents, we would require manythousandsofassembliesinordertoachievetruedemocracy.Insuchcities,suchamultiplicityof smallassemblies, theyargue,wouldbe just toocumbersomeandunworkable.Buta largeurbanpopulation is itselfnoobstacle to libertarianmunicipalism.

Indeed, based on this kind of calculation—which would count all residents asparticipatingcitizens—theforty-eightParisiansectionsof1793wouldhavebeencompletelydysfunctional,inviewofthefactthatrevolutionaryParishadatotalof500,000 to 600,000 people. If everyman,woman, and child, indeed, ever hadattended sectional assemblies, and each assembly had had no more than fortypeople, my arithmetic tells me that about 15,000 assemblies would have beenneeded to accommodate all the people of revolutionary Paris. Under suchcircumstances, one wonders how the French Revolution could ever haveoccurred.Apopulardemocracy,tobeginwith,isnotpremisedontheideathateveryone

can, will, or even want to attend popular assemblies. Nor should anyone whoprofesses to be an anarchist make participation compulsory, coercing everyoneinto doing so. Even more significantly, it has rarely happened—indeed, it hasneverhappened,inmyknowledgeofrevolutionaryhistory—thatthegreatmajorityofpeople inaparticularplace,still lesseveryone,engages in revolution. In thefaceof insurrection ina revolutionary situation,whileunknownmilitants, aidedby a fairly small number of supporters, rise up and overthrow the establishedorder,mostpeopletendtobeobservers.Havingreviewedcarefully thecourseofalmosteverymajorrevolution in the

Euro-Americanworld,Icansaywithsomeknowledgethateveninacompletelysuccessful revolution, it was always a minority of the people who attendedmeetings of assemblies that made significant decisions about the fate of theirsociety. The very differentiated political and social consciousness, interests,education, and backgrounds amongmasses in a capitalist society guarantee thatpeople will be drawn into revolutions in waves, if at all. The foremost, mostmilitantwave,atfirst,isnumericallysurprisinglysmall;itisfollowedbyseemingbystanderswho,ifanuprisingseemstobecapableofsuccess,mergewiththefirstwave,andonlyaftertheuprisingislikelytobesuccessfuldothepoliticallylessdeveloped waves, in varying degrees, follow it. Even after an uprising issuccessful,ittakestimeforasubstantialmajorityofthepeopletofullyparticipateintherevolutionaryprocess,commonlyascrowdsindemonstrations,morerarelyasparticipantsinrevolutionaryinstitutions.In the English Revolution of the 1640s, for example, it was primarily the

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Puritan army that raised the most democratic issues, with the support of theLevellers, who formed a very small fraction of the civilian population. TheAmericanRevolutionwasnotoriouslysupported,albeitbynomeansactively,byonlyone-thirdof thecolonialpopulation; theGreatFrenchRevolution found itsprincipalsupport inParisandwascarriedforwardbyforty-eightsections,mostofwhichwere rooted in assemblies thatwere poorly attended, except at timeswhenmomentousdecisionsarousedthemostrevolutionaryneighborhoods.Indeed, what decided the fate of most revolutions was less the amount of

support their militants received than the degree of resistance they encountered.WhatbroughtLouisXVIandhisfamilybacktoParisfromVersaillesinOctober1789wascertainlynotallthewomenofParis—indeed,onlyafewthousandmadethe famous march to Versailles—but the king’s own inability to mobilize asufficiently large and reliable force to resist them. The Russian Revolution ofFebruary 1917 in Petrograd, for many historians the “model” of a massspontaneous revolution (and an uprising far more nuanced than most accountssuggest), succeeded because not even the tsar’s personal guard, let alone suchformerly reliable supports of the autocracy as the Cossacks, was prepared todefendthemonarchy.Indeed,inrevolutionaryBarcelonain1936,theresistancetoFranco’sforceswasinitiatedbyonlyafewthousandanarchosyndicalistswiththeaid of the Assault Guards, whose discipline, weaponry, and training wereindispensablefactorsinpinningdownandultimatelydefeatingtheregulararmy’suprising.Itissuchconstellationsofforces,infact,thatexplainhowrevolutionsactually

succeed. They do not triumph because “everyone,” or even a majority of thepopulation, actively participates in overthrowing an oppressive regime, butbecause the armed forces of the old order and the population at-large are nolongerwillingtodefenditagainstamilitantandresoluteminority.Nor is it likely, however desirable it may be, that after a successful

insurrection, the great majority of the people or even the oppressed willpersonally participate in revolutionizing society. Following the success of arevolution, themajority of people tend towithdraw into the localities inwhichtheylive,howeverlargeorsmall,wheretheproblemsofeverydaylifehavetheirmost visible impact on the masses. These localities may be residential and/oroccupationalneighborhoodsinlargecities, theenvironsofvillagesandhamlets,or even at some distance from the center of a city or region, fairly dispersedlocalitiesinwhichpeopleliveandwork.No—I do not think the large size ofmodern cities constitutes an insuperable

obstacletotheformationofaneighborhoodassemblymovement.Thedoorsoftheneighborhood assemblies should always be open to whoever lives in the

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neighborhood.Politically less aware individualsmay choose not to attend theirneighborhoodassembly,andtheyshouldnotbeobligedtoattend.Theassemblies,regardlessof their size,willhaveproblemsenoughwithouthaving to dealwithindifferent bystanders and passersby. What counts is that the doors of theassembliesremainopenforallwhowishtoattendandparticipate,forthereinliesthetruedemocraticnatureofneighborhoodassemblies.

Anothercriticismagainstlibertarianmunicipalismisthatalargecrowd,suchasnumerous citizens at an assembly meeting, may be manipulated by a forcefulspeaker or faction. This criticism could be directed against any democraticinstitution, be it a large assembly, a small committee, an ad hoc conference ormeeting,orevenan“affinity”group.Thesizeofthegroupisnotafactorhere—some very abusive tyrannies appear in very small groups, where one or twointimidatingfigurescancompletelydominateeveryoneelse.What the criticsmight well ask—but seldom do—is howwe are to prevent

persuasive individuals frommaking demagogic attempts to control any popularassembly,regardlessofsize.Inmyview,theonlyobstacletosuchattemptsistheexistence of an organized body of revolutionaries—yes, even a faction—that iscommitted to seeking truth, exercising rationality, and advancing an ethics ofpublicresponsibility.Suchanorganizationwillbeneeded,inmyview,notonlybeforeandduringarevolutionbutalsoafterone,whentheconstructiveproblemofcreatingstable,enduring,andeducationaldemocratic institutionsbecomestheorderoftheday.Such an organizationwill be particularly needed during the period of social

reconstruction when attempts are made to put libertarian municipalism intopractice. We cannot expect that, because we propose the establishment ofneighborhood assemblies, we will always—or perhaps even often—be themajorityintheveryinstitutionsthatwehavesignificantlyhelpedtoestablish.Wemust always be prepared, in fact, to be in the minority, until such time ascircumstances and social instability make our overall messages plausible toassemblymajorities.Indeed, wherever we establish a popular assembly, with or without legal

legitimacy,itwilleventuallybeinvadedbycompetingclassinterests.Libertarianmunicipalism,Ishouldemphasizehere,isnotanattempttooverlookorevadetherealityof class conflict;on thecontrary, it attempts, amongother things, togiveduerecognitiontotheclassstruggle’scivicdimension.Modernconflictsbetweenclasseshaveneverbeenconfinedsimply to the factoryorworkplace; theyhavealsotakenadistinctlyurbanform,asin“RevolutionaryParis,”“RedPetrograd,”and“AnarchosyndicalistBarcelona.”Asanystudyofthegreatrevolutionsvividly

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reveals, the battle between classes has always been a battle not only betweendifferenteconomicstratainsocietybutalsowithinandbetweenneighborhoods.Moreover, the neighborhood, town, and village also generates searing issues

that cut across class lines: between working people (the traditional industrialproletariat,which isnowdwindling innumbers inEuropeand theUnitedStatesand is fighting a rearguard battlewith capital),middle-class strata (which lackanyconsciousnessofthemselvesasworkingpeople),thevastarmyofgovernmentemployees,ahugeprofessionaland technical stratumthat isnot likely to regarditself as a proletariat, and an underclass that is essentially demoralized andhelpless.Wecannotignorethecompellingfactthatcapitalismhaschangedsincetheend

oftheSecondWorldWar;thatithastransformedtheverysocialfiberofthegreatmajorityofpeople,bothattitudinallyandoccupationally, inWesternEuropeandtheUnitedStates; that itwillwreakeven furtherchanges in thedecades that lieahead,withdazzlingrapidity,especiallyasautomationisfurtherdevelopedandasnew resources, techniques, and products replace those that seem so dominanttoday.Norevolutionarymovementcanignoretheproblemsthatcapitalismislikelyto

generate in the years that lie ahead, especially in terms of capital’s profoundeffectsonbothsocietyandtheenvironment.Thefutilityofsyndicalismtodayliesin the fact that it is still trying to address the problems generated by the oldindustrial revolution and in the context of the social setting that gave theseproblemsmeaninginthefirsthalfofthetwentiethcentury.Ifwehavehistoricallyexhausted the syndicalist alternative, it is because the industrial proletariat iseverywhere destined, by virtue of technological innovation, to become a smallminority of the population. It will not do to try to theoretically fabricate a“proletariat”outofclerical,service,andprofessional“workers”who,inmanyifnotmostcases,willnotacquiretheclassconsciousnessthatidentifiedandgaveahistoricalstandingtotheauthenticproletarian.Butthesestrata,oftenamongthemostexploitedandoppressed,canbeenlisted

tosupportouranarchistcommunistidealsonthebasisofthelargerenvironmentinwhichtheyliveandthelargerissuesoftheirsovereigntyinaworldthatisracingoutofcontrol:namely,theirneighborhoods,cities,andtowns,andtheexpansionoftheirdemocraticrightsasfreecitizensinaworldthathasreducedthemtomereelectoralconstituents.Theycanbemobilizedtosupportouranarchistcommunistidealsbecausetheyfeel theirpowertocontrol theirownlives isdiminishinginthe face of centralized state and corporate power. Needless to say, I am notdenying that working people have grim economic problems that may pit themagainstcapital,buttheirquasi-middle-classoutlookifnotstatusdiminishestheir

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abilitytoseetheillsofcapitalismexclusivelyasaneconomicsystem.Today,we live in an era of permanent industrial revolution inwhich people

tendtorespondtotheextremerapidityandvastscopeofchangewithamysticismthatexpressestheirdisempowermentandaprivatismthatexpressestheirinabilitytocontendwithchange.Indeed,capitalism,farfrombeing“advanced,”stillless“moribund,”continuestomatureandextenditsscope.Whatitwilllooklikeahalfcenturyoracenturyfromnowisopentotheboldestofspeculations.Hence, more than ever, any revolutionary libertarian communist movement

must, inmy view, recognize the importance of themunicipality as the locus ofnew, indeed, often transclass problems that cannot simply be reduced to thestruggle between wage labor and capital. Real problems of environmentaldeterioration affect everyone in a community; real problems of social andeconomic inequities affect everyone in a community; real problems of health,education, sanitary conditions, and the nightmare, as Paul Goodman put it, of“growing up absurd” plague everyone in a community—problems that are evenmoreserioustodaythantheywereinthealienated1960sdecade.Thesetransclassissuescanbringpeopletogetherwithworkersofallkindsinacommonefforttoseektheirself-empowerment,anissuethatcannotberesolvedintotheconflictofwagelaboragainstcapitalalone.Norareworkersmere“agents”ofhistory,asvulgarMarxists (and implicitly,

syndicalists)wouldhaveusbelieve.Workersliveincities,towns,andvillages—notonlyasclassbeingsbutascivicbeings.Theyarefathersandmothers,brothersandsisters, friendsandcomrades,andnoless than theirecologicalcounterpartsamong the petty bourgeoisie, they are concernedwith environmental issues.Asparentsandyoungpeople, theyareconcernedwiththeproblemsofacquiringaneducation, entering a profession, and the like.They are deeplydisturbedby thedecayofurbaninfrastructures, thediminutionof inexpensivehousing,andissuesofurbansafetyandaesthetics.Theirhorizonextendsfarbeyondtherealmofthefactoryoreven theoffice to the residentialurbanworld inwhich theyand theirfamilieslive.AfterIhadspentyearsworkinginfactories,IwasnotsurprisedtofindthatIcouldreachworkers,middle-classpeople,andevenrelativelyaffluentindividualsmoreeasilybydiscussingissuesrelatingtotheir livedenvironments—theirneighborhoodsandcities—ratherthantotheirworkplaces.Today, in particular, the globalization of capital raises the question of how

localities can keep productive resources within their own confines withoutimpairingtheopportunitiesofpeoplesintheso-called“ThirdWorld”orSouthtofreely develop technologically according to their own needs. This conundrumcannot be resolved by legislation and economic reforms. Capitalism is acompulsively expansive system. A modern market economy dictates that an

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enterprise must grow or die, and nothing will prevent capitalism fromindustrializing—moreaccurately,expanding—endlesslyovertheentirefaceoftheplanet whenever it is prepared to do so. Only the complete reconstruction ofsociety and the economy can end the dilemmas that globalization raises—theexploitationofworkersand theenhancementofcorporatepower to thepointofthreateningthestability,indeedtheverysafety,oftheplanet.Hereagain,Iwouldcontendthatonlyagrassrootseconomicpolicy,basedona

libertarianmunicipalistagendaandmovement,canofferamajoralternative—andit is precisely an alternative thatmanypeople seek today—capableof arrestingthe impactofglobalization.For theproblemofglobalization, there isnoglobalsolution.Globalcapital,preciselybecauseofitsveryhugeness,canonlybeeatenawayatitsroots,specificallybymeansofalibertarianmunicipalistresistanceatthebaseofsociety.Itmustbeerodedbythemyriadmillionswho,mobilizedbyagrassrootsmovement,challengeglobalcapital’ssovereigntyovertheir livesandtry to develop local and regional economic alternatives to its industrialoperations. Developing this resistance would involve subsidizing municipallycontrolledindustriesandretailoutlets,andtakingrecourseinregionalresourcesthatcapitaldoesnotfinditprofitabletouse.Amunicipalizedeconomy,slowasitmaybe in themaking,will beamoral economy,one that—concernedprimarilywiththequalityofitsproductsandtheirproductionatthelowestpossiblecost—canhopetoultimatelysubvertacorporateeconomy,whosesuccess ismeasuredentirelybyitsprofitsratherthanbythequalityofitscommodities.Letme stress that when I speak of amoral economy, I am not advocating a

communitarianorcooperativeeconomyinwhichsmallprofiteers,howeverwell-meaningtheir intentionsmaybe,simplybecomelittle“self-managed”capitalistsin their own right. In my own community, I have seen a self-styled “moral”enterprise,BenandJerry’s IceCream,grow in typicalcapitalist fashion fromasmall, presumably “caring,” and intimate enterprise into a global corporation,intent on making profit and fostering the myth that “capitalism can be good.”Cooperatives that profess to bemoral in their intentions have yet to make anyheadway in replacing big capitalist concerns or even in surviving withoutthemselves becoming capitalistic in their methods and profit-oriented in theirgoals.The Proudhonistmyth that small associations of producers—as opposed to a

genuinelysocialisticor libertariancommunisticendeavor—canslowlyeatawayat capitalism should finally be dispelled. Sadly, these generally failed illusionsare still promoted by liberals, anarchists, and academics alike. Eithermunicipalizedenterprisescontrolledbycitizens’assemblieswilltrytotakeovertheeconomy,orcapitalismwillprevailinthissphereoflifewithaforcefulness

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thatnomererhetoriccandiminish.Capitalistsocietyhaseffectsnotonlyoneconomicandsocialrelationsbuton

ideas and intellectual traditions as well, indeed, on all of history, fragmentingthemuntilknowledge,discourse,andevenrealitybecomeblurred,divestedofanydistinctions, specificity, and articulation. The culture that promotes thiscelebration of diffuseness and fragmentation—a culture that is epidemic inAmericancollegesanduniversities—goesunderthenameofpoststructuralismor,morecommonly,postmodernism.Givenitscorrosiveprecepts,thepostmodernistworldviewisabletolevelorhomogenizeeverythingthatisuniqueordistinctive,dissolvingitintoalowestcommondenominatorofideas.Consider, for example, the obscurantist term “earth citizenship,” which

dissolves the very complex notion of “citizenship,” with its presuppositions ofpaideia,thatis,thelifelongeducationofthecitizenforthepracticeofcivicself-management,intoadiffusecategory,byextending(andcheapening)thenotionofcitizenshiptoincludeanimals,plants,rocks,mountains,theplanet,indeedtheverycosmositself.Withapurelymetaphoricallabelforallrelationshipsasan“earthcommunity,”thehistoricalandcontemporaryuniquenessofthecitydisappears.Itpresumably preempts every other community because of its wider scope andbreadth. Suchmetaphors ultimately flatten everything, in effect, into a universal“Oneness” that, in the name of “ecological wisdom,” denies definition to vitalconceptsandrealitiesbytheveryubiquityofthe“One.”If the word “citizen” applies to every existing thing, and if the word

“community” embraces all relationships in this seemingly “green” world, thennothing,infact,isacitizenoracommunity.Justasthelogicalcategory“Being”isrenderedasmereexistence,Beingcanonlyberegardedasinterchangeablewith“Nothing.” So, too, “citizen” and “community” become a universal passport tovacuity,nottouniquelycivicconditionsthathavebeenforminganddifferentiatingdialectically for thousands of years through the ancient, medieval, and modernworlds.To reduce them toanabstract “community” is toultimatelynegate theirwealthofevolutionaryformsandparticularlytheirdifferentiationassophisticatedaspectsofhumanfreedom.

Libertarianmunicipalismmustbeconceivedasaprocess,apatientpracticethatwill haveonly limited success at thepresent time, and even thenonly in selectareas that can at best provide examplesof thepossibilities it couldhold if andwhen adopted on a large scale. We will not create a libertarian municipalistsociety overnight, and in this era of counterrevolution,wemust be prepared toendure more failures than successes. Patience and commitment are traits thatrevolutionaries of the past cultivated assiduously; alas, today, in our fast

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consumeristsociety,thedemandforimmediategratification,forfastfoodandfastliving,inculcatesademandforfastpolitics.Whatshouldcountforusiswhetherlibertarian municipalism is a means for achieving the rational culmination ofhuman development, notwhether it is suitable as a quick fix for present socialproblems.We must learn to be flexible without allowing our basic principles to be

replacedbyapostmodernistquagmireofadhoc,ever-changeableopinions.Forexample, ifwehavenochoicebut touseelectronicmeans, suchas toestablishpopularparticipationinrelativelylargecitizens’assemblies,thensobeit.Butweshould,Iwouldargue,dosoonlywhenitisunavoidableandforonlyaslongasitis necessary. By the same token, if certain measures involve a degree ofcentralization, thenweshouldadopt them—withoutsacrificing, letmeinsist, theright to immediate recall. But here, too, we should endure such organizationalmeasures for only as long as they are necessary and no longer. Our basicprinciples in such casesmust always be our guide: we remain committed to adirect face-to-face democracy and a well-coordinated, confederal, butdecentralizedsociety.Nor should we fetishize consensus over democracy in our decision-making

processes.Consensus,asIhaveargued,ispracticablewithverysmallgroupsinwhich people know each other intimately. But in larger groups, it becomestyrannical because it allows a smallminority to decide the practice of large oreven sizable majority; and it fosters homogeneity and stagnation in ideas andpolicies.Minorities and their factions are the indispensable yeast for maturingnew ideas—and nearly all new ideas start out as the views ofminorities. In alibertarian group, the “rule” of the majority over a minority is a myth; no oneexpectsaminoritytogiveupitsunpopularbeliefsortoyielditsrighttoargueitsviews—buttheminoritymusthavepatienceandallowamajoritydecisiontobeput into practice. This experience and the discussion it generates should be themostdecisiveelementinimpellingagrouporassemblytoreconsideritsdecisionandadopttheminority’sviewpoint,spurringonthefurtherinnovationofpracticesand ideas as other minorities emerge. Consensus decision-making can easilyproduceintellectualandpracticalstagnationifitessentiallycompelsamajoritytoforgoaspecificpolicyinordertopleaseaminority.I will not enter into my distinction between policy decisions and their

enactmentinpracticebythosequalifiedtoadministerthem.IwillonlynotethatiftheU.S.Congress—a gathering, for themost part, of lawyers—canmake basicpolicydecisionsonthereconstructionoftheAmericaninfrastructure,onwarandpeace,oneducationandforeignpolicy,etc.,withouthavingfullknowledgeofallaspectsofthesefields,leavingtheadministrationoftheirdecisionstoothers,then

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I fail to understand why a citizens’ assembly cannot make policy decisions onusually more modest issues and leave their administration, under closesupervision,toexpertsinthefieldsinvolved.Amongtheotherissuesthatwemustatsomepointconsideraretheplaceoflaw

or nomos in a libertarianmunicipalist society, aswell as constitutions that laydown important principles of right or justice and freedom. Are we to vest theperpetuation of our guiding principles simply in blind custom, or in the goodnatureofourfellowhumans—whichallowsforagreatdealofarbitrariness?Forcenturies,oppressedpeoplesdemandedwrittenfoundingconstitutionalprovisionstoprotectthemfromthearbitraryoppressionofthenobility.Withtheemergenceof a libertarian communist society, this problem does not disappear. For us, Ibelieve, the question can never bewhether law and constitutions are inherentlyanti-anarchistic, but whether they are rational, mutable, secular, and restrictiveonly in thesense that theyprohibit theabuseofpower.Wemust, Ibelieve, freeourselvesofthefetishesbornofremotepolemicswithauthoritarians,fetishesthathavepushedmanyanarchistcommunistsintounreflectiveone-sidedpositionsthataremorelikedogmasthanreasonedtheoreticalideas.Admittedly, the present time is not one that is favorable for the spread of

anticapitalist, social anarchist ideas and movements. Unless we are to let thecapitalist cancer spread over the entire planet, however, even absorbing thenatural world into the world economy, anarchist communists must develop atheory and practice that provides themwith an entry into the public sphere—atheory and practice, I should emphasize, that is consistent with the goal of arational,libertariancommunistsociety.Finally,wemustassert thehistoric rightof speculative reason, restingon the

realpotentialitiesofhumanbeingsasweknowthemfromthepastaswellasthepresent, to project itself beyond the immediate environment in which we live,indeed,toclaimthat thepresentirrationalsocietyisnottheactual—or“real”—that is worthy of the human condition. Despite its prevalence—and, to manypeople, its permanence—it is untrue to the project of fulfilling humanity’spotentialityforfreedomandself-consciousness,andhenceitisunrealinthesensethatitisabetrayaloftheclaimsofhumanity’sgreatestqualities,thecapacityforreasonandinnovation.Bythesametoken,thatbroadschoolofideasthatwecall“anarchism”isfaced

with a parting of the ways between social anarchists, who wish to focus theirefforts on the revolutionary elimination of hierarchical and class society, andindividualist anarchists, who see social change only in terms of their personalself-expressionandthereplacementofseriousideaswithmysticalfantasies.I personally do not believe that anarchism can become a public movement

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unlessitformulatesapoliticsthatopensittosocialintervention,thatbringsitintothe public sphere as an organized movement that can grow, think rationally,mobilize people, and actively seek to change the world. The social democratshave offered us parliamentary reforms as a practice, and the results they haveproduced have been debilitating—most notably, a radical decline in public lifeand a disastrous growth in consumerist self-indulgence and privatism.Althoughthe Stalinists as architects of the totalitarian state havemostly passed from thepublic scene, a few persist as parasites on whatever radical movement mayemerge among oppressed peoples. And fascism, in its various mutations, hasattemptedtofillthevoidcreatedbydisempowermentandalackofhumanscaleinpoliticsaswellascommunity,withtragicresults.As anarchist communists,wemust askourselveswhatmodeof entry into the

public sphere is consistentwith our vision of empowerment. If our ideal is theCommune of communes, then I submit that the only means of entry and socialfulfillmentisaCommunalistpoliticswithalibertarianmunicipalistpraxis;thatis,amovementandprogramthat finallyemergeson the localpoliticalsceneas theuncompromisingadvocateofpopularneighborhoodandtownassembliesandthedevelopment of a municipalized economy. I know of no other alternative tocapitulationtotheexistingsociety.LibertarianmunicipalismisnotanewversionofreformismintheveinofPaul

Brousse’s“possibilism”of the1890s.Rather, it is anexplicit attempt toupdatethetraditionalsocialanarchistidealoftheFederationofcommunesor“Communeof communes,” namely, the confederal linking of libertarian communistmunicipalities, in theformofdirectlydemocraticpopularassembliesaswellasthecollectivecontrolor“ownership”ofsociallyimportantproperty.Libertarianmunicipalisminnowaycompromiseswithparliamentarism,reformistattemptsto“improve”capitalismortheperpetuationofprivateproperty.Limitedexclusivelyto the municipality as the locus for political activity, as distinguished fromprovincial and state governments, not to speak of national and supranationalgovernments, libertarian municipalism is revolutionary to the core, in the veryimportant sense that it seeks to exacerbate the latent andoftenvery real tensionbetweenthemunicipalityandthestate,andtoenlargethedemocraticinstitutionsof the commune that still remain, at the expense of statist institutions. Itcounterposes theconfederation to thenation-state,and libertariancommunismtoexistingsystemsofprivateandnationalizedproperty.Wheremostanarchistcommunists in thepasthaveregarded theFederationof

communes as an ideal to be achieved after an insurrection, libertarianmunicipalists,Icontend,regardthefederationorconfederationofcommunesasapolitical practice that can be developed, at least partly, prior to an outright

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revolutionary confrontation with the state—a confrontation which, in my view,cannotbeavoidedand,ifanything,shouldbeencouragedbyincreasingthetensionbetween the state and federations of municipalities. In fact, libertarianmunicipalism is a communalist practice for creating a revolutionary culture andfor bringing revolutionary change into complete conformity with the goals ofanarchistcommunism.Inthelastcase,itunifiespracticeandidealintoasingleandcoherentmeans-

and-ends approach for initiating a libertarian communist society, without anydisjunctionbetweenthestrategyforachievingsuchasocietyandthesocietyitself.Nor does libertarian municipalism cultivate the illusion that the state andbourgeoisiewillallowsuchacontinuumtofindfulfillmentwithoutopenstruggle,assomeadvocatesofso-called“confederalmunicipalism”and“localistpolitics”haveargued.I have no doubt that libertarianmunicipalism, if it meets with a measure of

success, will face many obstacles and the possibility of being co-opted or ofdegeneratingintoaformof“seweranarchism,”that itwillfacenotonlyacivicrealm of ideological discord but internal discordwithin its own organizationalframework,thatitopensabroadfieldofpoliticalconflict,withallitsrisksanduncertainties.Atatimewhensociallifehasbeentrivializedbeyonddescription,whenaccommodationtocapitalistvaluesandlifewayshasreachedunprecedentedlevels, when anarchism and socialism are seen as the “lost causes” of thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one can only hope that such discordbecomesagenuinepublicreality.Atnotimehasmediocritybeenmoretriumphantthanitistoday,andatnotimehasindifferencetosocialandpoliticalissuesbeenaswidespreadasitistoday.I do not believe that social change can be achieved without taking risks,

allowingforuncertainties,andrecognizingthepossibilityoffailure.Ifwearetohave any effect on the fossilizationof public life—to the extent that the presentperiod ismarked in any sense by a genuine public life—history toomustmovewithus.Onthisscore,Iammuchtoooldtomakeworthwhilepredictionsabouthowthecourseofeventswillunfold,except tosaythat thepresent,whetherforgoodor ill,willhardlybe recognizable to thegeneration thatwill comeofagefiftyyearsfromnow,sorapidlyarethingslikelytochangeinthecomingcentury.Butwhere change exists, so toodopossibilities.The times cannot remain as

they are, anymore than theworld can be frozen into immobility.Whatwe canhope to do is to preserve the thread of rationality that distinguishes truecivilization from barbarism—and barbarismwould indeed be the outcome of aworld that is permitted to tumble into a future without rational activity orguidance.

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August1998

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TheMeaningofConfederalism

Fewargumentshavebeenusedmoreeffectivelytochallengethecaseforface-to-faceparticipatorydemocracythantheclaimthatweliveina“complexsociety.”Modern population centers, we are told, are too large and too concentrated toallow fordirectdecision-makingat agrassroots level.Andour economy is too“global,”presumably, tounravel the intricaciesofproductionandcommerce. Inour present transnational, often highly centralized social system, it is better toenhance representation in the state, to increase the efficiency of bureaucraticinstitutions, we are advised, than to advance utopian “localist” schemes ofpopularcontroloverpoliticalandeconomiclife.Afterall, suchargumentsoftenrun,centralistsareall really“localists” in the

sense that they believe in “more power to the people”—or at least, to theirrepresentatives. And surely a good representative is always eager to know thewishesofhisorher“constituents”(touseanotherofthosearrogantsubstitutesfor“citizens”).But face-to-face democracy?Forget the dream that in our “complex”modern

worldwecanhaveanydemocraticalternativetothenation-state!Manypragmaticpeople,includingsocialists,oftendismissargumentsforthatkindof“localism”asotherworldly—withgood-natured condescension at best andoutright derision atworst.Indeed,someyearsback,in1972,IwaschallengedintheperiodicalRootand Branch by Jeremy Brecher, a democratic socialist, to explain how thedecentralist views I expressed in my 1969 essay “Post-Scarcity Anarchism”wouldprevent,say,Troy,NewYork,fromdumpingitsuntreatedwastes intotheHudson River, from which downstream cities like Perth Amboy draw theirdrinkingwater.On the surfaceof things,arguments likeBrecher’s forcentralizedgovernment

seem rather compelling. A structure that is “democratic,” to be sure, but stilllargelytop-down,isassumedasnecessarytopreventonelocalityfromafflictinganotherecologically.Butconventionaleconomicandpoliticalargumentsagainstdecentralization, ranging from the fate of Perth Amboy’s drinking water to ouralleged “addiction” to petroleum, rest on a number of very problematicalassumptions. Most disturbingly, they rest on an unconscious acceptance of theeconomicstatusquo.

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DECENTRALISMANDSELF-SUSTAINABILITYThe assumption thatwhat currently existsmust necessarily exist is the acid thatcorrodes all visionary thinking (as witness the recent tendency of radicals toespouse “market socialism” rather than deal with the failings of the marketeconomyaswellasstatesocialism).Doubtless,wewillhavetoimportcoffeeforthosepeoplewhoneedamorning fix at thebreakfast tableor exoticmetals forpeople who want their wares to be more lasting than the junk produced by aconsciouslyengineeredthrowawayeconomy.Butasidefromtheutterirrationalityofcrowdingtensofmillionsofpeople intocongested, indeed,suffocatingurbanbelts,mustthepresent-dayextravagantinternationaldivisionoflabornecessarilyexist in order to satisfy human needs? Or has it been created to provideextravagant profits for multinational corporations? Are we to ignore theecologicalconsequencesofplunderingtheThirdWorldofitsresources,insanelyinterlocking modern economic life with petroleum-rich areas whose ultimateproductsincludeairpollutantsandpetroleum-derivedcarcinogens?Toignorethefactthatour“globaleconomy”istheresultofburgeoningindustrialbureaucraciesandacompetitivegrow-or-diemarketeconomyisprofoundlymyopic.It ishardlynecessary toexplore thesoundecological reasonsforachievinga

certainmeasureof self-sustainability.Most environmentallyorientedpeople areaware that a massive national and international division of labor is extremelywastefulintheliteralsenseofthatterm.Notonlydoesanexcessivedivisionoflabormakeforoverorganizationintheformofhugebureaucraciesandtremendousexpendituresofresourcesintransportingmaterialsovergreatdistances,itreducesthepossibilitiesofeffectivelyrecyclingwastes,avoidingpollutionthatmayhaveits source in highly concentrated industrial and population centers, andmakingsounduseoflocalorregionalrawmaterials.On the other hand, we cannot ignore the fact that relatively self-sustaining

communitiesinwhichcrafts,agriculture,andindustriesservedefinablenetworksof confederally organized communities enrich the opportunities and stimuli towhich individuals are exposedandmake formore roundedpersonalitieswith arichsenseofselfhoodandcompetence.TheGreekidealoftheroundedcitizeninaroundedenvironment—onethatreappearedinCharlesFourier’sutopianworks—waslongcherishedbytheanarchistsandsocialistsofthelastcentury.The opportunity of the individual to devote his or her productive activity to

manydifferenttasksoveranattenuatedworkweek(orinFourier’sidealsociety,overagivenday)wasseenasavitalfactorinovercomingthedivisionbetweenmanualandintellectualactivity, intranscendingstatusdifferencesthatthismajordivisionofwork created, and in enhancing thewealthof experiences that camewithafreemovementfromindustrythroughcraftstofoodcultivation.Hence,self-

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sustainabilitymadeforaricherself,onestrengthenedbyvariegatedexperiences,competencies, and assurances. Alas, this vision was lost by leftists and manyenvironmentalists in the second half of the twentieth century, with their shifttowardapragmaticliberalismandtheradicalmovement’stragicignoranceofitsownvisionarypast.Weshouldnot,Ibelieve,losesightofwhatitmeanstoliveanecologicalway

oflife,notmerelyfollowsoundecologicalpractices.Themultitudeofhandbooksthat teach us how to conserve, invest, eat, and buy in an “ecologicallyresponsible”manner are a travestyof themorebasicneed to reflect onwhat itmeanstothink—yes,toreason—andtoliveecologicallyinthefullmeaningoftheterm.Thus, Iwouldhold that togardenorganically ismore thanagoodformofhusbandryandagoodsourceofnutrients; it isaboveallawaytoplaceoneselfdirectly in the food web by personally cultivating the very substances oneconsumestoliveandbyreturningtoone’senvironmentwhatoneelicitsfromit.Foodthusbecomesmorethanaformofmaterialnutrient.Thesoilonetills,the

livingthingsonecultivatesandconsumes,thecompostonepreparesalluniteinanecological continuum to feed the spirit as well as the body, sharpening one’ssensitivity to the nonhuman and humanworld around us. I am often amused byzealous “spiritualists,”many ofwhom are either passive viewers of seemingly“natural” landscapes or devotees of rituals,magic, and pagan deities (or all ofthese)whofailtorealizethatoneofthemosteminentlyhumanactivities,namely,foodcultivation,candomoretofosteranecologicalsensibility(andspirituality,if you please) than all the incantations and mantras devised in the name ofecologicalspiritualism.Such monumental changes as the dissolution of the nation-state and its

substitutionbyaparticipatorydemocracy, then,donotoccur in apsychologicalvacuumwhere the political structure alone is changed. I argued against JeremyBrecher that in a society that was radically veering toward decentralistic,participatorydemocracy,guidedbycommunitarianandecologicalprinciples,itisonly reasonable to suppose that peoplewouldnot choose such an irresponsiblesocialdispensationaswouldallow thewatersof theHudson tobesopolluted.Decentralism,aface-to-faceparticipatorydemocracy,andalocalistemphasisoncommunity values should be viewed as all of one piece—they most assuredlyhavebeensointhevisionIhavebeenadvocatingformorethanthirtyyears.This“one piece” involves not only a new politics but a new political culture thatembraces newways of thinking and feeling, and new human interrelationships,including thewayswe experience the naturalworld.Words like “politics” and“citizenship”wouldberedefinedbytherichmeaningstheyacquiredinthepast,andenlargedforthepresent.

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Itisnotverydifficulttoshow,itembyitem,howtheinternationaldivisionoflabor can be greatly attenuated by using local and regional resources,implementing ecotechnologies, rescaling human consumption along rational(indeed,healthful)lines,andemphasizingqualityproductionthatprovideslasting(insteadofthrowaway)meansoflife.Itisunfortunatethattheveryconsiderableinventory of these possibilities, which I partly assembled and evaluated in my1965essay“TowardaLiberatoryTechnology,”suffersfromtheburdenofhavingbeen written too long ago to be accessible to the present generation ofecologically oriented people. Indeed, in that essay, I also argued for regionalintegration and the need to interlink resources among ecocommunities; fordecentralizedcommunitiesareinevitablyinterdependentupononeanother.

PROBLEMSOFDECENTRALISMIfmanypragmaticpeopleareblindtotheimportanceofdecentralism,manyintheecologymovementtendtoignoreveryrealproblemswith“localism”—problemsthat areno less troubling than theproblems raisedbyaglobalism that fosters atotal interlocking of economic and political life on aworldwide basis.Withoutsuchholisticculturalandpoliticalchanges,notionsofdecentralismthatemphasizelocalist isolation and a degree of self-sufficiency may lead to culturalparochialism and chauvinism. Parochialism can lead to problems that are asserious as a “global” mentality that overlooks the uniqueness of cultures, thepeculiarities of ecosystems and ecoregions, and the need for a humanly scaledcommunity life thatmakesaparticipatorydemocracypossible.This isnominorissue today, in an ecology movement that tends to swing toward very well-meaningbutrathernaïveextremes.Icannotrepeattooemphaticallythatwemustfindawayofsharing theworldwithotherhumansandwithnonhumanformsoflife,aviewthatisoftendifficulttoattaininoverly“self-sufficient”communities.MuchasIrespecttheintentionsofthosewhoadvocatelocalself-relianceand

self-sustainability,theseconceptscanbehighlymisleading.Icancertainlyagreewith the assertion, for example, that if a community can produce the things itneeds, itshouldprobablydoso.Butself-sustainingcommunitiescannotproduceall the things they need—unless it involves a return to a backbreaking way ofvillagelifethathistoricallyoftenprematurelyageditsmenandwomenwithhardwork and allowed them very little time for political life beyond the immediateconfinesofthecommunityitself.I regret tosaythat therearepeople in theecologymovementwhodo, infact,

advocateareturntoahighlylabor-intensiveeconomy,nottospeakofStoneAgedeities. Clearly, we must give the ideals of localism, decentralism, and self-

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sustainabilitygreaterandfullermeaning.Today,wecanproducethebasicmeansoflife—andagooddealmore—inan

ecologicalsocietythatisfocusedontheproductionofhigh-qualityusefulgoods.Yet still others in the ecologymovement too often end up advocating a kind of“cooperative” capitalism, in which one community functions like a singleentrepreneur,withasenseofproprietorshiptowarditsresources.Suchasystemofcooperativesonceagainmarksthebeginningsofamarketsystemofdistributionas cooperatives become entangled in the web of “bourgeois rights,” that is, incontracts and bookkeeping that focus on the exact amounts a community willreceivein“exchange”forwhatitdeliverstoothers.Thisdeteriorationoccurredamongsomeoftheworker-controlledenterprisesthatfunctionedlikecapitalisticenterprises in Barcelona after the workers expropriated them in July 1936—apracticethattheanarchosyndicalistCNTfoughtearlyintheSpanishRevolution.Itisatroublingfactthatneitherdecentralizationnorself-sufficiencyinitselfis

necessarilydemocratic.Plato’s idealcity in theRepublicwas, indeed,designedtobe self-sufficient, but its self-sufficiencywasmeant tomaintain awarrior aswellasaphilosophicalelite.Indeed,itscapacitytopreserveitsself-sufficiencydepended upon its ability, like Sparta, to resist the seemingly “corruptive”influence of outside cultures. Similarly, decentralization in itself provides noassurance thatwewill have an ecological society.A decentralized society caneasily coexistwith extremely rigid hierarchies.A striking example isEuropeanand Oriental feudalism, a social order in which princely, ducal, and baronialhierarchieswerebasedonhighlydecentralizedcommunities.WithallduerespecttoFritzSchumacher,smallisnotnecessarilybeautiful.Nor does it follow that humanly scaled communities and “appropriate

technologies” in themselves constitute guarantees against domineering societies.Infact,forcenturies,humanitylivedinvillagesandsmalltowns,oftenwithtightlyorganizedsocialtiesandevencommunisticformsofproperty.Buttheseprovidedthematerial basis for highly despotic imperial states. Considered on economicand property terms, theymight earn a high place in the “no-growth” outlook ofeconomists likeHermanDaly, but theywere the hard bricks that were used tobuildthemostawesomedespotismsinIndiaandChina.Whattheseself-sufficient,decentralizedcommunitiesfearedalmostasmuchasthearmiesthatravagedthemweretheimperialtax-gatherersthatplunderedthem.If we extol such communities because of the extent to which they were

decentralized, self-sufficient, or small, or employed“appropriate technologies,”we would be obliged to ignore the extent to which they were also culturallystagnant and easily dominated by exogenous elites.Their seemingly organic buttradition-bounddivisionoflabormayverywellhaveformedthebasesforhighly

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oppressive and degrading caste systems in different parts of the world—castesystemsthatplaguethesociallifeofIndiatothisveryday.At the risk of seeming contrary, I feel obliged to emphasize that

decentralization, localism, self-sufficiency, and even confederation, each takensingly, do not constitute a guarantee that wewill achieve a rational ecologicalsociety. In fact, all of them have at one time or another supported parochialcommunities, oligarchies, and even despotic regimes. To be sure, without theinstitutionalstructuresthatclusteraroundouruseofthesetermsandwithouttakingthem in combination with each other, we cannot hope to achieve a freeecologicallyorientedsociety.

CONFEDERALISMANDINTERDEPENDENCEDecentralism and self-sustainability must involve a much broader principle ofsocial organization than mere localism. Together with decentralization,approximationstoself-sufficiency,humanlyscaledcommunities,ecotechnologies,and the like, there isacompellingneed fordemocraticand trulycommunitarianformsofinterdependence—inshort,forlibertarianformsofconfederalism.I have detailed at length in many articles and books (particularly From

Urbanization to Cities) the history of confederal structures from ancient andmedievaltomodernconfederationssuchastheComuñeros intheearlysixteenthcenturythroughtheParisiansectionalmovementof1793andmorerecentattemptsatconfederation,particularlyby theAnarchists in theSpanishRevolutionof the1930s.Today,whatoftenleadstoseriousmisunderstandingsamongdecentralistsis their failure inall toomanycases tosee theneedforconfederation,whichatleasttendstocounteractthetendencyofdecentralizedcommunitiestodrifttowardexclusivity and parochialism. If we lack a clear understanding of whatconfederalism means—indeed, the fact that it forms a key principle and givesfuller meaning to decentralism—a libertarian municipalist agenda can easilybecomevacuousatbestorbeusedforhighlyparochialendsatworst.What, then, is confederalism? It is above all a network of administrative

councils whose members or delegates are elected from popular face-to-facedemocraticassemblies,inthevariousvillages,towns,andevenneighborhoodsoflarge cities. The members of these confederal councils are strictly mandated,recallable,andresponsibletotheassembliesthatchoosethemforthepurposeofcoordinating and administering the policies formulated by the assembliesthemselves.Theirfunctionisthusapurelyadministrativeandpracticalone,notapolicymaking one like the function of representatives in republican systems ofgovernment.

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Aconfederalistviewinvolvesacleardistinctionbetweenpolicymakingandthecoordinationandexecutionofadoptedpolicies.Policymaking isexclusively theright of popular community assemblies based on the practices of participatorydemocracy.Administrationandcoordinationare the responsibilityofconfederalcouncils, which become the means for interlinking villages, towns,neighborhoods, and cities into confederal networks. Power thus flows from thebottomupinsteadoffromthetopdown,andinconfederations,theflowofpowerfrom the bottom up diminishes with the scope of the federal council rangingterritoriallyfromlocalitiestoregionsandfromregionstoever-broaderterritorialareas.Acrucialelement ingivingreality toconfederalismis the interdependenceof

communities for an authenticmutualism based on shared resources, production,andpolicymaking.Ifonecommunity isnotobligedtocountonanotherorothersgenerally tosatisfy importantmaterialneedsandrealizecommonpoliticalgoalsinsuchawaythatitisinterlinkedtoagreaterwhole,exclusivityandparochialismaregenuinepossibilities.Onlyinsofaraswerecognizethatconfederationmustbeconceivedasanextensionofaformofparticipatoryadministration—bymeansofconfederalnetworks—candecentralizationandlocalismpreventthecommunitiesthatcomposelargerbodiesofassociationfromwithdrawingintothemselvesattheexpenseofwiderareasofhumanconsociation.Confederalism is thus a way of perpetuating the interdependence that should

exist among communities and regions; indeed, it is away of democratizing thatinterdependence without surrendering the principle of local control. While areasonablemeasureofself-sufficiencyisdesirableforeverylocalityandregion,confederalismisameansforavoidinglocalparochialismontheonehandandanextravagantnationalandglobaldivisionoflaborontheother.Inshort,itisawayinwhichacommunitycanretainitsidentityandroundednesswhileparticipatingin a sharing way with the larger whole that makes up a balanced ecologicalsociety.Confederalism as a principle of social organization reaches its fullest

developmentwhen the economy itself is confederalized by placing local farms,factories,andotherneededenterprises in localmunicipalhands; that is,whenacommunity,howeverlargeorsmall,beginstomanageitsowneconomicresourcesin an interlinked network with other communities. To force a choice betweeneitherself-sufficiencyontheonehandoramarketsystemofexchangeontheotherisasimplisticandunnecessarydichotomy.Iwouldliketothinkthataconfederalecologicalsocietywouldbeasharingone—onebasedonthepleasurethatisfeltin distributing among communities according to their needs, not one in which“cooperative” capitalistic communities mire themselves in the quid pro quo of

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exchangerelationships.Impossible? Unless we are to believe that nationalized property (which

reinforcesthepoliticalpowerofthecentralizedstatewitheconomicpower)oraprivatemarketeconomy(whoselawof“growordie”threatenstounderminetheecological stability of the entire planet) is more workable, I fail to see whatviablealternativewehave to theconfederatedmunicipalizationof theeconomy.Atanyrate,foronce,itwillnolongerbeprivilegedstatebureaucratsorgraspingbourgeoisentrepreneurs—oreven“collective”capitalistsinso-called“workers-controlledenterprises”—allwiththeirspecialintereststopromote,whoarefacedwith a community’s problems, but citizens, irrespective of their occupations orworkplaces. For once, it will be necessary to transcend the traditional specialinterestsofwork,workplace,status,andpropertyrelations,andcreateageneralinterestbasedonsharedcommunityproblems.Confederation is thus the ensemble of decentralization, localism, self-

sufficiency, interdependence—and more. This more is the indispensable moraleducation and character building—what theGreeks called paideia—thatmakesfor rational active citizenship in a participatory democracy, unlike the passiveconstituentsandconsumersthatwehavetoday.Intheend,thereisnosubstituteforaconsciousreconstructionofourrelationshiptoeachotherandthenaturalworld.To argue that the remaking of society and our relationship with the natural

world can be achieved merely by decentralization or localism or self-sustainabilityleavesuswithanincompletecollectionofsolutions.Whateverweomit among these presuppositions for a society based on confederatedmunicipalitieswouldleaveayawningholeintheentiresocialfabricwehopetocreate. That holewould grow and eventually destroy the fabric itself, just as amarketeconomy,conjoinedwith“socialism,”“anarchism,”orwhateverconceptonehasof thegood society,would eventuallydominate the society as awhole.Nor can we omit the distinction between policymaking and administration, foronce policymaking slips from the hands of the people, it is devoured by itsdelegates,whoquicklybecomebureaucrats.Confederalism,ineffect,mustbeconceivedasawhole:aconsciouslyformed

body of interdependencies that unites participatory democracy inmunicipalitieswithascrupulouslysupervisedsystemofcoordination.Itinvolvesthedialecticaldevelopmentofindependenceanddependenceintoamorerichlyarticulatedformofinterdependence,justastheindividualinafreesocietygrowsfromdependencein childhood to independence inyouth,only to sublate the two into a consciousform of interdependence between individuals and between the individual andsociety.Confederalismisthusafluidandever-developingkindofsocialmetabolismin

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whichtheidentityofanecologicalsocietyispreservedthroughitsdifferencesandbyvirtueof its potential for ever-greaterdifferentiation.Confederalism, in fact,doesnotmarkaclosureofsocialhistory (as the“endofhistory” ideologistsofrecentyearswouldhaveusbelieveaboutliberalcapitalism)butratherthepointof departure for a new ecosocial history marked by a participatory evolutionwithinsocietyandbetweensocietyandthenaturalworld.

CONFEDERATIONASDUALPOWERAboveall,Ihavetriedtoshowinmypreviouswritingshowconfederationonamunicipalbasishas existed in sharp tensionwith the centralized stategenerallyandthenation-stateofrecenttimes.Confederalism,Ihavetriedtoemphasize,isnot simply a unique societal, particularly civic, or municipal, form ofadministration. It is a vibrant tradition in the affairs of humanity, one that has acenturies-long history behind it. For generations, confederations tried tocountervailanearlyequallylonghistoricaltendencytowardcentralizationandthecreationofthenation-state.If the two—confederalismand statism—arenot seenasbeing in tensionwith

eachother,atensioninwhichthenation-statehasusedavarietyofintermediarieslikeprovincialgovernmentsinCanadaandstategovernmentsintheUnitedStatestocreatetheillusionof“localcontrol,”thentheconceptofconfederationlosesallmeaning.ProvincialautonomyinCanadaandstates’rightsintheUnitedStatesareno more confederal than “soviets” or councils were the medium for popularcontrolthatexistedintensionwithStalin’stotalitarianstate.TheRussiansovietsweretakenoverbytheBolsheviks,whosupplantedthemwiththeirpartywithinayear or two of the October Revolution. To weaken the role of confederalmunicipalities as a countervailingpower to thenation-statebyopportunisticallyrunning“confederalist”candidatesforstategovernment—or,morenightmarishly,for governorship in seemingly democratic states (as some U.S. Greens haveproposed)—is to blur the importance of the need for tension betweenconfederationsandnation-states;indeed,theyobscurethefactthatthetwocannotcoexistoverthelongterm.Indescribingconfederalism—asastructure fordecentralization,participatory

democracy,andlocalism—andasapotentialityforanever-greaterdifferentiationalongnewlinesofdevelopment,Iwouldliketoemphasizethatthissameconceptofwholeness that applies to the interdependencies betweenmunicipalities alsoappliestothemunicipalityitself.Themunicipality,asIhavepointedoutinearlierwritings,isthemostimmediatepoliticalarenaoftheindividual—theworldthatisliterallyadoorstepbeyondtheprivacyofthefamilyandtheintimacyofpersonal

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friendships.Inthatprimarypoliticalarena,wherepoliticsshouldbeconceivedintheHellenicsenseofliterallymanagingthepolisorcommunity,theindividualcanbe transformed fromamereperson intoanactivecitizen—fromaprivatebeinginto a public being. Given this crucial arena that renders citizens able toparticipatedirectlyinthefutureofsociety,wearedealingwithalevelofhumaninteraction that ismorebasic(apart fromthefamily itself) thanany level that isexpressed in representative forms of governance where collective power isliterally transmuted into power embodied by one or a few individuals. Themunicipalityisthusthemostauthenticarenaofpubliclife,howevermuchitmayhavebeendistortedoverthecourseofhistory.By contrast, delegated or authoritarian levels of “politics” presuppose the

abdication of municipal and citizen power to one degree or another. Themunicipalitymustalwaysbeunderstoodas this trulyauthenticpublicworld.Tocompareevenexecutivepositions,likeamayorwithagovernor,inrepresentativerealmsofpoweristogrosslymisunderstandthebasicpoliticalnatureofciviclifeitself, all its malformations notwithstanding. Thus, for Greens to contend in apurely formal and analytical manner—asmodern logic instructs that terms like“executive” make the two positions interchangeable—is to totally remove thenotionof executivepower from its context, to reify it, tomake it intoa lifelesscategorybecauseoftheexternaltrappingsweattachtotheword.Ifthecityistobeseenasawhole,and itspotentialitiesforcreatingaparticipatorydemocracyare tobe fully recognized, thenprovincialandstategovernments inCanadaandthe United States must be seen as small republics organized entirely aroundrepresentationatbestandoligarchicalruleatworst.Theyprovidethechannelsofexpressionforthenation-state—andconstituteobstaclestothedevelopmentofagenuinepublicrealm.TorunaGreenforamayoronalibertarianmunicipalistprogram,inshort, is

qualitativelydifferentfromrunningaprovincialorstategovernoronapresumablylibertarian muncipalist program. It amounts to decontextualizing the institutionsthat exist in amunicipality, in a provinceor state, and in thenation-state itself,therebyplacingallthreeoftheseexecutivepositionsunderapurelyformalrubric.Onemightwith equal imprecision say thatbecausehumanbeings anddinosaursbothhavespinalcords,thattheybelongtothesamespeciesoreventothesamegenus. In each such case, an institution—be it a mayoral, councillor, orselectperson—mustbeseeninamunicipalcontextasawhole,justasapresident,primeminister,congressperson,ormemberofparliament,inturn,mustbeseeninthe state context as awhole. From this standpoint, forGreens to runmayors isfundamentallydifferentfromrunningforprovincialandstateoffices.Onecangointoendlessdetailedreasonswhythepowersofamayorarefarmorecontrolled

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andundercloserpublicpurviewthanthoseofstateandprovincialoffice-holders.Toignorethisfactistoabandonanysenseofcontextualityandtheenvironment

inwhichissueslikepolicy,administration,participation,andrepresentationmustbeplaced.Simply,acityhallinatownorcityisnotacapitalinaprovince,state,ornation-state.Unquestionably,therearenowcitiesthataresolargethattheyvergeonbeing

quasi-republicsintheirownright.Onethinks,forexample,ofsuchmegalopolitanareasasNewYorkCityandLosAngeles.Insuchcases,theminimalprogramofaGreenmovementcandemandthatconfederationsbeestablishedwithintheurbanarea—namely, among neighborhoods or definable districts—not only among theurbanareas themselves. Inavery real sense, thesehighlypopulated, sprawling,and oversized entities must ultimately be broken down institutionally intomunicipalities that are scaled to human dimensions and that lend themselves toparticipatory democracy. These entities are not yet fully formed state powers,either institutionally or in reality, such as we find even in sparsely populatedAmerican states. Themayor is not yet a governor, with the enormous coercivepowersthatagovernorhas,noristhecitycouncilaparliamentorstatehousethatcanliterallylegislatethedeathpenaltyintoexistence,suchasisoccurringintheUnitedStatestoday.Incitiesthataretransformingthemselvesintoquasi-states,thereisstillagood

deal of leeway in which politics can be conducted along libertarian lines.Already, the executive branches of these urban entities constitute a highlyprecarious ground, burdened by enormous bureaucracies, police powers, taxpowers, and juridical systems that raise serious problems for a libertarianmunicipalapproach.Wemustalwaysaskourselvesinallfranknesswhatformtheconcrete situation takes.Wherecitycouncils andmayoraloffices in largecitiesprovideanarenaforbattlingtheconcentrationofpowerinanincreasinglystrongstateorprovincialexecutive,andevenworse, in regional jurisdictions thatmaycutacrossmanysuchcities(LosAngelesisanotableexample),toruncandidatesfor the city council may be the only recourse we have for arresting thedevelopmentofincreasinglyauthoritarianstateinstitutionsandhelpingtorestoreaninstitutionallydecentralizeddemocracy.Itwillnodoubttakealongtimetophysicallydecentralizeanurbanentitysuch

asNewYorkCityintoauthenticmunicipalitiesandultimatelycommunes.Suchaneffort is part of the maximum program of a Green movement. But there is noreason why an urban entity of such a huge magnitude cannot be slowlydecentralized institutionally. The distinction between physical decentralizationand institutional decentralizationmust always be kept inmind.Time and again,excellent proposals have been advanced by radicals and even city planners to

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localize democracy in such huge urban entities and give greater power to thepeople, only to be cynically shot down by centralists who invoke physicalimpedimentstosuchanendeavor.Tomake institutional decentralization congruentwith the physical breakup of

suchalargeentityconfusestheargumentsofadvocatesfordecentralization.Thereisacertain treacheryonthepartofcentralists inmakingthese twoverydistinctlines of development identical or entangling them with each other. Libertarianmunicipalistsmustalwayskeepthedistinctionbetweeninstitutionalandphysicaldecentralization clearly in mind and recognize that the former is entirelyachievableevenwhilethelattermaytakeyearstoattain.

November1990

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LibertarianMunicipalism:APoliticsofDirectDemocracy

Perhapsthegreatestsinglefailingofmovementsforsocialreconstruction—Ireferparticularly to the Left, to radical ecology groups, and to organizations thatprofess to speak for the oppressed—is their lack of a politics that will carrypeoplebeyondthelimitsestablishedbythestatusquo.Politics today primarily means duels between top-down bureaucratic parties

for electoral office that offer vacuous programs for “social justice” to attract anondescript “electorate.” Once in office, their programs usually turn into abouquet of “compromises.” In this respect,manyGreen parties in Europe havebeenonlymarginallydifferentfromconventionalparliamentaryparties.Norhavesocialist parties, with all their various labels, exhibited any basic differencesfrom their capitalist counterparts. To be sure, the indifference of the Euro-American public—its “apoliticism”—is understandably depressing. Given theirlowexpectations,whenpeopledovote,theynormallyturntoestablishedpartiesif only because, as centers of power, they can produce results, of sorts, inpracticalmatters.Ifonebotherstovote,mostpeoplereason,whywasteavoteonanewmarginalorganizationthathasallthecharacteristicsofthemajoronesandwill, if it succeeds, eventually become corrupted?Witness theGermanGreens,whose internal and public life increasingly approximates that of traditionalparties.Thatthis“politicalprocess”haslingeredonwithalmostnobasicalterationfor

decadesnowisdueingreatpart to the inertiaof theprocess itself.Timewearsexpectationsthin,andhopesareoftenreducedtohabitsasonedisappointmentisfollowedbyanother.Talkofa“newpolitics,”ofupsettingtradition,whichisasoldaspoliticsitself,isbecomingunconvincing.Fordecades,atleast,thechangesthathaveoccurred in radicalpoliticsare largelychanges in rhetoric rather thanstructure. The German Greens are only the most recent of a succession of“nonpartyparties”(tousetheiroriginalwayofdescribingtheirorganization)thathave turned from an attempt to practice grassroots politics—ironically, in theBundestag, of all places!—into a typical parliamentary party. The SocialDemocratic Party inGermany, the Labor Party in Britain, theNewDemocraticParty inCanada, theSocialistParty inFrance,andothers,despite theiroriginalemancipatory visions, barely qualify today as even liberal parties in which aFranklinD.RooseveltoraHarryTrumanwouldhavefoundacomfortablehome.

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Whatever social ideals these parties may have had generations ago has beeneclipsedbythepragmaticsofgaining,holding,andextendingtheirpowerintheirrespectiveparliamentaryandministerialbodies.It is precisely such parliamentary and ministerial objectives that we call

“politics” today. To the modern political imagination, “politics” is a body oftechniques for holding power in representative bodies—notably the legislativeand executive arenas—not amoral calling based on rationality, community, andfreedom.

Libertarianmunicipalismrepresentsa serious, indeedahistorically fundamentalprojecttorenderpoliticsethicalincharacterandgrassrootsinorganization.Itisstructurally and morally different from other grassroots efforts, not merelyrhetorically different. It seeks to reclaim the public sphere for the exercise ofauthenticcitizenshipwhilebreakingawayfromthebleakcycleofparliamentarismand its mystification of the “party” mechanism as a means for publicrepresentation. In these respects, libertarian municipalism is not merely a“political strategy.” It is an effort to work from latent or incipient democraticpossibilitiestowardaradicallynewconfigurationofsocietyitself—acommunalsociety oriented toward meeting human needs, responding to ecologicalimperatives,anddevelopinganewethicsbasedonsharingandcooperation.Thatitinvolvesaconsistentlyindependentformofpoliticsisatruism.Moreimportant,itinvolvesaredefinitionofpolitics,areturntotheword’soriginalGreekmeaningas themanagement of the community, or polis, bymeans of direct face-to-faceassemblies of the people in the formulation of public policy and based on anethicsofcomplementarityandsolidarity.In this respect, libertarian municipalism is not one of many pluralistic

techniques that is intended to achieve a vague and undefined social goal.Democratic to itscoreandnonhierarchical in itsstructure, it isakindofhumandestiny,notmerelyoneofanassortmentofpoliticaltoolsorstrategiesthatcanbeadopted and discarded with the aim of achieving power. Libertarianmunicipalism,ineffect,seekstodefinetheinstitutionalcontoursofanewsocietyevenasitadvancesthepracticalmessageofaradicallynewpoliticsforourday.

Here,meansandendsmeetinarationalunity.Thewordpoliticsnowexpressesdirectpopularcontrolofsocietybyitscitizensthroughachievingandsustainingatruedemocracy inmunicipal assemblies—this, asdistinguished from republicansystems of representation that preempt the right of the citizen to formulatecommunityandregionalpolicies.Suchpoliticsisradicallydistinctfromstatecraft

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and the state—a professional body composed of bureaucrats, police, military,legislators,andthelikethatexistsasacoerciveapparatus,clearlydistinctfromand above the people. The libertarian municipalist approach distinguishesstatecraft—whichweusuallycharacterizeas“politics”today—andpoliticsasitonceexistedinprecapitalistdemocraticcommunities.Moreover, libertarian municipalism also involves a clear delineation of the

social realm—aswell as the political realm—in the strictmeaning of the termsocial: notably, the arena in which we live our private lives and engage inproduction.Assuch,thesocialrealmistobedistinguishedfromboththepoliticalandthestatistrealms.Enormousharmhasbeencausedbytheinterchangeableuseof these terms—social,political, and thestate. Indeed, the tendencyhasbeen toidentifythemwithoneanotherinourthinkingandintherealityofeverydaylife.But the state is a completely alien formation, a thorn in the side of humandevelopment, an exogenous entity that has incessantly encroached on the socialandpoliticalrealms.Infact,thestatehasoftenbeenanendinitself,aswitnesstheriseofAsianempires,ancientimperialRome,andthetotalitarianstateofmoderntimes.Morethanthis,ithassteadilyinvadedthepoliticaldomain,which,forallits past shortcomings, had empowered communities, social groupings, andindividuals.Such invasions have not gone unchallenged. Indeed, the conflict between the

stateontheonehandandthepoliticalandsocialrealmsontheotherhasbeenanongoingsubterraneancivilwarforcenturies.Ithasoftenbrokenoutintotheopen—inmoderntimesintheconflictoftheCastiliancities(Comuñeros)against theSpanishmonarchyinthe1520s,inthestruggleoftheParisiansectionsagainstthecentralist JacobinConventionof1793, and inendlessotherclashesbothbeforeandaftertheseencounters.Today, with the increasing centralization and concentration of power in the

nation-state, a “new politics”—one that is genuinely new—must be structuredinstitutionallyaroundtherestorationofpowerbymunicipalities.Thisisnotonlynecessary but possible even in such gigantic urban areas as New York City,Montreal,London,andParis.Suchurbanagglomerationsarenot,strictlyspeaking,cities or municipalities in the traditional sense of those terms, despite beingdesignatedassuchbysociologists.Itisonlyifwethinkthattheyarecitiesthatwebecomemystifiedbyproblemsofsizeandlogistics.Evenbeforeweconfronttheecological imperative of physical decentralization (a necessity anticipated byFriedrich Engels and Peter Kropotkin alike), we need feel no problems aboutdecentralizingtheminstitutionally.WhenFrançoisMitterandtriedtodecentralizePariswithlocalcityhallssomeyearsago,hisreasonswerestrictlytactical—hewantedtoweakentheauthorityofthecapital’sright-wingmayor.Nonetheless,he

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failednotbecauserestructuringthelargemetropoliswasimpossiblebutbecausethemajorityofaffluentParisianssupportedthemayor.Clearly, institutional changes do not occur in a social vacuum. Nor do they

guarantee that adecentralizedmunicipality, even if it is structurallydemocratic,will necessarily be humane, rational, and ecological in dealing with publicaffairs.Libertarianmunicipalismispremisedonthestruggletoachievearationaland ecological society, a struggle that depends on education and organization.From the beginning, it presupposes a genuinely democratic desire by people toarrest the growing powers of the nation-state and reclaim them for theircommunity and region.Unless there is amovement—hopefully an effectiveLeftGreen movement—to foster these aims, decentralization can lead to localparochialismaseasilyasitcanleadtoecological,humanistcommunities.But when have basic social changes ever been without risk? The case that

Marx’scommitmenttoacentralizedstateandplannedeconomywouldinevitablyyieldbureaucratic totalitarianismcouldhavebeenbettermadethanthecasethatdecentralizedlibertarianmunicipalitieswillinevitablybeauthoritarianandhaveexclusionary and parochial traits. Economic interdependence is a fact of lifetoday, and capitalism itself has made parochial autarchies a chimera. Whilemunicipalities and regions can seek to attain a considerable measure of self-sufficiency,we have long since left the erawhen itwas still possible for self-sufficientcommunitiestoindulgetheirprejudices.

Equally important is theneedforconfederation—thenetworkingofcommunitieswith one another through recallable deputies mandated by municipal citizens’assemblies and whose sole functions are coordinative and administrative.Confederation has a long history of its own that dates back to antiquity, whichsurfacedasamajoralternativetothenation-state.FromtheAmericanRevolution,through the French Revolution and the Spanish Revolution, confederalism haschallenged state centralism. Nor has it disappeared in our own time, when thebreakup of existing twentieth-century empires raises the issue of enforced statecentralismor the relativelyautonomousnation.Libertarianmunicipalismaddsaradicallydemocraticdimensiontothecontemporarydiscussionsofconfederation(as, for example, in the former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia) by calling forconfederationsnotofnation-statesbutofmunicipalitiesandoftheneighborhoodsofgiantmegalopolitanareasaswellastownsandvillages.In thecaseof libertarianmunicipalism,parochialismcan thusbecheckednot

only by the compelling realities of economic interdependence but by thecommitment of municipal minorities to defer to the majority wishes ofparticipating communities. Do these interdependencies and majority decisions

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guaranteeusthatamajoritydecisionwillbeacorrectone?Certainlynot;butourchancesforarationalandecologicalsocietyaremuchbetterinthisapproachthanin those that ride on centralized entities and bureaucratic apparatuses. I cannothelp but marvel that no municipal network has emerged among the GermanGreens,whohave hundreds of representatives in city councils aroundGermanybutwho carry on a local politics that is largely conventional and self-enclosedwithinparticulartownsandcities.Many arguments against libertarian municipalism—even with its strong

confederalemphasis—derivefromafailuretounderstanditsdistinctionbetweenpolicymaking and administration. This distinction is fundamental to libertarianmunicipalismandmustalwaysbekeptinmind.Policyismadebyacommunityorneighborhoodassemblyoffreecitizens;administrationisperformedbyconfederalcouncils composed of mandated, recallable deputies of wards, towns, andvillages. If particular communities or neighborhoods (or aminority grouping ofthem)choosetogotheirownwaytoapointwherehumanrightsareviolatedorwhere ecological mayhem is permitted, the majority in a local or regionalconfederationhaseveryrighttopreventsuchmalfeasancesthroughitsconfederalcouncil.Thisisnotadenialofdemocracybuttheassertionofasharedagreementbyall to recognizecivil rightsandmaintain theecological integrityofa region.Theserightsandneedsarenotassertedsomuchbyaconfederalcouncilasbythemajority of the popular assemblies conceived as one large community thatexpresses its wishes through confederal deputies. Thus, policymaking stillremains local, but its administration is vested in the confederal network as awhole. In effect, the confederation is a Community of communities, based ondistincthumanrightsandecologicalimperatives.Iflibertarianmunicipalismisnottobetotallywarpedofitsformanddivested

of its meaning, it is a desideratum that must be fought for. It speaks to a time(hopefully, one that will yet come) when disempowered people actively seekempowerment.Existingingrowingtensionwiththenation-state,itisaprocessaswellasastruggletobefulfilled,notabequestgrantedbythesummitsofthestate.It is a dual power that contests the legitimacy of existing state power. Such amovementcanbeexpectedtobeginslowly,perhapssporadically,incommunitiesthatinitiallymaydemandonlythemoralauthoritytoalterthestructureofsocietybeforeenoughinterlinkedconfederationsexisttodemandtheoutrightinstitutionalpower to replace the state. The growing tension created by the emergence ofmunicipal confederations represents a confrontation between the state and thepolitical realms. This confrontation can be resolved only after libertarianmunicipalism forms the new politics of a popular movement and ultimatelycapturestheimaginationofmillions.

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Certainpoints,however,shouldbeobvious.Thepeoplewhoinitiallyenterintotheduelbetweenconfederalismandstatismwillnotbethesamehumanbeingsasthosewhoeventuallyachievelibertarianmunicipalism.Themovementthattriestoeducatethemandthestrugglesthatgivelibertarianmunicipalistprinciplesrealitywillturnthemintoactivecitizensratherthanpassive“constituents.”Noonewhoparticipatesinastruggleforsocialrestructuringemergesfromthatstrugglewiththeprejudices,habits,andsensibilitieswithwhichheorsheenteredit.Hopefully,suchprejudices, likeparochialism,will increasinglybe replacedby ageneroussenseofcooperationandacaringsenseofinterdependence.

Itremainstoemphasizethatlibertarianmunicipalismisnotmerelyanevocationoftraditional antistatist notions of politics. Just as it redefines politics to includeface-to-facemunicipaldemocraciesgraduatedtoconfederallevels,soitincludesa municipalist and confederal approach to economics. Minimally, a libertarianmunicipalist economics calls for the municipalization of the economy, not itscentralization into state-owned“nationalized”enterpriseson theonehandor itsreduction to“worker-controlled” formsofcollectivisticcapitalismon theother.Trade-union-directed “worker-controlled” enterprises, that is, syndicalism, hashaditsday.Thisshouldbeevidenttoanyonewhoexaminesthebureaucraciesthatevenrevolutionary tradeunionsspawnedduring theSpanishCivilWarof1936.Today,corporatecapitalismisincreasinglyeagertobringworkersintocomplicitywith their own exploitation bymeans of “workplace democracy.”Norwas therevolution in Spain and in other countries spared the existence of competitionamong worker-controlled enterprises for raw materials, markets, and profits.Even more recently, many Israeli kibbutzim have been failures as examples ofnonexploitative,need-orientedenterprises,despitethehighidealswithwhichtheywereinitiallyfounded.Libertarianmunicipalismproposesaradicallydifferentformofeconomy—one

that isneithernationalizednorcollectivizedaccordingtosyndicalistprecepts.Itproposes that land and enterprises be placed increasingly in the custody of thecommunity—moreprecisely, thecustodyofcitizens in freeassembliesand theirdeputiesinconfederalcouncils.Howworkshouldbeplanned,whattechnologiesshouldbeused,howgoods shouldbedistributedarequestions that canonlyberesolved in practice. Themaxim “from each according to his or her ability, toeach according to his or her needs” would seem a bedrock guide for aneconomically rational society, provided that goods are of the highest durabilityandquality, thatneedsareguidedby rationalandecological standards,and thatthe ancient notions of limit and balance replace the bourgeois marketplaceimperativeof“growordie.”

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In such a municipal economy—confederal, interdependent, and rational byecological,notsimplytechnological,standards—wewouldexpectthatthespecialintereststhatdividepeopletodayintoworkers,professionals,managers,andthelikewouldbemelded intoageneral interest inwhichpeoplesee themselvesascitizensguidedstrictlybytheneedsoftheircommunityandregionratherthanbypersonalproclivitiesandvocationalconcerns.Here,citizenshipwouldcomeintoits own, and rational as well as ecological interpretations of the public goodwouldsupplantclassandhierarchicalinterests.This is the moral basis of a moral economy for moral communities. But of

overarchingimportanceisthegeneralsocialinterestthatpotentiallyunderpinsallmoral communities, an interest that must ultimately cut across class, gender,ethnic,andstatus lines ifhumanity is tocontinue toexistasaviablespecies. Inourtimes,thiscommoninterestisposedbyecologicalcatastrophe.Capitalism’sgrow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative ofinterdependenceandlimit.Thetwoimperativescannolongercoexistwitheachother;norcananysocietyfoundedonthemyththattheycanbereconciledhopetosurvive.Eitherwewillestablishanecological societyorsocietywillgounderforeveryone,irrespectiveofhisorherstatus.Will this ecological society be authoritarian, or possibly even totalitarian, a

hierarchical dispensation that is implicit in the image of the planet as a“spaceship”?Orwillitbedemocratic?Ifhistoryisanyguide,thedevelopmentofa democratic ecological society, as distinguished from a command ecologicalsociety,must follow its own logic. One cannot resolve this historical dilemmawithout getting to its roots. Without a searching analysis of our ecologicalproblems and their social sources, the pernicious institutions thatwe have nowwill lead to increased centralization and further ecological catastrophe. In ademocratic ecological society, those roots are literally the “grassroots” thatlibertarianmunicipalismseekstofoster.For thosewho rightlycall foranew technology,newsourcesofenergy,new

means of transportation, and new ecological lifeways, can a new society beanythinglessthanaCommunityofcommunitiesbasedonconfederationratherthanstatism?We already live in a world in which the economy is overglobalized,overcentralized, and overbureaucratized. Much that can be done locally andregionally is now being done—largely for profit, military needs, and imperialappetites—onaglobalscalewithaseemingcomplexitythatcanactuallybeeasilydiminished.If this seems too “utopian” for our time, then so must the present flood of

literature that asks for radically sweeping shifts inenergypolicies, far-reachingreductionsinairandwaterpollution,andtheformulationofworldwideplansto

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arrestglobalwarmingandthedestructionoftheozonelayer.Isittoomuchtotakesuchdemandsonestepfurtherandcallforinstitutionalandeconomicchangesthatare no less drastic and that, in fact, are deeply sedimented in the noblestdemocraticpoliticaltraditionsofbothAmericaand,indeed,theworld?Norareweobligedtoexpectthesechangestooccurimmediately.TheLeftlong

workedwithminimum andmaximum programs for change, inwhich immediatestepsthatcanbetakennowwerelinkedbytransitionaladvancesandintermediateareasthatwouldeventuallyyieldultimategoals.Minimalstepsthatcanbetakennow include initiating LeftGreenmunicipalistmovements that propose popularneighborhood and town assemblies—even if they have only moral functions atfirst—and electing town and city councillors that advance the cause of theseassembliesandotherpopularinstitutions.Theseminimalstepscanprogressivelyleadtotheformationofconfederalbodiesandtheincreasinglegitimationoftrulydemocraticbodies.Civicbankstofundmunicipalenterprisesandlandpurchases,the fosteringof newecologically oriented enterprises ownedby the community,andthecreationofgrassrootsnetworksinmanyfieldsofendeavorandthepublicweal—allthesecanbedevelopedatapaceappropriatetochangesbeingmadeinpoliticallife.Thatcapitalwilllikely“migrate”fromcommunitiesandconfederationsthatare

movingtowardlibertarianmunicipalismisaproblemfacedbyeverycommunity,every nation, whose political life has become radicalized. Capital, in fact,normally “migrates” to areas where it can acquire high profits, irrespective ofpolitical considerations. Overwhelmed by fears of capital flight, a good casecould be established for not rocking the political boat at any time.More to thepoint,municipallyownedfarmsandenterprisescouldprovidenewecologicallyvaluableandhealth-nourishingproductstoapublicbecomingincreasinglyawareofthelow-qualitygoodsandstaplesbeingfoistedonitnow.Libertarianmunicipalism is a politics that can excite the public imagination,

appropriate for amovementdirely inneedof a senseofdirection andpurpose.Libertarian municipalism offers ideas, ways, and means not only to undo thepresentsocialorderbuttoremakeitdrastically,expandingitsresidualdemocratictraditionsintoarationalandecologicalsociety.

Thus, libertarianmunicipalism is not merely an effort simply to take over citycouncils to construct amore environmentally friendly city government. Such anapproach, ineffect,viewsthecivicstructures thatexistnowandessentially(allrhetorictothecontraryaside)takesthemastheyexist.Libertarianmunicipalism,by contrast, is an effort to transform and democratize city governments, to rootthem in popular assemblies, to knit them together along confederal lines, to

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appropriatearegionaleconomyalongconfederalandmunicipallines.Infact,libertarianmunicipalismgainsitslifeanditsintegritypreciselyfromthe

dialectical tension it proposes between the nation-state and the municipalconfederation.Its“lawoflife,”touseanoldMarxianterm,consistspreciselyinitsstrugglewiththestate.Thetensionbetweenmunicipalconfederationsandthestatemustbeclearanduncompromising.Since theseconfederationswouldexistprimarily in opposition to statecraft, they cannot be compromised by state,provincial,ornationalelections,muchlessachievedbythesemeans.Libertarianmunicipalismisformedbyitsstrugglewiththestate,strengthenedbythisstruggle,indeed,definedbythisstruggle.Divestedofthisdialecticaltensionwiththestate,libertarianmunicipalismbecomeslittlemorethan“sewersocialism.”Manycomradeswhoarepreparedtoonedaydobattlewiththecosmicforces

ofcapitalismfindthatlibertarianmunicipalismistoothorny,irrelevant,orvagueand opt instead for what is basically a form of political particularism. Suchradicals may choose to brush libertarian municipalism aside as “a ludicroustactic,”butitneverceasestoamazemethatrevolutionarieswhoarecommittedtothe“overthrow”ofcapitalismfindittoodifficulttofunctionpolitically,includingelectorally, in their own neighborhoods for a new politics based on a genuinedemocracy. If they cannot provide a transformative politics for their ownneighborhood—arelativelymodesttask—ordiligentlyworkatdoingsowiththeconstancythatusedtomarktheleftmovementsof thepast,Ifinditveryhardtobelievethattheywilleverdomuchharmtothepresentsocialsystem.Indeed,bycreatingculturalcenters,parks,andgoodhousing,theymaywellbeimprovingthesystem by giving capitalism a human face without diminishing its underlying“unfreedom”asahierarchicalandclasssociety.Arangeofstrugglesfor“identity”hasoftenfracturedrisingradicalmovements

sinceSDSinthe1960s,rangingfromforeigntodomesticnationalisms.Becausethese identity struggles are so popular today, some critics of libertarianmunicipalisminvoke“publicopinion”againstit.Butwhenhasitbeenthetaskofrevolutionariestosurrendertopublicopinion—noteventhepublicopinionoftheoppressed,whose views can often be very reactionary? Truth has its own life,regardless ofwhether the oppressedmasses perceive or agree onwhat is true.Nor is it elitist to invoke truth, in contradiction to even radical public opinion,when that opinion essentially seeks a march backward into the politics ofparticularismandevenracism.Wemustchallengetheexistingsocietyonbehalfofoursharedcommonhumanity,notonthebasisofgender,race,age,andthelike.Critics of libertarian municipalism dispute even the very possibility of a

“general interest.” If the face-to-face democracy advocated by libertarianmunicipalism and the need to extend the premises of democracy beyond mere

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justicetocompletefreedomdonotsufficeasageneralinterest,itwouldseemtome that theneed to repair our relationshipwith thenaturalworld is certainly ageneral interest that is beyond dispute—and it remains the general interestadvanced by social ecology. It may be possible to co-opt many dissatisfiedelements in the present society, but nature is not co-optable. Indeed, the onlypolitics that remains for the Left is one based on the premise that there is a“general interest” in democratizing society and preserving the planet.Now thattraditionalforcessuchastheworkers’movementhaveebbedfromthehistoricalscene,itcanbesaidwithalmostcompletecertaintythatwithoutapoliticsakintolibertarianmunicipalism, the Leftwill have no politicswhatever.A dialecticalviewoftherelationshipofconfederalismtothenation-state;anunderstandingofthe narrowness, introverted character, and parochialism of identity movements;and a recognition that theworkers’movement is essentially dead—all illustratethatifanewpoliticsisgoingtodeveloptoday,itmustbeunflinchinglypublic,incontrasttothealternativecafé“politics”advancedbymanyradicalstoday.Itmustbeelectoralonamunicipalbasis,confederalinitsvision,andrevolutionaryinitscharacter.Indeed, confederal libertarian municipalism is precisely the “Commune of

communes”forwhichanarchistshavefoughtoverthepasttwocenturies.Today,itisthe“redbutton”thatmustbepushedifaradicalmovementistoopenthedoortothepublicsphere.Toleavethatbuttonuntouchedandslipbackintotheworsthabitsof thepost-1968NewLeft,when thenotionof “power”wasdivestedofutopianorimaginativequalities,istoreduceradicalismtoyetanothersubculturethatwillprobablylivemoreonheroicmemoriesthanonthehopesofarationalfuture.

October1991

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Cities:TheUnfoldingofReasoninHistory

Libertarianmunicipalismconstitutesthepoliticsofsocialecology,arevolutionaryeffort in which freedom is given institutional form in public assemblies thatbecome decision-making bodies. It depends upon libertarian leftists runningcandidatesatthelocalmunicipallevel,callingforthedivisionofmunicipalitiesintowards,wherepopularassembliescanbecreated thatbringpeople into fulland direct participation in political life. Having democratized themselves,municipalitieswouldconfederateintoadualpowertoopposethenation-stateandultimatelydispensewithitandwiththeeconomicforcesthatunderpinstatismassuch. Libertarian municipalism is thus both a historical goal and a concordantmeanstoachievetherevolutionary“Communeofcommunes.”Libertarian municipalism is above all a politics that seeks to create a vital

democratic public sphere. In From Urbanization to Cities, as well as otherworks,Ihavemadecarefulbutcrucialdistinctionsbetweenthreesocietalrealms:the social, the political, and the state. What people do in their homes, whatfriendships they form, the communal lifestyles theypractice, theway theymaketheir living, their sexual behavior, the cultural artifacts they consume, and theraptureandecstasytheyexperienceonmountaintops—allthesepersonalaswellasmateriallynecessaryactivitiesbelongtowhatIcall thesocial sphereof life.Families,friends,andcommunallivingarrangementsarepartofthesocialrealm.Apartfrommattersofhumanrights,itisthebusinessofnoonetositinjudgmentofwhat consenting adults freely engage in sexually, thehobbies theyprefer, thekindsoffriendstheyadopt,orthespiritualpracticestheymaychoosetoperform.Howevermuchtheseaspectsoflifeinteractwithoneanother,noneofthesesocialaspects of human life properly belongs to thepublic sphere,which I explicitlyidentifywithpoliticsintheHellenicsenseoftheterm.Increatinganewpoliticsbasedonsocialecology,weareconcernedwithwhatpeopledointhispublicorpoliticalsphere.Libertarian municipalism is not a substitute for the manifold dimensions of

culturalorevenprivatelife.Yet,onceindividualsleavethesocialrealmandenterthepublicsphere,itispreciselythemunicipalitythattheymustdealwithdirectly.Doubtlessthemunicipalityisusuallytheplacewhereevenagreatdealofsociallifeisexistentiallylived—school,work,entertainment,andsimplepleasureslikewalking, bicycling, and disporting themselves—which does not efface itsdistinctivenessasauniquesphereoflife.Asaprojectforenteringintothepublic

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sphere,libertarianmunicipalismcallsforaradicalpresenceinacommunitythataddressesthequestionofwhoshallexercisepowerinalivedsense;indeed,itistrulyapoliticalculturethatseekstoreempowertheindividualandsharpenhisorhersensibilityasalivingcitizen.Today,theconceptofcitizenshiphasalreadyundergoneseriouserosionthrough

thereductionofcitizensto“constituents”ofstatistjurisdictions,orto“taxpayers”whosustainstatistinstitutions.Tofurtherreducecitizenshipto“personhood”—ortoetherealize theconceptbyspeakingofanairy“earthcitizenship”—isnothingshortofreactionary.Ittooklongmillenniaforhistorytocreatetheconceptofthecitizenasaself-managingandcompetentagentindemocraticallyshapingapolity.DuringtheFrenchRevolution, thetermcitoyenwasusedprecisely toefface thestatus-generatedrelegationofindividualstomere“subjects”oftheBourbonkings.Moreover, revolutionariesof the lastcentury, fromMarx toBakunin, referred tothemselvesas“citizens”longbeforetheappellation“comrade”replacedit.Wemustnotlosesightofthefactthatthecitizenculminatesthetransformation

of ethnic tribal folk—societies structured around biological facts like kinship,gender differences, and age groups—into a secular, rational, and humanecommunity. Indeed, much of the National Socialist war against “Jewishcosmopolitanism”was in fact an ethnically (völkisch) nationalisticwar againstthe Enlightenment ideal of the citoyen. For it was precisely the depoliticized,indeed, animalized “loyal subject” rather than the citizen that the NazisincorporatedintotheirracialimageoftheGermanVolk,theabject,status-definedcreature of Hitler’s hierarchical Führerprinzip. Once citizenship becomescontentless through the deflation of its existential political reality or, equallytreacherously, by the expansion of its historic development into a “planetary”metaphor, we have come a long way toward accepting the barbarism that thecapitalistsystemisnowfosteringwithcertainHeideggerianversionsofecology.To those who level the complaint against libertarian municipalism that the

Greekpoliswasmarredby“theexclusionofwomen, slaves, and foreigners,” Iwouldsay thatwemustalwaysremember that libertarianmunicipalistsarealsolibertariancommunists,whoobviouslyopposehierarchy,includingpatriarchyandchattelslavery.Asitturnsout,infact,the“Greekpolis”isneitheranidealnoramodelforanything,exceptperhapsforRousseau,whogreatlyadmiredSparta.Itis theAthenianpoliswhosedemocratic institutions Ioftendescribe thathas thegreatest significance for the democratic tradition. In the context of libertarianmunicipalism,itssignificanceistoprovideuswithevidencethatapeople,foratime, could quite self-consciously establish and maintain a direct democracy,despite the existence of slavery, patriarchy, economic and class inequalities,agonistic behavior, and even imperialism, all of which existed throughout the

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ancientMediterraneanworld.Thefactis thatwemustlookforwhatisnewandinnovativeinahistoricalperiod,evenasweacknowledgecontinuitieswithsocialstructuresthatprevailedinthepast.In fact, short of the hazy Neolithic village traditions that Marija Gimbutas,

RianeEisler,andWilliamIrwinThompsonhypostatize,wewillhaveahardtimefindinganytraditionthatwasnotpatriarchaltoonedegreeoranother.Rejectingallpatriarchalsocietiesassourcesofinstitutionalstudywouldmeanthatwemustabandon not only theAthenian polis but the freemedieval communes and theirconfederations, the Comuñero movement of sixteenth-century Spain, therevolutionaryParisiansectionsof1793,theParisCommuneof1871,andeventheSpanishanarchistcollectivesof1936–37.Alloftheseinstitutionaldevelopments,beitnoted,weremarredtoonedegreeoranotherbypatriarchalvalues.Libertarian municipalists are not ignorant of these very real historical

limitations;norislibertarianmunicipalismbasedonanyhistorical“models.”Nolibertarianmunicipalist believes that society and cities as they exist today cansuddenly be transformed into a directly democratic and rational society. Therevolutionarytransformationweseekisonethatrequireseducation,theformationofamovement,andthepatiencetocopewithdefeats.AsIhaveemphasizedagainandagain,alibertarianmunicipalistpracticebegins,minimally,withanattempttoenlargelocalfreedomattheexpenseofstatepower.Anditdoesthisbyexample,by education, and by entering the public sphere (that is, into local elections orextralegal assemblies), where ideas can be raised among ordinary people thatopen the possibility of a lived practice. In short, libertarian municipalisminvolves a vibrant politics in the real world to change society and publicconsciousness alike. It tries to forge a movement that will enter into openconfrontationwiththestateandthebourgeoisie,notcravenlysneakaroundthem.Itisimportanttoobservethatthisappealtoanewpoliticsofcitizenshipisnot

inanywaymeant toglossoververy realsocialconflicts,nor is itanappeal toclass neutrality. The fact is that “the People” I invoke does not include ChaseManhattanBank,GeneralMotors,oranyclassexploitersandeconomicbandits.The“People”Iamaddressingareanoppressedhumanity,allofwhommust—ifthey are to eliminate their oppressions—try to remove the shared roots ofoppressionassuch.Wecannot ignoreclass interestsbycompletelyabsorbingtheminto transclass

ones.Butinourtime,particularizationisbeingoveremphasizedtothepointwhereany shared struggle must now overcome not only differences in class, gender,ethnicity,“andotherissues,”butnationalism,religiouszealotry,andidentitybasedonevenminordistinctions instatus.Theroleof therevolutionarymovementforovertwocenturieshasbeentoemphasizeoursharedhumanitypreciselyagainst

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rulingstatusgroupsandclasses,whichMarx,eveninsinglingouttheproletariatas hegemonic, viewed as a “universal class.”Nor are all “images” that peoplehaveof themselves as classes, genders, races, nationalities, and cultural groupsrational or humane, evidence of consciousness or desirable from a radicalviewpoint. In principle, there is no reason why différance as such should notentangle and paralyze us completely in our multifarious and self-enclosed“particularity,”inpostmodernistDerrideanfashion.Indeed,today,whenparochialdifferencesamongtheoppressedhavebeenreducedtomicroscopicdivisions, itisallthemoreimportantforarevolutionarymovementtoresolutelypointoutthecommonsourcesofoppressionassuch,andtheextenttowhichcommodificationhasuniversalizedthem—particularlyglobalcapitalism.The deformations of the past were created largely by the famous “social

question,”notablybyclassexploitation,whichingreatmeasurecouldhavebeenremediedbytechnologicaladvances.Inshort,theywerescarcitysocieties,albeitnot thatalone.Anewsocial-ecologicalsensibilityhas tobecreated,asdonewvaluesandrelationships;thiswillbedonepartlybyovercomingeconomicneed,howevereconomicneed isconstrued.Littledoubtshouldexist thatacall foranend to economic exploitation must be a central feature in any social ecologyprogram and movement, which are part of the Enlightenment tradition and itsrevolutionaryoutcome.The essence of dialectic is to always search out what is new in any

development:specifically,forthepurposesofthisdiscussion,theemergenceofatransclass people, such as oppressedwomen, people of color, even themiddleclasses, aswell as subcultures definedby sexual preferences and lifestyles.Toparticularizedistinctions(largelycreatedbytheexistingsocialorder)tothepointof reducingoppressedpeople to seemingly “diversepersons”—indeed, tomere“personhood”—is to feed into the current privatistic fads of our time and toremoveallpossibilityforcollectivesocialactionandrevolutionarychange.To examine what is really at issue in the questions of municipalism,

confederalism,andcitizenship,aswellasthedistinctionbetweenthesocialandthepolitical,wemustgroundthesenotionsinahistoricalbackgroundwherewecan locate the meaning of the city (properly conceived in distinction to themegalopolis),thecitizen,andthepoliticalsphereinthehumancondition.Historicalexperiencebegantoadvancebeyondaconceptionofmerecyclical

time,trappedinthestasisofeternalrecurrence,intoacreativehistoryinsofarasintelligenceandwisdom—moreproperly,reason—begantoinformhumanaffairs.Over the course of a hundred thousand years or so, Homo sapiens slowlyovercamethesluggishnessoftheirmoreanimalisticcousinstheNeanderthalsandenteredasan increasinglyactiveagent into the surroundingworld,both tomeet

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their more complex needs (material as well as ideological), and to alter thatenvironment by means of tools and, yes, instrumental rationality. Life becamelonger, more secure, increasingly acculturated aesthetically; and humancommunities,atdifferentlevelsoftheirdevelopment,triedtodefineandresolvetheproblemsoffreedomandconsciousness.Thenecessaryconditionsforfreedomandconsciousness—orpreconditions,as

socialists of all kinds recognized in the last century and a half—involvedtechnologicaladvancesthat, inarationalsociety,couldemancipatepeople fromthe immediate, animalistic concerns of self-maintenance, increase the realm offreedom from constrictions imposed upon it by preoccupations with materialnecessity,andplaceknowledgeonarational,systematic,andcoherentbasistotheextent that this was possible. These conditions involved humanity’s self-emancipation from the overpowering theistic creations of its own imagination(creations often formulated by shamans and priests for their own self-servingends, aswell as by apologists for hierarchy), notably,mythopoesis,mysticism,antirationalism, and fears of demons and deities, calculated to producesubservienceandquietisminthefaceofthesocialpowersthatbe.That thenecessary and sufficient conditions for this emancipationhavenever

existed in a “one-to-one” relationshipwith eachotherhasprovided the fuel forCornelius Castoriadis’s essays on the omnipotence of “social imaginaries,”Theodor Adorno’s basic nihilism, and anarcho-chaotics who, in one way oranother,havedebasedEnlightenmentidealsandclassicalformsofsocialismandanarchism. The discovery of the spear did not produce an automatic shift from“matriarchy” to “patriarchy,” nor did the discovery of the plow produce anautomaticshiftfrom“primitivecommunism”toprivateproperty,asevolutionaryanthropologists of the nineteenth century supposed. Indeed, it cheapens anydiscussionofhistoryandsocialchangetocreate“one-to-one”relationsbetweentechnological and cultural developments, a tragic feature of Friedrich Engels’ssimplificationofhismentor’sideas.In fact, social evolution is very uneven and combined. No less significantly,

socialevolution,likenaturalevolution,isprofligateinproducingavastdiversityofsocialformsandcultures,whichareoftenincommensurableintheirdetails.Ifour goal is to emphasize the vast differences that separate one society fromanotherratherthanidentifytheimportantthreadofsimilaritiesthatbringhumanityto the point of a highly creative development, “the Aztecs, Incas, Chinese,Japanese,Mongols,Hindus,Persians,Arabs,Byzantines,andWesternEuropeans,plus everything that could be enumerated from other cultures” do not resembleeachother,tocitetheobligationsCastoriadisplacesonwhathecalls“a‘rationaldialectic’ofhistory”and,implicitly,onreasonitself.20Indeed,itisunpardonable

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to carelessly fling these civilizations together without regard for their place intime,theirsocialpedigrees,theextenttowhichtheycanbeeduceddialecticallyfromoneanother,orwithoutanexplanationofwhyaswellasdescriptionsofhowtheydiffer fromeachother.Byfocusingentirelyon thepeculiarityof individualcultures,onereducesthedevelopmentofcivilizationsinaneductivesequencetothenarrownominalismthatStephenJayGouldappliedtoorganicevolution,eventothepointwherethe“autonomy”soprizedbyCastoriadiscanbedismissedasapurely subjective “norm,” of no greater value in a postmodernist world ofinterchangeableequivalencesthanauthoritarian“norms”ofhierarchy.Butifweexploreveryexistentialdevelopmentstowardfreedomfromtoiland

freedomfromoppressioninallitsforms,wefindthatthereisahistorytobetoldof rational advances, without presupposing teleologies that predetermine thathistory and its tendencies. If we can give material factors their due emphasiswithoutreducingculturalchangestostrictlyautomaticresponsestotechnologicalchangesand,withoutlocatingallhighlyvariegatedsocietiesinanearlymysticalsequenceof “stages of development,” thenwe can speak intelligibly of definiteadvances made by humanity out of animality; out of the timeless “eternalrecurrence” of relatively stagnant cultures; out of blood, gender, and agerelationships as the basis for social organization; and out of the image of the“stranger,”whowasnotkintoothermembersofacommunity,indeed,whowas“inorganic,”touseMarx’sterm,andhencesubjecttoarbitrarytreatmentbeyondthereachofcustomaryrightsandduties,definedastheywerebytraditionratherthanreason.Importantas thedevelopmentofagriculture, technology,andvillage lifewere

inmovingtowardthismoment inhumanemancipation, theemergenceof thecitywas of the greatest importance in freeing people from mere ethnic ties ofsolidarity, in bringing reason and secularity, however rudimentarily, into humanaffairs.Foritwasonlybythisevolutionthatsegmentsofhumanitycouldreplacethetyrannyofmindlesscustomwithadefinableandrationallyconditionednomos,inwhichtheideaofjusticecouldbegintoreplacetribalistic“bloodvengeance,”untillater,whenitwasreplacedbytheideaoffreedom.Ispeakoftheemergenceofthecity,becausealthoughthedevelopmentofthecityhasyettobecompleted,its moments in history constitute a discernable dialectic that opened anemancipatory realm within which “strangers” and the “folk” could bereconstitutedascitizens:secularandfullyrationalbeingswhoinvaryingdegreesapproximatehumanity’spotentiality tobecomefree, rational, fully individuated,androunded.Moreover, thecityhasbeen theoriginatingandauthenticsphereofpolitics in

the Hellenic democratic sense of the term, and of civilization, not, as I have

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emphasizedagainandagain,ofthestate.Whichisnottosaythatcity-stateshavenot existed.Butdemocracy, conceivedas a face-to-face realmofpolicymaking,entailsacommitmenttotheEnlightenmentbeliefthatall“ordinary”humanbeingsarepotentiallycompetenttocollectivelymanagetheirpoliticalaffairs—acrucialconcept in the thinking, all its limitations aside, of the Athenian democratictraditionand,more radically,of thoseParisiansectionsof1793 thatgaveequalvoicetowomenaswellasallmen.Atsuchhighpointsofpoliticaldevelopment,inwhichsubsequentadvancesoftenself-consciouslybuiltonandexpandedmorelimitedearlierones,thecitybecamemorethanauniquearenaforhumanlifeandpolitics, while municipalism—civicism, which the French revolutionaries lateridentifiedwith“patriotism”—becamemorethananexpressionofloveofcountry.EvenwhenJacobindemagoguesgaveitchauvinisticconnotations,“patriotism”in1793meant that the “national patrimony”was not the “property of theKing ofFrance”butthatFrance,ineffect,nowbelongedtoallthepeople.Over the long run, the city was conceived as the sociocultural destiny of

humanity,aplacewhere,bylateRomantimes,therewereno“strangers”orethnic“folk,” and by the FrenchRevolution, no customor demonic irrationalities, butrathercitoyenswholivedinafreeterrain,organizedthemselvesintodiscursiveassemblies, and advanced canonsof secularity and fraternité, ormore broadly,solidarity and philia, hopefully guided by reason. Moreover, the Frenchrevolutionary tradition was strongly confederalist until the dictatorial JacobinRepubliccameintobeing,wipingouttheParisiansectionsaswellastheidealofa fête de la fédération. One must read Jules Michelet’s account of the GreatRevolution to learn the extent towhich civicismwas identifiedwithmunicipalliberty and fraternité with local confederations, indeed a “republic” ofconfederations,between1790and1793.OnemustexploretheendeavorsofJeanVarletandtheÉvêchémilitantsofMay30–31,1793,tounderstandhowclosetheRevolution came in the insurrection of June 2 to constructing the cherishedconfederalCommuneof communes that lingered in thehistoricalmemoryof theParisianfédérés,astheydesignatedthemselves,in1871.Hence, let me stress that a libertarian municipalist politics is not a mere

strategyforhumanemancipation;itisarigorousandethicalconcordanceofmeansandends (of instrumentalities, so tospeak)withhistoricgoals,which impliesaconceptofhistoryasmorethanmerechroniclesorascatteredarchipelagoofself-enclosed“socialimaginaries.”The civitas, humanly scaled and democratically structured, is the potential

home of a universal humanitas. It is the initiating arena of rational reflection,discursivedecision-making,andsecularityinhumanaffairs.Itspeakstousfromacross the centuries in Pericles’ magnificent funeral oration and in the earthy,

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amazingly familiar and eminently secular satires ofAristophanes,whoseworksdemolishCastoriadis’semphasisonthemysteriumand“closure”oftheAthenianpolistothemodernmind.NoonewhoreadsthechroniclesofWesternhumanitycan ignore the rational dialectic that underlies the accumulation ofmere eventsandthatrevealsanunfoldingofthehumanpotentialityforuniversality,rationality,secularity, and freedom in an eductive relationship that alone should be calledHistory. This history, to the extent that it has culminations at givenmoments ofdevelopmentonwhich latercivilizationsbuilt, isanchored in theevolutionofasecularpublicsphere, inpolitics, in theemergenceof therationalcity—thecitythatisrationalinstitutionally,creatively,andcommunally.NorcanimaginationbeexcludedfromHistory,butitisanimaginationthatmustbeelucidatedbyreason.Fornothingcanbemoredangerous toasociety, indeed to theworld today, thanthekindofunbridledimagination,unguidedbyreason,thatsoeasilylentitselftoNurembergrallies,fascistdemonstrations,Stalinistidolatry,anddeathcamps.Instead of retreating to quietism,mysticism, and purely personalized appeals

for change, we must together explore the kinds of institutions that would berequired in a rational, ecological society, the kind of politics we shouldappropriately practice, and the political movement needed to achieve such asociety. Social ecology and its politics—libertarianmunicipalism—seeks to dojustthis:toinstitutionalizefreedomandguideustoahumaneandecologicalfuture—onethatwillfulfilltheunfilledpromiseofthecityinhistory.

September1995

20C.Castoriadis,Philosophy,Politics,Autonomy:Essays inPoliticalPhilosophy,NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1991,63.

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Nationalismandthe“NationalQuestion”

OneofthemostvexingquestionsthattheLeftfaces(howeveronemaydefinetheLeft) is the role played by nationalism in social development and by populardemands for cultural identity and political sovereignty. For the Left of thenineteenthcentury,nationalismwasseenprimarilyasaEuropeanissue,involvingtheconsolidationofnation-statesintheheartlandofcapitalism.Onlysecondarily,ifatall,wasitseenastheanti-imperialistandpresumablyanticapitaliststrugglethatitwastobecomeinthetwentiethcentury.This did not mean that the nineteenth-century Left favored imperialist

depredationsinthecolonialworld.Attheturnofthiscentury,hardlyanyseriousradicalthinkerregardedtheimperialistpowers’attemptstoquellmovementsforself-determinationincolonialareasasablessing.TheLeftscoffedatandusuallydenounced the arrogant claims of European powers to bring “progress” to the“barbarous” areas of the world. Marx’s views of imperialism may have beenequivocal, but henever lacked a genuine aversion for the afflictions that nativepeoples suffered at the hands of imperialists. Anarchists, in turn, were almostinvariablyhostile to theEuropeanclaim tobe thebeaconofcivilization for theworld.YetiftheLeftuniversallyscornedthecivilizatoryclaimsofimperialistsatthe

endofthelastcentury,itgenerallyregardednationalismasanarguableissue.The“nationalquestion,”tousethetraditionalphraseinwhichsuchdiscussionswerecast,wassubjecttoseriousdisputes,certainlyasfarastacticswereinvolved.Butby general agreement, leftists did not regard nationalism, culminating in thecreation of nation-states, as the ultimate dispensation of humanity’s future in acollectivistorcommunistsociety.Indeed,thesingleprincipleonwhichtheLeftofthepre–WorldWarIandthe interwarperiodsagreedwasabelief in thesharedhumanity of people regardless of theirmembership in different cultural, ethnic,andgendergroups,andtheircomplementaryaffinitiesinafreesocietyasrationalhumanbeingswith the capacity for cooperation, awillingness to sharematerialresources,andaferventsenseofempathy.The“Internationale,”thesharedanthemof social democrats, socialists, and anarchists alike up to and even after theBolshevik revolution, endedwith the stirring cry, “The ‘Internationale’ shallbethehumanrace.”TheLeftsingledout theinternationalproletariatas thehistoricagent formodern social change not by virtue of its specificity as a class or itsparticularityasonecomponentinadevelopingcapitalistsociety,butbyvirtueof

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itsneed to achieve universality in order to abolish class society, that is, as theclassdrivenbynecessity to removewageslaverybyabolishingenslavementassuch.Capitalismhadbroughtthehistoric“socialquestion”ofhumanexploitationto its final and most advanced form. “Tis the final conflict!” rang out theInternationale, with a sense of universalistic commitment, one that norevolutionary movement could ignore without subverting the possibilities forpassing from a “prehistory” of barbarous class interest to a “true history” of atotallyemancipatedhumanity.Minimally, this was the shared outlook of the prewar and interwar Left,

particularlyofitsvarioussocialistictendencies.Theprimacytheanarchistshavehistorically given to the abolition of the state, the agency par excellence ofhierarchical coercion, leddirectly to theirdenigrationof thenation-state andofnationalism generally, not only because nationalism divides human beingsterritorially, culturally, and economically, but because it follows in thewakeofthemodernstateandideologicallyjustifiesit.Ofconcernhereistheinternationalisttraditionthatplayedsopronouncedarole

in the Left of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, and itsmutationsintoahighlyproblematical“question,”particularlyinRosaLuxemburgandLenin’swritings.Thisisa“question”ofnosmallimportance.Wehaveonlytoconsider the utter confusion that surrounds it today—as a savagely bigotednationalism subverts the internationalist tradition of the Left—to recognize itsimportance.Theriseofnationalismsthatexploitracial,religious,andtraditionalcultural differences between human beings, including even the most triviallinguistic andquasi-tribalisticdifferences, not to speakofdifferences ingenderidentityandsexualpreference,marksadecivilizationofhumanity.WhatisparticularlydisturbingisthattheLefthasnotalwaysseennationalism

as a regressive demand. The modern Left, such as it is today, all too oftenuncriticallyembraces theslogan“national liberation”—aslogan thathasechoedthrough its rankswithout regard for thebasic idealvoiced in the Internationale.Callsfortribal“identity”shrillyaccentuateagroup’sparticularcharacteristicstogarnerconstituencies,aneffortthatnegatesthespiritoftheInternationaleandthetraditional internationalismof theLeft.Theverymeaningofnationalismand thenature of its relationship to statism raises issues forwhich theLeft is bereft ofideas,apartfromappealsfor“nationalliberation.”Ifpresent-dayleftistsloseallviablememoryofanearlierinternationalistLeft

—not to speak of humanity’s historical emergence out of its animalisticbackground, itsmillennia-long development away from such biological facts asethnicity, gender, and age differences toward truly social affinities based oncitizenship,equality,andauniversalisticsenseofacommonhumanity—thegreat

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roleassignedtoreasonbytheEnlightenmentmaywellbeingravedoubt.Withoutaformofhumanassociationthatcanresistandhopefullygobeyondnationalisminall itspopularvariants—whetherit takestheformofareconstitutedLeft,anewpolitics, a social libertarianism, a reawakened humanism, an ethics ofcomplementarity—thenanythingthatwecanlegitimatelycallcivilization,indeed,thehumanspirititself,maywellbeextinguishedlongbeforeweareoverwhelmedby the growing ecological crises, nuclear war, or, more generally, a culturalbarbarismcomparableonlytothemostdestructiveperiodsinhistory.Inviewoftoday’sgrowingnationalism,then,fewendeavorscouldbemoreimportantthantoexaminethenatureofnationalismandunderstandtheso-called“nationalquestion”astheLeftinitsvariousformshasinterpreteditovertheyears.

AHISTORICALOVERVIEWThelevelofhumandevelopmentcanbegaugedingreatpartbytheextenttowhichpeople recognize their shared unity. Indeed, personal freedom consists in greatpart of our ability to choose friends, partners, associates, and affines withoutregard to their biological differences. What makes us human, apart from ourabilitytoreasononahighplaneofgeneralization,consociateintomutablesocialinstitutions, work cooperatively, and develop a highly symbolic system ofcommunication, is a shared knowledge of our humanitas. Goethe’s memorablewords,socharacteristicoftheEnlightenmentmind,stillhauntasacriterionofourhumanity:“Thereisadegreeofculturewherenationalhatredvanishes,andwhereone stands to a certain extent above nations and feels the weal and woe of aneighboringpeopleasifithappenedtoone’sown.”21IfGoetheestablishedastandardofauthentichumanityhere—andsurelyonecan

demand more of human beings than empathy for their “own people”—earlyhumanitywaslessthanhumanbythatstandard.Althoughalunaticelementintheecologymovement once called for a “return to a Pleistocene spirituality,” theywouldinallprobabilityhavefoundthat“spirituality”verydespiritinginreality.Inprehistoriceras,markedbybandandtribalsocialorganization,humanbeingswere, “spiritually” or otherwise, first and foremost members of an immediatefamily, secondly,members of a band, and ultimately,members of a tribe.Whatdetermined membership in anything beyond one’s given family group was anextensionofthekinshiptie:thepeopleofagiventribeweresociallylinkedtooneanotherbyrealorfictivebloodrelationships.This“bloodoath,”aswellasother“biological facts” like gender and age, defined one’s rights, obligations, andindeedone’sidentityinthetribalsociety.Moreover,many(perhapsmost)bandortribalgroupsregardedonlythosewho

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sharedthe“bloodoath”withthemselvesashuman.Indeed,atribeoftenreferredto itselfas“thePeople,”aname thatexpressed itsexclusiveclaimtohumanity.Other people, who were outside the magic circle of the real or mythic bloodlinkages of a tribe,were “strangers” and hence in some sensewere not humanbeings. The “blood oath” and the use of the name “the People” to designatethemselvesoftenpittedatribeagainstotherswhomadethesameexclusiveclaimto be human and to be “the People,” even among peopleswho shared commonlinguisticandculturaltraits.Tribalsocieties,infact,wereextremelywaryofanyonewhowasnotoneofits

ownmembers.Inmanyareas,beforestrangerscouldcrossaterritorialboundary,theyhadtosubmissivelyandpatientlyawaitaninvitationfromanelderorshamanofthetribethatclaimedtheterritorybeforeproceeding.Withouthospitality,whichwasgenerallyconceivedasaquasi-religiousvirtue,anystrangerriskedlifeandlimb in a tribe’s territory, so that lodgings and foodwere usually preceded byritualactsoftrustorgoodwill.Themodernhandshakemayitselfhaveoriginatedasasymbolicexpressionthatone’srighthandwasfreeofweapons.Warfare was endemic among our prehistoric ancestors and in later native

communities,notwithstandingthehigh,almostculticstatusenjoyedbyostensiblypeaceful “ecological aborigines” among white middle-class Euro-Americanstoday.Whenforaginggroupsoverhuntedthegameintheiraccustomedterritory,asoften happened, they were usually more than willing to invade the area of aneighboringgroupandclaimitsresourcesfortheirown.Commonly,aftertheriseofwarriorsodalities,warfareacquiredculturalaswellaseconomicattributes,sovictors no longer merely defeated their real or chosen “enemies” but virtuallyexterminatedthem,aswitnessthenear-genocidaldestructionoftheHuronIndiansbytheirlinguisticallyandculturallyrelatedIroquoiscousins.IfthemajorempiresoftheancientMiddleEastandOrientconquered,pacified,

and subjugated many different ethnic and cultural groups, therebymaking alienpeoplesintotheabjectsubjectsofdespoticmonarchies,themostimportantsinglefactortoerodeaboriginalparochialismwastheemergenceofthecity.Theriseofthe ancient city, whether democratic as at Athens or republican as in Rome,markedaradicallynewsocialdispensation.Incontrasttothefamily-orientedandparochial folkwho had constituted the tribal and villageworld,Western citieswere now structured increasingly around residential propinquity and sharedeconomic interests.A“secondnature,”asCicerocalled it,ofhumanistic socialandculturaltiesbegantoreplacetheolderformofsocialorganizationbasedonthe“firstnature”ofbiologicalandbloodties,inwhichindividuals’socialrolesandobligationswere anchored in their family, clan, gender, and the like, ratherthaninassociationsoftheirownchoice.

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Etymologically,“politics”derivesfromtheGreekpolitika,whichconnotesanactively involved citizenry that formulates the policies of a community or polisand,moreoftenthannot,routinelyexecutestheminthecourseofpublicservice.Althoughformalcitizenshipwasrequiredforparticipationinsuchpolitics,poleislike democratic Athens celebrated their openness to visitors, particularly toskilled craftsmen and knowledgeablemerchants of other ethnic communities. Inhisfamousfuneraloration,Periclesdeclared,

We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts excludeforeignersfromanyopportunityoflearningorobserving,althoughtheeyesofan enemymay occasionally profit by our liberality, trusting less in systemandpolicythantothenativespiritofourcitizens;where,ineducation,fromtheirverycradlesbyapainfuldisciplineseekaftermanliness[inSparta],atAthensweliveexactlyaswepleaseandyetare justasreadytoencountereverylegitimatedanger.22

InPericleantimes,Athenianliberality,tobesure,wasstilllimitedbyalargelyfictitiousnotionofthesharedancestryofitscitizens,althoughlessthanithadbeenpreviously.But it is hard to ignore the fact that Plato’s dialecticalmasterpiece,TheRepublic,occursasadialogueinthehomeofCephalos,whosefamilywereresidentaliensinthePiraeus,theportareaofAthenswheremostforeignerslived.Yet,inthedialogueitself,theinterchangebetweencitizenandalienisuninhibitedbyanystatusconsiderations.The Roman emperor Caracalla, in time, made all freemen in the Empire

“citizens” of Rome with equal juridical rights, thereby universalizing humanrelationships despite differences in language, ethnicity, tradition, and place ofresidence.Christianity, forall its failings,nonethelesscelebrated theequalityofall people’s souls in the eyes of the deity, a heavenly “egalitarianism” that, incombinationwithopenmedievalcities,theoreticallyeliminatedthelastattributesofancestry,ethnicity,andtraditionthatdividedhumanbeingsfromeachother.Inpractice, itgoeswithoutsaying, theseattributesstillpersisted,andvarious

peoples retained parochial allegiances to their villages, localities, and evencities, countervailing the tenuous Roman and particularly Christian ideals of auniversalhumanitas.Theunifiedmedievalworldwasfragmentedjuridicallyintocountlessbaronialandaristocraticsovereigntiesthatparochializedlocalpopularcommitments to a given lord or place, often pitting culturally and ethnicallyrelatedpeoplesagainst eachother inotherareas.TheCatholicChurchopposedthese parochial sovereignties, not only for doctrinal reasons but in order to be

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able to expand papal authority over Christendom as a whole. As for secularpower,waywardbutstrongmonarchslikeHenryIIofEnglandtriedtoimposethe“king’speace”overlargeterritorialareas,subduingwarringnobleswithvaryingdegrees of success. Thus did pope and king work in tandem to diminishparochialism, even as they dueledwith each other for control over ever-largerareasofthefeudalworld.Yet authentic citizens were deeply involved in classical political activity in

manyplaces inEuropeduring theMiddleAges.Theburghersofmedieval towndemocracieswereessentiallymastercraftsmen.Thetasksoftheirguilds,orrichlyarticulatedvocationalfraternities,werenolessmoralthaneconomic;indeed,theyformed the structural basis for a genuine moral economy. Guilds not only“policed”localmarkets,fixing“fairprices”andassuringthatthequalityoftheirmembers’goodswouldbehigh,theyparticipatedincivicandreligiousfestivalsas distinct entitieswith their own banners, helped finance and construct publicbuildings, saw to the welfare of the families of deceased members, collectedmoneyforcharity,andparticipatedasmilitiameninthedefenseofthecommunityofwhichtheywerepart.Theircities,inthebestofcases,conferredfreedomonrunawayserfs,sawtothesafetyoftravelers,andadamantlydefendedtheircivicliberties. The eventual differentiation of the town populations intowealthy andpoor, powerful and powerless, and “nationalists” who supported themonarchyagainstapredatorynobilityallmakeupacomplexdramathatcannotbediscussedhere.Atvarioustimesandplaces,somecitiescreatedformsofassociationthatwere

neither nations nor parochial baronies. Thesewere intercity confederations thatlasted for centuries, such as theHanseatic League; cantonal confederations likethatofSwitzerland;and,morebriefly,attemptstoachievefreecityconfederationslike theSpanishComuñerosmovement in the early sixteenth century. Itwasnotuntil the seventeenthcentury,particularlyunderCromwell inEnglandandLouisXIVinFrance,thatcentralizersofoneformoranotherfinallybegantocarveoutlastingnationsinEurope.Nation-states,letmeemphasize,arestates,notonlynations.Establishingthem

means vesting power in a centralized, professional, bureaucratic apparatus thatexercises a social monopoly of organized violence, notably in the form of itsarmiesandpolice.Thestatepreemptstheautonomyoflocalitiesandprovincesbymeans of its all-powerful executive and, in republican states, its legislature,whose members are elected or appointed to represent a fixed number of“constituents.” In nation-states, what used to be a citizen in a self-managedlocalityvanishesintoananonymousaggregationofindividualswhopayasuitableamountof taxes and receive the state’s “services.” “Politics” in thenation-state

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devolvesintoabodyofexchangerelationshipsinwhichconstituentsgenerallytryto get what they pay for in a “political” marketplace of goods and services.Nationalismasaformoftribalismwritlargereinforcesthestatebyprovidingitwith the loyalty of a people of shared linguistic, ethnic, and cultural affinities,indeed, legitimizing the state by giving it a basis of seemingly all-embracingbiologicalandtraditionalcommonalitiesamongthepeople.ItwasnottheEnglishpeoplewhocreatedanEnglandbuttheEnglishmonarchsandcentralizingrulers,just as it was the French kings and their bureaucracies who forged the Frenchnation.Indeed,untilstate-buildingbegantoacquirenewvigorinthefifteenthcentury,

nation-statesinEuroperemainedanovelty.Evenwhencentralizedauthoritybasedminimally on a linguistic commonality began to foster nationalism throughoutWesternEuropeandtheUnitedStates,nationalismfacedaverydubiousdestiny.Confederalismremainedaviablealternativetothenation-statewellintothelatterhalfofthenineteenthcentury.Aslateas1871,theParisCommunecalleduponallthe communes of France to form a confederal dual power in opposition to thenewly created Third Republic. Eventually, the nation-state won out in thiscomplexconflict,andstatismwasfirmlylinkedtonationalism.Bythebeginningofthetwentiethcentury,thetwowerevirtuallyindistinguishablefromeachother.

NATIONALISMANDTHELEFTRadical theorists and activists on theLeft dealt in very differentwayswith thehost of historical and ethical problems that nationalism raised with respect toeffortstobuildacommunistic,cooperativesociety.Historically,theearliestleftistattemptstoexplorenationalismasaproblemobstructingtheadventofafreeandjustsocietycamefromvariousanarchisttheorists.Pierre-JosephProudhonseemsnevertohavequestionedtheidealofhumansolidarity,althoughheneverdeniedtherightofapeople toculturaluniquenessandeventosecedefromanykindof“social contract,” provided, to be sure, that no one else’s rightswere infringedupon. Although Proudhon detested slavery—he sarcastically observed that theAmerican South “with Bible in hand, cultivates slavery,” while the AmericanNorth “is alreadycreatingaproletariat”—he formally conceded the rightof theConfederacytowithdrawfromtheUnionduringtheCivilWarof1861–65.23More generally, Proudhon’s confederalist and mutualistic views led him to

oppose nationalistmovements in Poland,Hungary, and Italy.His antinationalistnotionsweresomewhatdilutedbyhisownFrancophilism,astheFrenchsocialistJeanJaureslaternoted.Proudhonfearedtheformationofstrongnation-statesonor near France’s borders. But he was also a product, in his own way, of the

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Enlightenment.Writingin1862,hedeclared,

IwillneverputdevotiontomycountrybeforetherightsofMan.IftheFrenchGovernmentbehavesunjustlytoanypeople,IamdeeplygrievedandprotestineverywaythatIcan.IfFranceispunishedforthemisdeedsofherleaders,Ibowmyheadandsayfromthedepthsofmysoul,“Meritohaecpatimur”—Wehavedeservedtheseills.24

Despite his Gallic chauvinism, the “rights of Man” remained foremost inProudhon’smind.25“DoyouthinkthatitisFrenchegoism,hatredofliberty,scornforthePolesandItaliansthatcausemetomockatandmistrustthiscommonplacewordnationality,”hewrotetoHerzen,“whichisbeingsowidelyusedandmakessomanyscoundrelsandsomanyhonestcitizenstalksomuchnonsense?Forpity’ssake…donottakeoffensesoeasily.Ifyoudo,IshallhavetosaytoyouwhatIhavebeensayingforsixmonthsaboutyourfriendGaribaldi:‘Ofgreatheartbutnobrain.’”26Mikhail Bakunin’s internationalismwas as emphatic as Proudhon’s, although

his viewswere alsomarkedby a certain ambiguity. “Only that can be called ahuman principle which is universal and common to all men,” he wrote in hisinternationalist vein; “and nationality separates men, therefore it is not aprinciple.” Indeed, “There is nothing more absurd and at the same time moreharmful, more deadly, for the people than to uphold the fictitious principle ofnationalityas the idealofall thepeople’saspirations.”WhatcountedfinallyforBakuninwasthat“Nationalityisnotauniversalhumanprinciple.”Stillfurther,

We shouldplacehuman,universal justice above all national interests.Andwe shouldonce and for all timeabandon the falseprincipleofnationality,inventedoflatebythedespotsofFrance,Russia,andPrussiaforthepurposeofcrushingthesovereignprincipleofliberty.27

YetBakuninalsodeclaredthatnationality“isahistoric,localfact,whichlikeall realandharmless facts,has the right toclaimgeneralacceptance.”Notonlythat, but this is a “natural fact” that deserves “respect.” It may have been hisrhetoricalproclivitiesthatledhimtodeclarehimself“alwayssincerelythepatriotofalloppressedfatherlands.”Buthearguedthattherightofeverynationality“toliveaccordingtoitsownnature”mustberespected,sincethis“right”is“simply

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thecorollaryofthegeneralprincipleoffreedom.”ThesubtletyofBakunin’sobservationsshouldnotbeoverlookedinthemidstof

thisseemingself-contradiction.Hedefinedageneralprinciplethatishuman,onethat is abridged or partially violated by asocial or “biological” facts that forbetterorworsemustbe taken forgranted.Tobeanationalist is tobe less thanhuman,butit isalsoinevitableinsofarasindividualsareproductsofdistinctiveculturaltraditions,environments,andstatesofmind.Overshadowingthemerefactof “nationality” is the higher universal principle in which people recognizethemselvesasmembersofthesamespeciesandseektofostertheircommonalitiesratherthantheir“national”distinctiveness.Such humanistic principles were to be taken very seriously by anarchists

generallyandstrikinglysobythelargestanarchistmovementofmoderntimes,theSpanishanarchists.Fromtheearly1880suptothebloodycivilwarof1936–39,the anarchist movement of Spain opposed not only statism and nationalism buteven regionalism in all its forms. Despite its enormous Catalan following, theSpanish anarchists consistently raised the higher human principle of socialliberation over national liberation and opposed nationalist tendencies withinSpain that sooftendividedBasques,Catalans,Andalusians,andGalicians fromoneanotherandparticularlyfromtheCastilians,whoenjoyedculturalsupremacyover the country’sminorities. Indeed, theword “Iberian” rather than “Spanish,”whichappearsinthenameIberianAnarchistFederation(FAI),servedtoexpressnotonlyacommitmenttopeninsularsolidaritybutanindifferencetoregionalandnational distinctions between Spain and Portugal. The Spanish anarchistscultivatedEsperantoasa“universal”human languagemoreenthusiastically thananymajorradicaltendency,and“universalbrotherhood”remainedalastingidealof theirmovement, as it has historically inmost anarchistmovements up to thepresentday.Prior to 1914, Marxists and the Second International generally held similar

convictions,despitetheburgeoningofnineteenth-centurynationalism.InMarxandEngels’view,theproletariatoftheworldhadnocountry;authenticallyunifiedasa class, it was destined to abolish all forms of class society. The CommunistManifestoendswiththeringingappeal:“WorkingMenofAllCountries,Unite!”In the body of the work (which Bakunin translated into Russian), the authorsdeclared, “In the national struggles of the proletarians of different countries,[Communists]pointoutandbring to the front thecommon interestsof theentireproletariat, independently of all nationality.”28 And further, “The working menhavenocountry.Wecannottakeawayfromthemwhattheyhavenotgot.”29ThesupportthatMarxandEngelsdidlendtonationalliberationstruggleswas

essentially strategic, stemming primarily from their geopolitical and economic

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concerns rather than from broad social principle. They vigorously championedPolish independence fromRussia, for example, because theywanted toweakenthe Russian empire, which in their day was the supreme counterrevolutionarypower on the European continent. And they wanted to see a united Germanybecauseacentralized,powerfulnation-statewouldprovide itwithwhatEngels,inalettertoKarlKautskyin1882,called“thenormalpoliticalconstitutionoftheEuropeanbourgeoisie.”Yet themanifestsimilaritiesbetween the internationalist rhetoricofMarxand

Engels in The Communist Manifesto and the internationalism of the anarchisttheorists and movements should not be permitted to conceal the importantdifferencesbetweenthesetwoformsofsocialism—differencesthatweretoplayamajorroleinthedebatesthatseparatedthem.Theanarchistswereineverysenseethical socialistswho upheld universal principles of the “brotherhood ofman”and“fraternity,”30principlesthatMarx’s“scientificsocialism”disdainedasmere“abstractions.” In later years, even when speaking broadly of freedom and theoppressed,MarxandEngelsconsideredtheuseofseemingly“inexact”wordslike“workers”and“toilers” tobean implicit rejectionof socialismasa“science”;instead,theypreferredwhattheyconsideredthemorescientificallyrigorouswordproletariat,whichspecificallyreferredtothosewhogeneratesurplusvalue.Indeed, in contrast to anarchist theorists like Proudhon, who considered the

spread of capitalism and the proletarianization of preindustrial peasantry andcraftspeople to be a disaster,Marx andEngels enthusiasticallywelcomed thesedevelopments,aswellastheformationoflarge,centralizednation-statesinwhichmarket economies could flourish. They saw them not only as desiderata infosteringeconomicdevelopmentbut,bypromotingcapitalism,asindispensableincreating the preconditions for socialism. Despite their support for proletarianinternationalism, they derogated what they saw as “abstract” denunciations ofnationalism as such or scorned them as merely “moralistic.” Althoughinternationalism in the interests of class solidarity remained a desideratum forMarx andEngels, their view implicitly stood at oddswith their commitment tocapitalist economic expansion with its need in the last century for centralizednation-states.Theyheldthenation-statetobegoodorbadinsofarasitadvancedorinhibitedtheexpansionofcapital,theadvanceofthe“productiveforces,”andtheproletarianizationofpreindustrialpeoples. Inprinciple, they lookedaskanceat the nationalist sentiments of Indians, Chinese, Africans, and the rest of thenoncapitalist world, whose precapitalist social forms might impede capitalistexpansion.Ireland,ironically,seemstohavebeenanexceptiontothisapproach.Marx,Engels,andtheMarxistmovementasawholeacknowledgedtherightoftheIrish tonational liberation largely for sentimental reasons andbecause itwould

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produceproblemsforEnglishimperialism,whichcommandedaworldmarket.Inthe main, until such time as a socialist society could be achieved, Marxistsconsidered theformationof large,ever-morecentralizednation-states inEuropetobe“historicallyprogressive.”Giventheirinstrumentalgeopolitics,itshouldnotbesurprisingthatastheyears

went by, Marx and Engels essentially supported Bismarck’s attempts to unifyGermany.TheirexpressdistasteforBismarck’smethodsandforthelandedgentryinwhose interestshespokeshouldnotbe taken tooseriously.Theywouldhavewelcomed Germany’s annexation of Denmark, and they called for theincorporation of smaller European nationalities like the Czechs and Slavsgenerally into a centralizedAustria-Hungary, aswell as the unification of Italyinto a nation-state, in order to broaden the terrain of the market and thesovereigntyofcapitalismontheEuropeancontinent.Nor is it surprising thatMarxandEngels supportedBismarck’sarmies in the

Franco-Prussianwarof1870—despitetheoppositionoftheirclosestadherentsintheGermanSocialDemocraticparty,WilhelmLiebknechtandAugustBebel—atleastuptothepointwhenthosearmiescrossedtheFrenchfrontierandsurroundedParisin1871.Ironically,MarxandEngels’ownargumentsweretobeinvokedbytheEuropeanMarxistswhodivergedfromtheirantiwarcomradestosupporttheirrespectivenationalmilitaryeffortsattheoutbreakoftheFirstWorldWar.ProwarGerman Social Democrats supported the Kaiser as a bulwark against Russian“Asiatic”barbarism—seeminglyinaccordancewithMarxandEngels’ownviews—while the French Socialists (as well as Kropotkin in Britain and later inRussia)invokedthetraditionoftheircountry’sGreatRevolutioninoppositionto“Prussianmilitarism.”Despitemanywidespread claims thatRosaLuxemburgwasmore anarchistic

than a committed Marxist, she actually vigorously opposed the motivations ofanarchic forms of socialism and was more of a doctrinaire Marxist than isgenerally realized.Her opposition to Polish nationalism and Pilsudski’s PolishSocialist Party (which demanded Polish national independence) aswell as herhostilitytowardnationalismgenerally,admirableandcourageousasitwas,restedprincipally not on an anarchistic belief in the “brotherhood of man” but ontraditionalMarxist arguments, namely, an extension ofMarx andEngels’ desirefor unified markets and centralized states at the expense of Eastern Europeannationalities,albeitwithanewtwist.Bytheturnofthecentury,newconsiderationshadcometotheforegroundthat

inducedLuxemburgtomodifyherviews.Likemanysocialdemocratictheoristsatthe time, Luxemburg shared the conviction that capitalism had passed from aprogressiveintoalargelyreactionaryphase.Nolongerahistoricallyprogressive

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economic order, capitalism was now reactionary because it had fulfilled its“historical” function in advancing technology and presumably in producing aclass-conscious or even revolutionary proletariat. Lenin systematized thisconclusioninhisworkImperialism:TheHighestStageofCapitalism.Thus, bothLenin andLuxemburg logicallydenounced theFirstWorldWar as

imperialist and broke with all socialists who supported the Entente and theCentral Powers, deriding them as “social patriots.” Where Lenin markedlydiffered from Luxemburg (aside from the famous issue of his support for acentralizedpartyorganization)wasonhow,fromastrictly“realistic”standpoint,the“nationalquestion”couldbeusedagainstcapitalisminaneraofimperialism.ToLenin,thenationalstrugglesofeconomicallyundevelopedcolonizedcountriesfor liberation from the colonial powers, including Tsarist Russia, were nowinherentlyprogressive insofaras theyserved toundermine thepowerofcapital.Thatistosay,Lenin’ssupportfornationalliberationstruggleswasessentiallynoless pragmatic than that of other Marxists, including Luxemburg herself. Forimperialist Russia, appropriately characterized as a “prison of nations,” Leninadvocated the unconditional right of non-Russian peoples to secede under anyconditionsandtoformnation-statesoftheirown.Ontheotherhand,hemaintainedthat non-Russian Social Democrats in Russia’s colonized countries would beobliged to advocate some kind of federal union with the “mother country” ifRussianSocialDemocratssucceededinachievingaproletarianrevolution.Hence, althoughLenin andLuxemburg’s premiseswere very similar, the two

Marxistscametoradicallydifferentconclusionsaboutthe“nationalquestion”andthecorrectmannerofresolvingit.LenindemandedtherightofPolandtoestablishanation-stateof itsown,whileLuxemburgopposeditaseconomicallyunviableandregressive.LeninsharedMarxandEngels’supportforPolishindependence,albeitforverydifferentyetequallypragmaticreasons.HedidnothonorhisownpositionontherighttosecessionduringtheRussianCivilWar,mostflagrantlyinhismannerofdealingwithGeorgia,averydistinctnationthathadsupportedtheMensheviks until the Soviet regime forced it to accept a domestic variant ofBolshevism.Onlyin the lastyearsofhis life,afteraGeorgianCommunistpartytookcommandof the state,didLeninopposeStalin’sattempt to subordinate theGeorgianparty to theRussian—apreponderantly intraparty conflict thatwasoflittleconcerntothepro-MenshevikGeorgianpopulation.LenindidnotlivelongenoughtoengageStalinonthis,andother,policiesandorganizationalpractices.

TWOAPPROACHESTOTHENATIONALQUESTIONTheMarxistandMarxist-Leninistdiscussionsonthe“nationalquestion”afterthe

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First World War thus produced a highly convoluted legacy that affected thepoliciesnotonlyoftheOldLeftofthe1920sand1930sbutthoseoftheNewLeftofthe1960saswell.Whatisimportanttoclarifyherearetheradicallydifferentpremises from which anarchists and Marxists viewed nationalism generally.Anarchism in the main advanced humanistic, basically ethical reasons foropposingthenation-statesthatfosterednationalism.Anarchistsdidso,tobemorespecific, because national distinctions tended to lead to state formation and tosubvert the unity of humanity, to parochialize society, and to foster culturalparticularitiesrather than theuniversalityof thehumancondition.Marxism,asa“socialistscience,”eschewedsuchethical“abstractions.”Incontrasttotheanarchistoppositiontothestateandtocentralization,notonly

did Marxists support a centralized state, they insisted on the “historicallyprogressive” nature of capitalism and a market economy, which requiredcentralized nation-states as domestic markets and as means for removing allinternalbarriers to commerce that local and regional sovereigntieshad created.Marxists generally regarded the national aspirations of oppressed peoples asmatters of political strategy that should be supported or opposed for strictlypragmaticconsiderations,irrespectiveofanybroaderethicalones.Thus, two distinct approaches to nationalism emerged within the Left. The

ethical antinationalismofanarchists championed theunityofhumanity,withdueallowanceforculturaldistinctionsbutinflatoppositiontotheformationofnation-states; the Marxists supported or opposed the nationalistic demands of largelyprecapitalist cultures for a variety of pragmatic and geopolitical reasons. Thisdistinction is not intended to be hard and fast; socialists in pre–World War IAustria-Hungary were strongly multinational as a result of the many differentpeoples who made up the prewar empire. They called for a confederalrelationship between the German-speaking rulers of the empire and its largelySlavonicmembers,which approximated an anarchist view.Whether theywouldhave honored their own ideals in practice any better than Lenin adhered to hisown prescriptions once a “proletarian revolution” actually succeeded we willnever know. The original empire had disappeared by 1918, and the ostensiblelibertarianism of “Austro-HungarianMarxism,” as it was called, becamemootduringtheinterwarperiod.Totheirhonor,inFebruary1934inVienna,Austriansocialists, unlike any other movement apart from the Spaniards, resistedprotofascistdevelopmentsinbloodystreetfighting;themovementneverregaineditsrevolutionaryélanafteritwasrestoredin1945.

NATIONALISMANDTHESECONDWORLDWAR

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The Left of the interwar period, the so-called “Old Left,” viewed the fast-approachingwar againstNaziGermanyas a continuationof the“GreatWar”of1914–18. Anti-Stalinist Marxists predicted a short-lived conflict that wouldterminateinproletarianrevolutionsevenmoresweepingthanthoseofthe1917–21period.Significantly,TrotskystakedhisadherencetoorthodoxMarxismitselfonthiscalculation:ifthewardidnotendinthisoutcome,heproposed,nearlyallthe premises of orthodox Marxism would have to be examined and perhapsdrasticallyrevised.Hisdeathin1940precludedsuchareevaluationonhisownpart. When the war did not conclude in international proletarian revolutions,Trotsky’ssupporterswerehardlywillingtomakethesweepingreexaminationthathehadsuggested.Yetthisreexaminationwasverymuchneeded.NotonlydidtheSecondWorld

WarfailtoendinproletarianrevolutionsinEurope,itbroughtanendtotheentireeraofrevolutionaryproletariansocialismandtheclass-orientedinternationalismthathademergedinJune1848,whentheParisianworkingclassraisedbarricadesandredflagsinsupportofa“socialrepublic.”Farfromachievinganysuccessfulproletarianrevolutionsafter theSecondWorldWar, theEuropeanworkingclassfailedtoexhibitanysemblanceofinternationalismduringtheconflict.Unliketheirfathersagenerationearlier,nowarring troopsengaged in fraternization;nordidthecivilianpopulationsexhibit anyoverthostility to theirpolitical andmilitaryleadersfor theirconductof thewar,despite themassivedestructionofcitiesbyaerial bombers and artillery. The German army fought desperately against theAlliesintheWestandwerepreparedtodefendHitler’sbunkertotheend.Aboveall,anelevatedawarenessofclassdistinctionsandconflictsinEurope

gave way to nationalism, partly in reaction to Germany’s occupations of hometerritories, but also, and significantly, as a result of the resurgence of a crudexenophobia that verged on outright racism. What limited class-orientedmovements did emerge for a while after the war, notably in France, Italy, andGreece,wereeasilymanipulatedbytheStaliniststoserveSovietinterestsintheColdWar. Hence, although the SecondWorldWar lastedmuch longer than thefirst, its outcome never rose to the political and social level of the 1917–21period.Infact,worldcapitalismemergedfromWorldWarIIstrongerthanithadbeen at any time in its history, owing principally to the state’s massiveinterventionineconomicandsocialaffairs.

STRUGGLESFOR“NATIONALLIBERATION”ThefailureofseriousradicaltheoriststoreexamineMarxisttheoryinthelightofthese developments, as Trotsky had proposed, was followed by the precipitate

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declineoftheOldLeft;thegeneralrecognitionthattheproletariatwasnolongera“hegemonic”class inoverthrowingcapitalism; theabsenceofa“generalcrisis”ofcapitalism;andthefailureoftheSovietUniontoplayaninternationalistroleinpostwarevents.What came to the foreground instead were national liberation struggles in

“ThirdWorld”countriesandsporadicanti-SovieteruptionsinEasternEuropeancountries,whichwerelargelysmotheredbyStalinisttotalitarianism.TheLeft,intheseinstances,hasoftentakennationaliststrugglesasgeneral“anti-imperialist”attempts to achieve “autonomy” from imperialism, and state formation as alegitimationofthis“autonomy,”evenattheexpenseofapopulardemocracyinthecolonizedworld.IfMarxandEngelsoftensupportednationalstrugglesforstrategicreasons,the

Leftinthetwentiethcentury,bothNewandOld,hasoftenelevatedsuchsupportforsuchstrugglesintoamindlessarticleoffaith.Thestrategic“nationalisms”ofMarxist-typemovements largely foreclosed inquiry into what kind of society agiven“nationalliberation”movementwouldlikelyproduce,inawaythatethicalsocialisms likeanarchism in the lastcenturydidnot. Itwas (or ifnot, it shouldhavebeen)amatterofthegravestconcernfortheOldLeftinthe1920sand1930stoinquireintowhattypeofsocietyMaoTse-tung,totakeastrikingcaseinpoint,wouldestablishinChinaifhedefeatedtheKuomintang,whiletheNewLeftofthe1960s should have inquired into what type of society Castro, to cite anotherimportantcase,wouldestablishinCubaaftertheexpulsionofBatista.Butthroughoutthiscentury,whenThirdWorldnationalliberationmovementsin

colonial countries have made conventional avowals of socialism and thenproceeded to establish highly centralized, often brutally authoritarian states, theLeft often greeted them as effective struggles against imperialist enemies.Advancedasnationalliberation,nationalismhasoftenstoppedshortofadvancingmajor social changes and even ignored the need to do so. Avowals ofauthoritarianformsofsocialismhavebeenusedbynationalliberationmovementsverymuchthewayStalinusedsocialistideologiestobrutallyconsolidatehisowndictatorship. Indeed, Marxism-Leninism has proved a remarkably effectivedoctrine for mobilizing national liberation struggles against imperialist powersand gaining the support of leftist radicals abroad, who saw national liberationmovements as largely anti-imperialist struggles rather than observing their truesocialcontent.Thus,despitethepopulistandoftenevenanarchistictendenciesthatgaveriseto

the European and American New Left, its essentially international focus wasdirectedincreasinglytowardanuncriticalsupportfornationalliberationstrugglesoutsidetheEuro-Americansphere,withoutregardforwherethesestruggleswere

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leadingandtheauthoritariannatureoftheirleadership.Asthe1960sprogressed,this incredibly confused movement in fact steadily shed the anarchistic anduniversalistic ambience with which it had begun. After Mao’s practices wereelevated to an “ism” in theNewLeft,many young radicals adopted “Maoism”unreservedly,withgrimresults for theNewLeftasawhole.By1969, theNewLeft had largely been taken over byMaoists and admirers of Fidel Castro.Anutterly misleading book like Fanshen, which uncritically applauded Maoistactivities in the Chinese countryside, was revered in the late 1960s, andmanyradicalgroupsadoptedwhattheytooktobeMaoistorganizationalpractices.Soheavily focusedwas theNewLeft’s attentiononnational liberation struggles inthe Third World that the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1969 hardlyproducedseriousprotestbyyoungleftists,atleastintheUnitedStates.The1960s also saw the emergenceof yet another formofnationalismon the

Left. Increasingly ethnically chauvinistic groups began to appear that ultimatelyinvertedEuro-Americanclaimsoftheallegedsuperiorityofthewhiteraceintoanequally reactionary claim to the superiority of nonwhites. Embracing theparticularism intowhich racial politicshaddegenerated insteadof thepotentialuniversalismofahumanitas, theNewLeftplacedblacks,colonialpeoples,andeventotalitariancolonialnationsonthetopofitstheoreticalpyramid,endowingthem with a commanding or “hegemonic” position in relation to whites, Euro-Americans, and bourgeois-democratic nations. In the 1970s, this particularisticstrategywasadoptedbycertainfeminists,whobegantoextolthe“superiority”ofwomenovermen,indeed,toaffirmanallegedlyfemalemystical“power”andanallegedly female irrationalismover the secular rationality and scientific inquirythatwerepresumablythedomainofallmales.Theterm“whitemale”becameapatently derogatory expression that was applied ecumenically to all Euro-American men, irrespective of whether they themselves were exploited anddominatedbyrulingclassesandhierarchies.Ahighlyparochial“identitypolitics”begantoemerge,eventodominatemany

NewLeftistsasnew“micronationalisms.”Notonlydocertaintendenciesinsuch“identity” movements closely resemble those of very traditional forms ofoppressionlikepatriarchy,butidentitypoliticsalsoconstitutesaregressionfromthe libertarian and even general Marxian message of the Internationale and atranscendenceofall“micronationalist”differentiainatrulyhumanisticcommunistsociety.What passes for “radical consciousness” today is shifting increasinglytowardabiologicallyorientedemphasisonhumandifferentiationlikegenderandethnicity, not an emphasis on the need to foster human universality thatwas sopronouncedamongtheanarchistwritersofthelastcenturyandinTheCommunistManifesto.

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TOWARDANEWINTERNATIONALISMHowtoassessthisdevolutioninleftistthoughtandtheproblemsitraisestoday?Ihavetriedtoplacenationalisminthelargerhistoricalcontextofhumanity’ssocialevolution,fromtheinternalsolidarityofthetribe,totheincreasingexpansivenessofurbanlifeandtheuniversalismadvancedbythegreatmonotheisticreligionsinthe Middle Ages, and finally to ideals of human affinity based on reason,secularism,cooperation,anddemocracyinthenineteenthcentury.Wecansaywithcertaintythatanymovementthataspirestosomethinglessthantheseanarchistandlibertariansocialistnotionsofthe“brotherhoodofman,”certainlyasexpressedinthe Internationale, falls short of the highest ideals of the Left. Indeed, from theperspective of the end of the twentieth century,we are obliged to ask for evenmorethanwhatnineteenthcenturyinternationalismdemanded.Weareobligedtoformulate an ethics of complementarity in which cultural differentiamutualisticallyservetoenhancehumanunityitself,inshort,thatconstituteanewmosaic of vigorous cultures that enrich the human condition and that foster itsadvance rather than fragment and decompose it into new “nationalities” and anincreasingnumberofnation-states.Nolesssignificantistheneedforaradicalsocialoutlookthatconjoinscultural

varietyandtheidealofaunifiedhumanitywithanethicalconceptofwhatanewsociety should be like—one that is universalistic in its view of humanity,cooperativeinitsviewofhumanrelationshipsonalllevelsoflife,andegalitarianinitsideaofsocialrelations.Whileinternationalistintheirclassoutlook,nearlyallMarxistattitudestowardthe“nationalquestion”wereinstrumental:theywereguidedbyexpediencyandopportunism,andworse,theyoftendenigratedideasofdemocracy,citizenship,andfreedomas“abstract”and,presumably,“unscientific”notions. Outstanding Marxists accepted the nation-state with all its coercivepowerandcentralistictraits,betheyMarxandEngels,Luxemburg,orLenin.Nordid theseMarxistsviewconfederalismasadesideratum.Luxemburg’swritings,forexample,simplytakeconfederalismasitexistedinherowntime(particularlythe vicissitudes ofSwiss cantonalism) as exhausting all the possibilities of thispolitical idea, without due regard for the anarchist emphasis on the need for aprofoundsocial,political,andeconomicdemocratizationofthemunicipalitiesthatare to confederatewith each other.With few exceptions,Marxists advanced noserious critique of the nation-state and state centralization as such, an omissionthat, all “collectivistic” achievements aside, would have foredoomed theirattemptstoachievearationalsocietyifnothingelsehad.Cultural freedomand variety, letme emphasize, should not be confusedwith

nationalism. That specific peoples should be free to fully develop their ownculturalcapacities isnotmerelya rightbutadesideratum.Theworldwillbea

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drabplace indeed ifamagnificentmosaicofdifferentculturesdoesnot replacethe largely deculturated and homogenizedworld created bymodern capitalism.Butbythesametoken,theworldwillbecompletelydividedandpeopleswillbechronicallyatoddswithoneanotheriftheirculturaldifferencesareparochializedandifseeming“culturaldifferences”arerootedinbiologisticnotionsofgender,racial,andphysicalsuperiority.Historically,thereisasenseinwhichthenationalconsolidationofpeoplesalong territorial linesdidproducea social sphere thatwasbroader than thenarrowkinshipbasis for kinship societies because itwasobviouslymore open to strangers, just as cities tended to foster broader humanaffinities than tribes. But neither tribal affinities nor territorial boundariesconstitute a realization of humanity’s potential to achieve a full sense ofcommonalitywithrichbutharmoniousculturalvariations.Frontiershavenoplaceonthemapoftheplanet,anymorethantheyhaveaplaceonthelandscapeofthemind.A socialism that is not informed by this kind of ethical outlook, with a due

respect for cultural variety, cannot ignore the potential outcome of a nationalliberationstruggleastheOldandNewLeftsalikesooftendid.Norcanitsupportnational liberation struggles for instrumental purposes merely as a means of“weakening” imperialism. Certainly, such a socialism cannot promote theproliferationofnation-states,muchlessincreasethenumberofdivisivenationalentities. Ironically, the successofmanynational liberation struggleshashad theeffect of creating politically independent statist regimes that are nonetheless asmanipulableby the forcesof international capitalismaswere theold,generallyobtuseimperialistones.Moreoftenthannot,ThirdWorldnationshavenotcastofftheircolonialshacklessincetheendoftheSecondWorldWar:theyhavemerelybecomedomesticatedandrenderedhighlyvulnerabletotheforcesofinternationalcapitalism,withlittlemorethanafacadeofself-determination.Moreover,theyhaveoftenusedtheirmythsof“nationalsovereignty”tonourish

xenophobic ambitions to grab adjacent areas around them and oppress theirneighbors as brutally as imperialists in their own right, such as Ghana’soppression under Nkrumah of the Togo peoples inWest Africa orMilosevic’sattemptto“cleanse”MuslimsfromBosnia.Nolessregressive,suchnationalismsevokewhatismostsinisterinapeople’spast:religiousfundamentalisminallitsforms,traditionalhatredsof“foreigners,”a“nationalunity”thatoverridesterribleinternalsocialandeconomicinequities,andmostcommonly,atotaldisregardforhumanrights.The“nation”asaculturalentityissupersededbyanoverpoweringandoppressivestateapparatus.Racismcommonlygoeshandinhandwithnationalliberationstruggles,suchas“ethniccleansing”andwarsforterritorialgain,asweseemost poignantly today in theMiddleEast, India, theCaucasus, andEastern

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Europe. Nationalisms that only a generation ago might have been regarded asnational liberation struggles are more clearly seen today, in the wake of thecollapse of the Soviet empire, as little more than social nightmares anddecivilizingblights.Putbluntly,nationalismsareregressiveatavismsthattheEnlightenmenttriedto

overcome long ago. They introject theworst features of the very empires fromwhich oppressed peoples have tried to shake loose.Not only do they typicallyreproducestatemachinesthatareasoppressiveastheonesthatcolonialpowersimposed on them, but they reinforce those machines with cultural, religious,ethnic, and xenophobic traits that are often used to foster regional and evendomestic hatreds and subimperialisms. No less important, in the absence ofgenuine popular democracies, the sequelae of understandably anti-imperialiststruggles too often include the strengthening of imperialism itself, such that thepowersthathavebeenseeminglydispossessedoftheircoloniescannowplaythestate of one former colony against that of another, as witness the conflicts thatravageAfrica,theMiddleEast,andtheIndiansubcontinent.Thesearetheareas,Imayadd,wherenuclearwarswillbemorelikelytooccurastheyearsgobythanelsewhere in the world. The development of an Islamic nuclear bomb tocountervailanIsraelioneorofaPakistanibombtocountervailanIndianone—allportendnogoodfortheSouthanditsconflictwiththeNorth.Indeed,thetendencyfor former colonies to actively seek alliances with their erstwhile imperialistrulersisnowamoretypicalfeatureofNorth-SouthdiplomacythanisanyunitybytheSouthagainsttheNorth.Nationalism has always been a disease that divided human from human

—“abstract” as traditionalMarxistsmay consider this notion to be—and it canneverbeviewedas anythingmore thana regression toward tribalparochialismandthefuelforintercommunalwarfare.NorhavethenationalliberationstrugglesthathaveproducednewstatesthroughouttheThirdWorldandinEasternEuropeimpaired the expansion of imperialismor eventuated in fully democratic states.Thatthe“liberated”peoplesoftheStalinistempirearelessoppressedtodaythantheywereunderCommunistruleshouldnotmisleadusintobelievingthattheyarealso free from the xenophobia that nearly all nation-states cultivate or from theculturalhomogenizationthatcapitalismanditsmediaproduce.No left libertarian, tobesure,canoppose the rightofasubjugatedpeople to

establish itself as an autonomous entity. But to oppose an oppressor is notequivalent to calling for support for everything formerly colonized nation-statesdo.Ethicallyspeaking,onecannotopposeawrongwhenonepartycommitsitthensupport another party who commits the samewrong. The trite but pithymaxim“My enemy’s enemy is not my friend” is particularly applicable to oppressed

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people whomay bemanipulated by totalitarians, religious zealots, and “ethniccleansers.” Just as an authentic ethics must be reasoned out and premised ongenuine humanistic potentialities, so a libertarian socialism or anarchism mustretainitsethicalintegrityifthevoiceofreasonistobeheardinsocialaffairs.Inthe1960s,thosewhoopposedAmericanimperialisminSoutheastAsiaandatthesame time rejected giving any support for theCommunist regime inHanoi, andthosewhoopposedAmerican intervention inCubawithout supportingCastroisttotalitarianism, stood on a higher moral ground than the New Leftists whoexercised their rebelliousness against the United States predominantly bysupporting national liberation struggles without regard to the authoritarian andstatist goals of those struggles. Indeed, identified with the authoritarians whomthey actively supported, theseNewLeftists eventually grewdemoralizedby theabsence of an ethical basis in their liberatory ideas. Today, in fact, liberatorystruggles based on nationalism and statism have borne the terrifying harvest ofinternecinebloodlettingthroughouttheworld.Evenin“liberated”stateslikeEastGermany,nationalismhasfoundbrutalexpressionintheriseoffascistmovements,Germannationalism,planstorestricttheimmigrationofasylumseekers,violenceagainst “foreigners” (including victims of Nazism like gypsies), and the like.Thus,theinstrumentalviewofnationalismthatMarxistsoriginallycultivatedhasleftmany“leftists”inaconditionofmoralbankruptcy.Ethically,therearesomesocialissuesonwhichonemusttakeastand,suchas

white and black racism, patriarchy and matriarchy, and imperialism and ThirdWorld totalitarianism. An unswerving opposition to racism, gender oppression,and domination as suchmust always be paramount if an ethical socialism is toemerge from the ruinsof socialism itself.Butwealso live inaworld inwhichissuessometimesariseonwhichleftistscannottakeanypositionatall—issuesonwhich to take a position is to operate within the alternatives advanced by abasically irrational society and to choose the lesserof several irrationalitiesorevilsoverotherirrationalitiesorevils.Itisnotasignofpoliticalineffectualitytorejectsuchachoicealtogetheranddeclarethattoopposeoneevilwithalesseronemust eventually lead to the support of theworst evil that emerges.GermanSocialDemocracy,byabettingone“lesserevil” after anotherduring the1920s,went from supporting liberals to conservatives to reactionaries who finallybrought Hitler to power. In an irrational society, conventional wisdom andinstrumentalism can produce only ever-greater irrationality, using virtue as apatinatoconcealbasiccontradictionsbothinitsownpositionandinsociety.“Like the processes of life, digestion and breathing,” observed Bakunin,

nationality“hasno right tobeconcernedwith itselfuntil that right isdenied.”31This was a perceptive enough statement in its day. With the explosions of

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barbarousnationalisminourowndayandthesnarlingappetitesofnationaliststocreate more and more nation-states, it is clear that “nationality” is a socialpathologythatmustbecuredifsocietyisnottofurtherdeteriorate.

SEEKINGANALTERNATIVEIfnationalismisregressive,whatrationalandhumanisticalternativetoitcananethical socialism offer? There is no place in a free society for nation-states—either as nations or as states. However strong may be the impulse of specificpeoplesforacollectiveidentity,reasonandaconcernforethicalbehaviorobligeus to recover the universality of the city or town and a directly democraticpoliticalculture,albeitonahigherplanethaneventhepolisofPericleanAthens.Identity shouldproperlybe replacedbycommunity—bya shared affinity that ishumanly scaled, nonhierarchical, libertarian, and open to all, irrespective of anindividual’sgender,ethnictraits,sexualidentity,talents,orpersonalproclivities.Such community life can only be recovered by a new politics of libertarianmunicipalism:thedemocratizationofmunicipalitiessothattheyareself-managedby the people who inhabit them, and the formation of a confederation of thesemunicipalitiestoconstituteacounter-powertothenation-state.Thedanger thatdemocratizedmunicipalities inadecentralizedsocietywould

result in economic and cultural parochialism is very real, and it can only beprecludedbyavigorousconfederationofmunicipalitiesbasedon theirmaterialinterdependence. The “self-sufficiency” of community life, even if it werepossible today, would by nomeans guarantee a genuine grassroots democracy.The confederation ofmunicipalities, as amedium for interaction, collaboration,andmutualaidamongitsmunicipalcomponents,providesthesolealternativetothepowerful nation-stateon theonehandand theparochial townor cityon theother.Fullydemocratic,inwhichthemunicipaldeputiestoconfederalinstitutionswould be subject to recall, rotation, and unrelenting public review, theconfederationwouldconstituteanextensionoflocallibertiestotheregionallevel,allowing for a sensitive equilibrium between locality and region in which thecultural variety of towns could flourish without turning inward toward localexclusivity. Indeed, beneficial cultural traits would also be shared within andbetweenvariousconfederations,alongwiththeinterchangeofgoodsandservicesthatmakeupthematerialmeansoflife.Bythesametoken,“property”wouldbemunicipalizedratherthannationalized

(which merely reinforces state power with economic power), collectivized(which simply recasts private entrepreneurial rights in a “collective” form), orprivatized(whichfacilitatesthereemergenceofacompetitivemarketeconomy).

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Amunicipalizedeconomywouldapproximateasystemofusufructbasedentirelyon one’s needs and citizenship in a community rather than one’s proprietary,vocational, or professional interests. Where a municipal citizens’ assemblycontrols economic policy, no one individual controls, much less “owns,” themeans of production and of life. Where confederal means of administering aregion’s resources coordinate the economic behavior of the whole, parochialinterests would tend to give way to larger human interests and economicconsiderations tomoredemocraticones.The issues thatmunicipalitiesandtheirconfederationsaddresswouldceasetorangearoundeconomicself-interest; theywouldfocusondemocraticproceduresandsimpleequityinmeetinghumanneeds.Lettherebenodoubtthatthetechnologicalresourcesthatmakeitpossiblefor

peopletochoosetheirownlifestylesandhavethefreetimetoparticipatefullyina democratic politics are absolutely necessary for the libertarian, confederallyorganizedsocietythatIhavesketchedhere.Eventhebestofethicalintentionsarelikelytoyieldtosomeformofoligarchy,inwhichdifferentialaccesstothemeansof life will lead to elites who havemore of the good things in life than othercitizensdo.Onthisscore,theasceticismthatsomeleftistspromoteisinsidiouslyreactionary: not only does it ignore the freedomof people to choose their ownlifestyle—the only alternative in the existing society to becoming a mindlessconsumer—but it subordinates human freedom as such to an almost mysticalnotion of the dictates of “Nature.” A free ecological society—as distinguishedfromoneregulatedbyanauthoritarianecologicaleliteorbythe“freemarket”—can only be cast in terms of an ecologically confederal form of libertarianmunicipalism.When at length free communes replace the nation and confederalforms of organization replaces the state, humanity will have rid itself ofnationalism.

March1993

21Goethe,quotedinBertramD.Wolfe,ThreeWhoMadeaRevolution:ABiographicalHistory,3rdrev.ed.,NewYork:TheDialPress,1961,578.22Thucydides,ThePeloponnesianWar,book2,chapter4.23P.-J. Proudhon, letter toDulieu,December 30, 1860,Correspondence, vol. 10, 275, republished in S.

Edwards, ed., Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, trans. Elizabeth Frazer, Garden City, N.Y.:AnchorBooks,1969,185.24P.-J.Proudhon,LaFederationetl’uniteenItalie,1862,122–25,inEdwards,SelectedWritings,188–

89.25P.-J.Proudhon, letter toDulieu,December30,1860,Correspondence, vol. 10, 275–76, republished in

Edwards,SelectedWritings,185.26P.-J.Proudhon,lettertoAlexanderHerzen,April21,1861,Correspondence,vol.11,22–24,republished

inEdwards,SelectedWritings,191,emphasisintheoriginal.27P.Maximoff,ed.,ThePoliticalPhilosophyofBakunin:ScientificAnarchism,NewYork:FreePress

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ofGlencoe,London:Collier-MacmillanLtd.,1953,324–35,emphasisadded.28K.Marx,F.Engels, “Manifestoof theCommunistParty,”SelectedWorks, vol. 1,Moscow:Progress

Publishers,1969,120.29Ibid.,124.30 Despite the genderedness of these words—the product of the era in which Bakunin lived—they

obviouslymaybeinterpretedassignifyinghumanitygenerally.31P.Maximoff,ed.,ThePoliticalPhilosophyofBakunin:ScientificAnarchism,325.

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AnarchismandPowerintheSpanishRevolution

Today, when anarchism has become le mot du jour in radical circles, thedifferencesbetweenasocietybasedonanarchyandonebasedontheprinciplesofsocial ecology should be clearly distinguished. Authentic anarchism above allseeks the emancipation of individual personality from all ethical, political, andsocialconstraints.Insodoing,however, itfails toaddresstheall-importantandveryconcrete issueofpower,whichconfrontsall revolutionaries inaperiodofsocialupheaval.Ratherthanaddresshowthepeople,organizedintoconfederatedpopularassemblies,mightcapturepowerandcreateafullydevelopedlibertariansociety,anarchistsconceiveofpoweressentiallyasamalignantevilthatmustbedestroyed.Proudhon,forexample,oncestatedthathewoulddivideandsubdividepower until it, in effect, ceased to exist. Proudhonmaywell have intended thatgovernmentbe reduced to theminimumentity that couldexercise authorityoverthe individual,buthis statementperpetuates the illusion thatpowercanactuallyceasetoexist,anotionasabsurdastheideathatgravitycanbeabolished.Thetragicconsequencesofthisillusion,whichhasburdenedanarchismfromits

inception, can best be understood by examining a crucial event in the SpanishRevolutionof 1936.On July 21, theworkers ofCatalonia and especially of itscapitalBarcelona defeated the forces ofGeneral Francisco Franco and therebygained complete control over one of Spain’s largest and most industrializedprovinces, includingmany important cities along theMediterranean coast and aconsiderable agrarian area. Partly as the result of an indigenous libertariantradition and partly as a result of the influence exercised by Spain’s massrevolutionary-syndicalist trade union, the CNT-FAI, the Catalan proletariatproceeded to organize a huge network of defense, neighborhood, supply, andtransportation committees and assemblies. Meanwhile, in the countryside, themoreradicalpeasantry(asizablepartof theagrarianpopulation) tookoverandcollectivized the land. Catalonia and its population were protected against apossiblecounterattackbyarevolutionarymilitia,which,notwithstandingitsoftenarchaicweapons,was sufficientlywell armed tohavedefeated thewell-trainedand well-supplied rebel army and police force. The workers and peasants ofCatalonia had, in effect, shattered the bourgeois state machine and created aradically new government or polity in which they themselves exercised directcontroloverpublicandeconomicaffairsthroughinstitutionsoftheirownmaking.Putinverybluntterms,theyhadtakenpower—notbysimplychangingthenames

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ofexistingoppressiveinstitutionsbutbyliterallydestroyingthoseoldinstitutionsandcreating radicallynewoneswhose formand substancegave themasses theright todefinitivelydetermine theoperationsof the economyandpolityof theirregion.32Almostasamatterofcourse,militantmembersoftheCNTgavetheirunionthe

authority to organize a revolutionary government and provide it with politicaldirection.Notwithstanding their reputation for indiscipline, themajorityofCNTmembers,orcenetistas,were libertariansyndicalists rather thananarchists; theywere strongly committed to a well-structured, democratic, disciplined, andcoordinatedorganization.InJuly1936,theyactednotonlywithadueregardforideology but often on their own initiative to create their own libertarian forms,such as neighborhood councils and assemblies, factory assemblies, and a greatvarietyofextremelyloosecommittees,breakingthroughanypredeterminedmoldsthathadbeenimposedupontherevolutionarymovementbydogmaticideologues.On July 23, two days after the workers had defeated the local Francoist

uprising,aCatalanregionalplenumoftheCNTconvenedinBarcelonatodecidewhat to dowith the polity theworkers had placed in the union’s hands.A fewdelegates from themilitantBajodeLlobregat regionon theoutskirtsof the cityferventlydemandedthattheplenumdeclarelibertariancommunismandtheendoftheoldpoliticalandsocialorder;thatis, theworkersthattheCNTprofessedtoleadwereoffering togive theplenum thepower that theyhadalreadycapturedandthesocietytheirmilitantshadinfactbeguntotransform.By accepting the power thatwas being offered to it, the plenumwould have

beenobligedtochangetheentiresocialorderinaveryconsiderableandstrategicareaofSpainthatwasnowundertheCNT’sdefactocontrol.Evenifitwerenomorepermanent than the“ParisCommune,” sucha stepwouldhaveproduceda“BarcelonaCommune”ofevenmorememorabledimensions.But to the astonishmentofmanymilitants in theunion, theplenum’smembers

werereluctanttotakethisdecisivemeasure.TheBajodeLlobregatdelegatesandthe CNT militant Juan García Olivier, to their lasting credit, tried to get theplenum to claim the power it already possessed, but the oratory of FedericaMontseny and the arguments of Diego Abad de Santillán (two CNT leaders)persuadedtheplenumnot toundertake thismove,denouncingitasa“Bolshevikseizureofpower.”The monumental nature of this error should be fully appreciated because it

revealsallthatisinternallycontradictoryaboutanarchistideology.Byfailing todistinguishbetween a polity and a state, theCNT leaders (guided, for themostpart, by the anarchistic Abad de Santillán and Montseny) mistook a workers’governmentforacapitaliststate,therebyrejectingpoliticalpowerinCataloniaat

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atimewhenitwasalreadyintheirhands.Byrefusingtoexercisethepowertheyhad already acquired, the plenum did not eliminate power as such; it merelytransferred it from its own hands to those of itsmost treacherous “allies.” Theruling classes celebrated this fatal decision and slowly, by the autumnof 1936,wentontorefashionaworkers’government intoa“bourgeoisdemocratic”stateandopenthedoortoanincreasinglyauthoritarianStalinistregime.ThehistoricCNTplenum, it shouldbe emphasized, didnot simply reject the

power that the union’s ownmembers had won at a considerable cost in lives.Turningitsbackonacrucialfeatureofsocialandpoliticallife,ittriedtosupplantrealitywithadaydream,notonlybyrejectingthepoliticalpowerthattheworkershadalreadyplacedintheCNT’shands,butbydisavowingtheverylegitimacyofpowerandcondemningpowerassuch—eveninalibertarian,democraticform—as an unabated evil that must be effaced. In no instance did the plenum or theCNT’s leadership give the slightest evidence that it knewwhat to do “after therevolution,”tousethetitleofAbaddeSantillán’sutopiandisquisition.TheCNT,in effect, had propagated revolutions and theatrical uprisings for years; in theearly 1930s, it had takenup arms again and againwithout the least prospect ofactually being able to change Spanish society, but when at last it could finallyhave had a significant impact on society, it stood around with a puzzled look,orphanedbytheverysuccessofitsworking-classmembersinachievingthegoalsembeddedinitsrhetoric.Thiswasnotafailureofnerve; itwasafailureoftheCNT-FAI’stheoreticalinsightintothemeasuresitwouldhavehadtoundertaketokeepthepoweritactuallyhadacquired,indeed,thatitfearedtokeep(and,withinthe logical frameworkofanarchism, shouldneverhave taken)because it soughttheabolitionofpower,notsimplyitsacquisitionbytheproletariatandpeasantry.IfwearetolearnanythingfromthiscrucialerrorbytheCNTleadership,itis

thatpowercannotbeabolished;itisalwaysafeatureofsocialandpoliticallife.Powerthatisnotinthehandsofthemassesmustinevitablyfallintothehandsoftheiroppressors.Thereisnoclosetinwhichitcanbetuckedaway,noritualthatcanmakeitevaporate,norealmtowhichitcanbedispatched—andnoideologythatcanmakeitdisappearwithmoralincantations.Radicalsmaytrytoignoreit,astheCNTleadersdidinJuly1936,butitwillremainhiddenateverymeeting,lieconcealedinpublicactivities,andappearandreappearateveryrally.The truly pertinent issue that confronts anarchism is not whether powerwill

existbutwhetheritwillrestinthehandsofaneliteorinthehandsofthepeople—and whether it will be given a form that corresponds to the most advancedlibertarian idealsorbeplaced in the serviceof reaction.Rather than refuse thepowerofferedtoitbyitsownmembers,theCNTplenumshouldhaveaccepteditandlegitimatedandapprovedthenewinstitutionstheyhadalreadycreatedsothat

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theSpanishproletariatandpeasantrycouldretain theirpowereconomicallyandpolitically.Instead, the tension between rhetorical claims and painful realities finally

becameintolerable,andinMay1937,resoluteCNTworkersinBarcelonaweredrawnintoopenbattlewiththebourgeoisstateinabriefbutbloodywarwithinthecivilwar.33Intheend,thebourgeoisstatesuppressedthelastmajoruprisingof the syndicalist movement, butchering hundreds if not thousands of CNTmilitants.Howmanywerekilledwillneverbeknown,butwedoknowthat theinternallycontradictory ideologycalledanarchosyndicalism lost thegreaterpartofthefollowingithadpossessedinthesummerof1936.Socialrevolutionaries,farfromremovingtheproblemofpowerfromtheirfield

of vision, must address the problem of how to give power a concrete andemancipatoryinstitutionalform.Tobesilentonthisquestion,andtohidebehindsuperannuated ideologies that are irrelevant to our present-day overheatedcapitalistdevelopment,ismerelytoplayatrevolution,eventomockthememoryofthecountlessmilitantswhohavegiventheiralltoachieveit.

November2002

32Theserevolutionarysyndicalistsconceivedthemeansbywhichtheyhadcarriedoutthistransformationas a formof direct action. In contrast to the riots, stone throwing, and violence thatmany anarchists todayextolas“directaction,”bythistermtheymeantwell-organizedandconstructiveactivitiesdirectlyinvolvedinmanagingpublic affairs.Direct action, in their view,meant the creationof a polity, the formationof popularinstitutions, and the formulation and enactment of laws, regulations, and the like,which authentic anarchistsregardedasanabridgmentofindividual“will”or“autonomy.”33 In the intervening year, theCNT leaders had discovered that their rejection of power for theCatalan

proletariatandpeasantrydidnotincludearejectionofpowerforthemselvesasindividuals.SeveralCNT-FAIleaders actually agreed to participate in thebourgeois state asministers andwereholdingofficewhen theirmemberswerebeingsuppressedinthebattleofBarcelonainMay1937.

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TheFutureoftheLeft

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Left envisioned itself as havingreached an extraordinarydegreeof conceptual sophistication andorganizationalmaturity.Generally,whatwascalledleftismatthattimewassocialist,influencedtovaryingdegreesby theworksofKarlMarx.Thiswas especially the case inCentralEurope,butsocialismwasalsointermixedwithpopulistideasinEasternEuropeandwithsyndicalisminFrance,Spain,andLatinAmerica.IntheUnitedStates,alloftheseideasweremeldedtogether,forexample,inEugeneV.Debs’sSocialistPartyandintheIndustrialWorkersoftheWorld(IWW).On the eve of World War I, leftist ideas and movements had become so

advanced that they seemed positioned to seriously challenge the existence ofcapitalism,indeed,ofclasssocietyassuch.Thewordsfromthe“Internationale,”“Tisthefinalconflict,”acquiredanewconcretenessandimmediacy.Capitalismseemedfacedwithaninsurgencybytheworld’sexploitedclasses,particularlytheindustrialproletariat.Indeed,giventhescopeoftheSecondInternationalandthegrowthofrevolutionarymovementsintheWest,capitalismappearedtobefacingan unprecedented, international social upheaval. Many revolutionaries wereconvinced that a politicallymature andwell-organized proletariat could finallytake conscious control over social life and evolution to satisfy, not theparticularized elitist interests of a propertied minority class, but the generalinterestsofthemajority.The “Great War,” as it was called, actually did end amid socialistic

revolutions.Russiaestablisheda“proletariandictatorship,”premisedostensiblyon revolutionary Marxist principles. Germany, with the largest and mostideologicallyadvancedindustrialproletariatinEurope,wentthroughthreeyearsofMarxist-influencedrevolutionaryupheaval,whileBavaria,Hungary,andotherplacesexperiencedshort-livedinsurgencies.InItalyandSpain,theendofthewarsawtheemergenceofgreatstrikemovementsandnear-insurrections,althoughtheyneverreachedadecisiverevolutionarylevel.EvenFranceseemedtobeteeteringonrevolutionin1917,whenentireregimentsattheWesternFrontraisedredflagsand tried to make their way to Paris. Such upheavals, which recurred into the1930s,appearedtosupportLenin’sviewthata“moribund”capitalismhadfinallyentered into a period of war and revolution, one that in the foreseeable futurecouldendonlywiththeestablishmentofasocialistorcommunistsociety.By this time, moreover, major intellectual innovators, from Diderot and

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Rousseau through Hegel and Marx to an assortment of libertarian rebels, hadbrought secular and radical ideologies to a point where, sorted into a logicalwhole,theyprovidedtheframeworkforatrulycoherentbodyofideasthatgavearational meaning to historical development, combining a due recognition ofhumanity’smaterialneedswithitshopesforintellectualandsocialemancipation.Forthefirsttime,itseemed,withoutrecoursetodivineorotherarchaicnonhumanforms of intervention, humanity would finally be able to draw upon its ownadvancingintellectuality,knowledge,virtues,anduniquecapacityforinnovation,to create a newworld in which all the conditions would exist to actualize itspotentialityforfreedomandcreativity.Theseeminentlyhumangoals,embodiedinMarx’s great theoretical synthesis of the ideas he had drawn from theEnlightenment as well as new ideas he had developed on his own, could beinitiated in practice by the downtrodden themselves, who would be driveninexorably by the contradictions of capitalist society into revolution and theestablishmentofarationalsocietyforhumanityasawhole.I should note that many of my own words—“inexorably,” “moribund,”

“decaying,” and “general interests”—are drawn from the literature of earlytwentieth-centuryleftisttheoristsandmovements.Yet,whatevermaybethelimitsof this literature and its writers—as we, in the new millennium, are nowprivileged to see in retrospect—this sweeping languagewas not the product ofmeresloganeering;itwasderivedfromanintegratedandcoherentleftistoutlookandculture that appearedon theeveof theGreatWar.Thisoutlookandcultureformed what we can properly call a classical body of universalist ideas,continually enlarged by the generations that followed the French Revolution of1789to1794.Intheyearsthatpassed,thisbodyofideaswassteadilyenlargedbyexperience and succeeded in mobilizing millions of people into internationalmovementsforhumanemancipationandsocialreconstruction.Quite obviously, the Enlightenment goals and Lenin’s prognoses, with their

promise of successful socialist revolutions, were not to be realized in thetwentiethcentury. Indeed,whathasoccurred since themidpointof the twentiethcentury is a very different development: a period of cultural and theoreticaldecadencesofarasrevolutionaryideasandmovementsareconcerned;aperiodofdecomposition,infact,thathassweptupnearlyallthephilosophical,cultural,ethical,andsocialstandardsthattheEnlightenmenthadproduced.Formanyyoungpeoplewhoprofessed to hold a radical outlook in the 1960s and 1970s, leftisttheoryhas shriveled in scopeandcontent to the levelof spectatorial aesthetics,often focusedon the scatteredworksofpeople like the indecisive criticWalterBenjamin, the postmodernist Jacques Derrida, or the constipated structuralistLouisAlthusser,associal theoryhasretreatedfromthe lustydebatingforumsof

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1930ssocialismtothecloisteredseminarroomsofcontemporaryuniversities.Nowthatthetwentiethcenturyhascometoaclose,wearejustifiedinasking,

Whyhashumanity’s emancipation failed to achieve fruition?Why, inparticular,has the proletariat failed tomake its predicted revolution? Indeed,why did theonce-radical SocialDemocrats fail from their very inception to achieve even amajorityvote incenters suchasGermany?Whydid theysurrender so tamely toHitler in1933?TheGermanCommunists,ofcourse,weresimplyshuntedasideafter 1923, assuming they could even be taken seriously in that year, except ascontrived targets for demagogic propagandistic purposes to frighten themiddleclasseswiththemenaceofsocialdisorder.How, moreover, did capitalism manage to free itself from the “chronic

economic crisis” inwhich it seemed hopelesslymired during the 1930s?Why,especiallyafterWorldWarII,diditproduceadvancesintechnicssodazzlingthatbourgeoissocietyisnowundergoingapermanent“IndustrialRevolution”whoseresultsaredifficulttoforesee?Finally,whydiditcometopassthat,followingtheprofound economic and social crises of the 1930s, capitalism emerged from asecondworldwarasamorestableandmoresociallyentrenchedorderthanithadeverbeeninthepast?None of these events, so important in the predictive calculations of

revolutionary Marxists, have been adequately explained in a fundamental andhistoricalsense,notablytheprogressiverolethatMarxassignedtocapitalisminhis“stagestheory”ofhistory.34Instead,foryears,Marxistslargelyexpendedtheirpolemicalenergyinthrowingepithetsateachotherandatotherlabormovementsfortheir“betrayals”withoutaskingwhyMarxismwassovulnerabletobetrayalinthefirstplace.Inmorerecentyears,Marxistshavetriedtoappropriatefragmentsof ideas that belong to once-despised utopian ideologies, such as Fourierism(Marcuse,tociteonlyoneexample)ortootherideologies,suchassyndicalism,anarchism, ecology, feminism, and communitarianism, appropriating ill-fittingideological tenets from one or the other to refurbish their limited view of achangingbourgeoisrealityuntilwhatpassesforMarxismtodayisoftenapasticheoffragmentspatchedtogetherwithplanksfrombasicallyalienideologies.How, in short, did it come to pass that the classical era, marked by its

coherence and unity in revolutionary thought and practice, gave way to acompletely decadent era inwhich incoherence is celebrated, particularly in thename of a postmodernism that equates chaotic nihilism with freedom, self-expression,andcreativity—notunlikethechaosofthemarketplaceitself?Wecananswer these questions becausewe now enjoy over a half-century of hindsight.What the past fifty years have shown us is that the uniquely insurgent periodbetween1917and1939wasnotevidenceofcapitalistmorbidityanddecline,as

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Leninsurmised.Rather,itwasaperiodofsocialtransition.Duringthosedecades,theworldwas so tornby circumstantially created tensions thatLenin’sviewofcapitalismasadyingsocialorderseemedindeedconfirmedbyreality.Whatthisclassicalprognosisanditssupportingtheoreticalcorpusdidnottake

intoaccountwerevariousalternativedevelopments that facedcapitalismbeforetheoutbreakof theGreatWarandevenduringtheinterwarperiod—alternativesthatlaybeneaththetumultuoussurfaceoftheearlytwentiethcentury.TheclassicalLeftdidnotconsiderotherpossiblesocialtrajectoriesthatcapitalismcouldhavefollowed—and eventually did follow—thatwould allow for its stabilization. Itnot only failed to understand these new social trajectories but also failed toforesee, even faintly, the emergence of new issues that extended beyond thelargelyworker-orientedanalysisoftheclassicalLeft.For one thing, whatmakes somuch of the classical revolutionary prognoses

formulated by prewar and wartime socialism seem paradoxical is that the“moribund” period in which many classical leftists anchored their hopes forrevolutionwas still not even a period of “mature” capitalism, let alone one of“dying” capitalism. The era before the Great War was one in which massproduction, republican systems of government, and so-called “bourgeois-democratic”libertieswerestillemergingfromachrysalisofprecapitalistformsof craft production and commerce, state structures ruled by royal families andcourts,andeconomiesinwhichennobledlandlordssuchastheGermanJunkers,British aristocrats, and Latin Grandees coexisted with a huge, technicallybackward peasant population. Even where most great estates were owned bybourgeoiselements,as inSpain, theirmanagementofagriculturewasconductedlethargically,emulatingthediffidenteconomichabits thatcharacterizedparasiticagrarian elites of a precapitalist era. Capitalism, while it was the dominanteconomyoftheUnitedStates,GreatBritain,Germany,moreambiguouslyFrance,andonlymarginallyinotherEuropeancountries,wasstillsubordinatedculturallyandevenstructurallytoelitestrata,oftenbasedonkinship,thatweremorefeudalthanbourgeois,andmarkedbytherentierandmilitaristicvaluesthatdistinguishedawaningera.Ineffect,evenmodernindustry,whilebecomingcentraltothedevelopmentof

major nation-states in the early twentieth century,was still anchored in a craft-peasantsocialmatrix.Theownershipoflandandofsmall-scaleworkshops,oftenfamilymanaged, formed the traditional featuresofsocial status inaverystatus-riddenworld,suchasinEnglandandGermany.Itishardtorecalltodayhowlowtherealstatusofwomenwasduringtheearly1900s;howdegradedwasthestatusofpropertyless,oftenmendicantworkers;howeagerlyevensubstantialcapitaliststriedtomarryintotitledfamilies;howfeeblewereelementarycivillibertiesina

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world that acknowledged thevalidityof inheritedprivilege and the authorityofmonarchs; and how embattledwas the industrially regimented proletariat (oftenremovedbyagenerationortwofromvillagelifewithitsmorenaturallife-ways)initseffortstomerelyorganizereformisttradeunions.TheGreatWar,amonstrouseventthatwasasmuch,ifnotmore,theproductof

dynastic ambitions, military obtuseness, and the awesome authority allowed topreening monarchs as it was of economic imperialism, was not a “historicalnecessity.” An entangled Europe, caught up in Kaiser Wilhelm II’s juvenileposturing and dizzying images of German national grandeur, the blind spirit ofFrenchrevanchismefollowingthecountry’slossofAlsaceandLorrainein1871to theWilhelmineReich, and the naïve nationalism of themasses,whose classinternationalismwasoftenmorerhetoricalthanreal—allledtoahorribleformoftrenchwarfarethatshouldhavebeenunendurabletoanycivilizedpeoplewithinafewmonthsafteritbegan,letaloneforfourbloodyyears.TheDeutscheMark,thepostwar German currency and emblematic expression of German capitalism,managed to perform economic prodigies that neither Wilhelm nor Hitler’sbayonets could hope to perform during the last century—so different are thealternativesthatthepostwarerafinallyrevealed!Yet, ironically, it was not the battlefront in theGreatWar that generated the

revolutions of 1917–18; itwas the rear,where hungermanaged to dowhat theterrifyingexplosives,machineguns,tanks,andpoisongasatthefrontneverquitesucceeded in achieving—a revolution over issues such as bread and peace (inprecisely that order). It is breathtaking to consider that, after three years ofconstantbloodletting,mutilation,andincredibledailyfear,theGermanstrikesofJanuary1918 that had thepungentodorof revolution actually subsided, and theGermanworkersremainedpatientlyquiescentwhenGeneralLudendorff’sspringand summer offensives of that year gained substantial ground from French andBritish troops in theWest to the “greater glory” of theReich. Somuch for the“revolutionary instincts”of thepeople,whichBakuninwaswont tocelebrate. Itspeaksvolumesthat,despitethehorrorsoftheGreatWar,themasseswentalongwiththeconflictuntilitwascompletelyunendurablematerially.Suchisthepowerofadaptation,tradition,andhabitineverydaylife.NotwithstandingtheRussianRevolution,theGreatWarcametoanendwithout

overthrowingEuropeancapitalism,letaloneworldcapitalism.Thewaractuallyrevealed that theclassical traditionof socialismwasvery limited and, inmanyrespects, greatly in need of repair. Understandably, Lenin and Trotsky tried toforeshorten historical development and bring about the likelihood of socialismwithin their own life spans, although this is less true of Luxemburg andparticularly ofMarx, whowas farmore critical ofMarxism than his acolytes.

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Indeed,Marxwasatpainstowarnthatithadtakencenturiesforfeudalismtodieand for capitalism to emerge, hence, Marxists should hardly expect that thebourgeoisie would be overthrown in a year, a decade, or even a generation.Trotskywas farmore sanguine thanLenin in his conviction that capitalismwas“moribund,” “decaying,” “rotting,” and otherwise falling apart, and that theproletariatwasgrowing“stronger,”or“moreclassconscious,”or“organized”—butitmatterslittletodaytodwellonhisexpectationsandprognoses.Nevertheless,theGreatWar,whilenotcompletelysweepingthehistoricalslate

clean of the feudal detritus that contributed so greatly to its outbreak, left theWestern world in a cultural, moral, and political stupor. An era was clearlyending,butitwasnotcapitalismthatwasfacedwithimminentoblivion.Whatwasdisappearingwas the traditional, time-worn status and class systemof a feudalpast,yetwithoutanyfullydevelopedformofcapitalismtotakeitsplace.WiththeGreatDepression,Britishlandlordismbegantoenterintohard,evendevastatingtimes, but it had not completely disappeared during the 1930s. The PrussianJunkerswerestillincommandoftheGermanarmyatthebeginningofthe1930sand, thanks to vonHindenburg’s election as president of theGerman state, stillenjoyedmanyoftheprivilegesofanestablishedeliteearlyintheHitlerperiod.Butthisonce-haughtystratumwaseventuallyfacedwiththechallengeofHitler’sGleichschaltung,theprocessofsociallevelingthatfinallydegradedthePrussianofficercaste.Intheend,itwastheAnglo-AmericanandRussianarmiesthatsweptthe Junkers away by seizing their estates in the East and dissolving them as asocioeconomic entity. France was fighting its last battles as a middle-classrepublicduringthemid-1930s,withCatholicreactionariesandthebloodedyoungfascistsoftheCroixdeFeu,whoaspiredtoanaristocraticGallicismledbyrichandtitledleaders.Thus, the interwar decades were a stormy period of transition between a

decliningquasi-feudalworld, already shatteredbutnotburied, andan emergingbourgeoisworld,which,despiteitsvasteconomicpower,hadstillnotpenetratedintoeveryporeofsocietyanddefinedthebasicvaluesofthecentury.Infact,theGreatDepressionshowed that thepedestrianmaxim“money isn’teverything” istruewhenthereisnomoneytogoaround.Indeed,theDepressionthrewmuchoftheworld, especially theUnitedStates, intoadisorderlyone that resembled itsown hectic populist era of the 1870s and 1880s, hence the flare-up of tradeunionism, violent strikes, great demonstrations, and “Red” agitation that sweptovertheAmericanandEuropeancontinentsinthe1930s.Inthissociallyhyperactivebutindecisiveperiodofsocialtensionsbetweenthe

old andnew,when the ruling classes aswell as thedominatedmasses lived inmurderousantipathytowardeachother,historyunlockedthedoortorevolutionary

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upheavals. Amid the uncertainty of a tension-filled world, the fulfillment ofMarx’s dream—a democratic workers’ system of government—seemedachievable. As a result of the strife that existed within that interwar period, itappearedthatcapitalismhadcollapsedeconomicallyandaworldwidemovementtowardademocratic,possiblylibertariansocialistsocietywasachievable.Buttocreate such a society required a highly conscious movement with an ableleadershipandaclear-eyedsenseofpurpose.Tragically,nosuchmovementappeared.Grosslypragmaticbureaucratssuchas

Friedrich Ebert and Philip Scheidemann, and pedestrian theorists such as KarlKautsky and Rudolf Hilferding, assumed the deflated mantle of the SocialistInternational and set its tone up until the rise of German fascism. Shortlyafterward,StalinintervenedineverypotentiallyrevolutionarysituationinEuropeand poisoned it to serve Russia’s (and his own) interests. The prestige of theBolshevik revolution, to which this tyrant contributed absolutely nothing andwhich he defamedwhen he came to power,was still not sufficiently sullied toallow the classical Left to create its own authentic movements and expand itsvisiontoaccordwithemergingsocialissuesthatreflectedchangesincapitalismitself.Whatmust nowbe acknowledged is that between1914 and1945, capitalism

was enlarging its foundations with mass manufacture and new industries, notdiggingitsgraveasLeninandTrotskyhadopined.Itsstatusasadominantworldeconomyand society still lay before it in 1917, not behind it.And itwouldbesheermyopianottoseethatcapitalismisstillindustrializingtheworld—agrarianas well as urban—which is basically what the word “globalization” means.Moreover, it is still eroding the particularisms that divide human beings on thebasis of nationalism, religion, and ethnicity.Most of the “fundamentalisms” and“identitypolitics”eruptingintheworldtodayareessentiallyreactionsagainsttheencroaching secularism and universalism of a business-oriented, increasinglyhomogenizing capitalist civilization that is slowly eating away at a deeplyreligious, nationalistic, and ethnic heritage. The commodity is still performingprodigiesofsocialerosioninprecapitalistcultures,betheyforgoodorbad,suchas Marx and Engels described in the first part of The Communist Manifesto.Wheresanityandreasondonotguidehumanaffairs,tobesure,thegoodisnearlyalways polluted by the bad, and it is the function of any serious revolutionarythinker to separate the two in the hope of unearthing the rational tendency in asocialdevelopment.At the same time, capitalism is not only homogenizing old societies and

remakingtheminitsurbanized,commodity-orientedimage;itisdoingthesametotheplanetandthebiosphere in thenameof“mastering”theforcesof thenatural

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world.Thisispreciselythe“historicallyprogressive”rolethatMarxandEngelsassigned, in a celebratory manner, to the capitalist mode of production. How“progressive”thisprocessofhomogenizationis,infact,remainstobeseen.Forthe present, it behooves us to examine the failure of Marxism and anarchism(arguablythetwoprincipalwingsoftherevolutionarytradition)todealwiththetransitionalnatureofthetwentiethcentury.In the post–WorldWar II period, theweakest elements inMarx’s schema of

history, class struggle, capitalist development, and political activity have beensubjectedtopenetratingcriticalexamination.35TheMarxiancanontothecontrary,history,viewedasawhole,cannotbereducedtoeconomicfactorsasMarxtriedtodoinhiskeyworks,althoughcapitalismmaywellbemutatingHomosapiensintoHomoconsumerans and fostering the tendency amongmasses of people toexperiencerealityasahugemarket.Marx’sbasicviewsmayhaveprovidedhisacolytes with the necessary or preconditional causes for social development—admittedlymaterialoreconomiccauses—buttheyfailedtoexplaintheenormousrole of the efficient causes; the immediate causes, such as culture, politics,morality, juridical practices, and the like (which Marx denoted as a“superstructural”)forproducingsocialchange.Indeed,whatelsebesides“superstructural”(particularlymoral,religious,and

political) factors can explain why the development of capitalism, elements ofwhichhadalwaysexistedinvaryingdegreesinagrarianandcrafteconomies,wasarrestedforthousandsofyearsandbecameamajoreconomyinonlyonecountry,England, early in the nineteenth century? Or why revolutions occur only underconditionsofcompletesocialbreakdown,that is,afteravastbodyofmassivelyinfluential superstructural belief systems (often accepted in their timeas eternalrealities) are shattered. Marx was not oblivious to the extent to which beliefsystems override bourgeois forces in precapitalist societies, especially in hisdiscussions on the predominance of agrarian values over urban ones in hisGrundrisse.Verysignificantly,Marxistswereriddledbyconflictsoverthestatusof capitalism at various points in its development, especially during the earlytwentiethcentury,whenthebourgeoisiefacedoneof thestormiestperiodsof itshistorypreciselybecausecapitalismhadnotfullyshedthetrappingsoffeudalismandcome“completelyintoitsown,”sotospeak.How,forexample,was itpossibleformanyMarxists to insist thatcapitalism

wasindeclineatatimewhenmajortechnicalinnovationslikemassmanufacture,radically new forms of transportation such as the automobile, advances inelectricalandelectronicmachinesandgoods,andnewchemicalinnovationswereoccurringinthedecadedirectlyfollowingtheGreatWar?HadMarxnotwritten,after all, that “No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces

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[technology]forwhichthereisroominithavedeveloped”?36Couldthisbesaidof capitalism in 1914–18 and 1939–45? Indeed, will it ever be said of thecapitalistmode of production in the future? In asking these questions, I am nottryingtosuggest thatcapitalismwillneverproduceproblemsthatnecessitate itsoverthroworreplacement.Mypurposeis,rather,tosuggestthattheproblemsthatmaywellturnmostofhumanityagainstcapitalismmaynotnecessarilybestrictlyeconomiconesorrootedinclassissues.Arguable asMarx’s productivist interpretation of social development and its

futuremaybe,itbecomesaveryforcedandartificial,evencontorted,explanationofhistoryifitisnotgreatlymodifiedbythedialecticofideas,thatis,bypoliticaland social ideology,morality and ethics, law, juridical standards, and the like.Marxism has yet to forthrightly acknowledge that these different spheres of lifehave their owndialectic, indeed, that theycanunfold from inner forcesof theirown and not simply result from a productivist dialectic called the “materialistinterpretation of history.”Moreover, it has yet to emphasize that a dialectic ofethics or religion can profoundly affect the dialectic of productive forces andproductionrelations. Is itpossible, forexample, to ignore thefact thatChristiantheology led logically to a growing respect for individual worth and finally toradical conceptions of social freedom—a dialectic that in turn profoundlyinfluencedsocialdevelopmentbyaltering thewayhumanbeings interactedwitheachotherandwiththematerialworld?BythetimeoftheFrenchRevolution,centuriesofdeeplyentrenchedideason

property, suchas the enormousesteem that accompanied theownershipof land,were interminglingandmodifyingseeminglyobjectivesocial forces,suchas thegrowthofanincreasinglycapitalisticmarket.Asaresult,theexaltedimageoftheindependent,oftenself-sufficientpeasantwhobegantoemergeinthewakeoftheRevolutionwithhissmallbitofpropertyandhiscraft-orientedvillage,actuallyinhibited capitalist economic development in France well into the nineteenthcentury by closing off large parts of the domesticmarket to commoditiesmassproduced in the cities. The image of the French Revolution as a “bourgeois”revolution that fostered a capitalist development at home is arguably morefictitiousthanreal,althoughinthelongrun,itcreatedmanypreconditionsfortheriseoftheindustrialbourgeoisie.Inshort,byeducingthedialecticofhistoryalongoverwhelminglyproductivist

lines, Marx easily deceived himself as well as his most important followers,notably Lenin and Trotsky, about capitalism’s morbidity by assuming that thebourgeoisiehadfinallypreparedalltheeconomicpreconditionsforsocialismandhencewasreadytobereplacedbysocialism.Whatheignoredwasthatmanyofthe problems, contradictions, and antagonisms he imputed almost exclusively to

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capitalismwere,infact,theproductoflingeringfeudaltraitsthatsocietyhadnotshed;moreover, that the seemingly “superstructural” institutions and values thathad characterized precapitalist societies played a major role in defining aseeminglypredominantcapitalistsocietythatwasstillaborning.Onthisscore,theanarchistswererightwhentheycallednotsomuchfortheeconomicimprovementoftheproletariatasforitsmoraldevelopmentasvitaltotheformationofafreesociety—improvementsMarxists largelybrushedasideas issues that fellwithinthedomainof“privatelife.”MarxandMarxismalsofailuswhentheyfocusoverwhelminglyontheworking

class, even enhancing its social weight by presumably elevating transparentlypettybourgeoiselements suchas salariedwhite-collaremployees toproletarianstatuswhenindustrialworkersareevidentlydecliningnumerically.Nordoestheauthenticproletariat,whichassumedanalmostmysticalclassstatusintheheydayof Marxism, act as though it is a uniquely hegemonic historical agent in theconflictwithcapitalismasasystem.Nothingprovedtobemoremisleadingintheadvanced industrial countriesof theworld than themyth that theworkingclass,when appealed to as an economic class, could see beyond the immediateconditionsofitsgivenlife-ways—thefactoryandbourgeoisformsofdistribution(exchange).37 It consistentlyadopted reformistprogramsdesigned togainhigherwages,shorterworkingdays,longervacations,andimprovedworkingconditionsuntil thunderous events drove it to revolutionary action, together, it should beadded, with nonproletarian strata. Virtually none of the classical socialistmovements,itisworthnoting,appealedtotheworkersaspeople:asparents,citydwellers, brothers and sisters, and individuals trying to live decent lives in adecentenvironmentforthemselvesandtheiroffspring.MostconventionalMarxisttheoriststothecontrary,theworkerisfirstofalla

humanbeing, not simply the embodiment of “social labor,” definable in strictlyclassterms.Thefailureofclassicalsocialismtomakeahumanandcivicappealtotheworker—eventoseriouslyconsiderhimorherasmorethanaclassbeing—created awarped relationship between socialist organizations and their alleged“constituency.” Although classical Social Democracy, especially the GermanSocial Democrats, providedworkers with a highly varied cultural life of theirown,fromeducationalactivitiestosportsclubs,theproletariatwasusuallyboxedintoaworldboundedbyaconcernforitsmostimmediatematerialinterests.Evenin thepre–WorldWar II cultural centersof the socialists, suchas thecasas delpuebloestablishedbytheSpanishSocialists,itwasfedprimarilyondiscussionsofitsexploitationanddegradationbythecapitalistsystem,whichinanycase,itexperienced daily in factories and workshops. The attempt to redefine theproletariatandmakeitamajorityofanationalpopulationlostallcredibilitywhen

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capitalism began to create a huge “salariat” of office employees, managers,salespeople, and an army of service, engineering, advertising, media, andgovernmental personnel who saw themselves as a new middle class, deeplyinvested in bourgeois property through stocks, bonds, real estate, pensions, andthelike,howeverminorthesemayseembycomparisonwiththebigbourgeoisie.Finally, a very significant failing of Marxism when it came to building a

revolutionary movement was its commitment to the statist acquisition andmaintenance of parliamentary power. By the late 1870s, Marx and Engels haddeveloped into “Red Republicans,” notwithstanding Marx’s encomiums to theParisian Communards and their quasi-anarchist vision of a confederal form ofgovernment. What is often ignored is that Marx disclaimed these encomiumsshortly before his death a decade later.Doubtless,Marx’s vision of a republicwas marked by more democratic features than any that existed in Europe andAmericaduringhislifetime.Hewouldhavefavoredtherighttorecalldeputiesatalllevelsofthestate,aswellasminimalbureaucracyandamilitiasystembasedonworking-classrecruits.Butnoneoftheinstitutionsheattributedtoasocialiststate were incompatible with those of a “bourgeois-democratic” state. Notsurprisingly,hebelievedthatsocialismcouldbevotedintopowerinEngland,theUnited States, and the Netherlands, a list to which Engels years later addedFrance.Invowingthatonlyinsurrectionandacompleterestructuringofthestatewere

compatible with socialism, Lenin and Luxemburg, among others (especiallyTrotsky),decidedlydepartedfromMarxandEngels’spoliticalideasintheirlateyears.At least in trying toworkwithin republican institutions, the early SocialDemocratsweremoreconsistentlyMarxist thanwere their revolutionarycritics.TheyviewedtheGermanRevolutionof1918–19asanindispensablepreliminaryto the creation of a republican system that would open a peaceful but, moresignificant,institutionallysoundroadtosocialism.Thatworkers’councilssuchastheRussiansovietsandGermanRäteweremoreradicallydemocraticalsomadethem frightening as institutionalmeasures,more akin to anarchism and certainlyBolshevismthantoaparliamentelectedbyuniversalsuffrage.AlthoughayoungerMarxwouldhavefoundastatestructuredaroundcouncilsmoretohistaste,thereislittletoshowinhislaterwritings(apartfromhisflirtationwiththelibertarianfeatures of the ParisCommune) that hewould have “smashed the state,” to useLenin’sterminology,tothepointofrejectingparliamentarygovernment.Does this mean that anarchist precepts, spawned nearly two centuries ago,

provideasubstituteforMarxism?Afterfortyyearsoftryingtoworkwiththisideology,myownveryconsidered

opinion is that such a hope, which I entertained as early as the 1950s, is

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unrealizable.Nor do I feel that this is due only to the failings of the so-called“new anarchism,” spawned in recent years by young activists. The problemsraisedbyanarchismbelong to thedaysof itsbirth,whenwriters likeProudhoncelebrateditsuseasanewalternativetotheemergingcapitalistsocialorder.Inreality,anarchismhasnocoherentbodyoftheoryotherthanitscommitmenttoanahistoricalconceptionof“personalautonomy,”thatis,totheself-willing,asocialego, divested of constraints, preconditions, or limitations short of death itself.Indeed,today,manyanarchistscelebratethistheoreticalincoherenceasevidenceof the highly libertarian nature of their outlook and its often dizzying, if notcontradictory, respect for diversity. It is primarily by giving priority to anideologicallypetrifiednotionofan“autonomousindividual”thatanarchistsjustifytheiroppositionnotonlytothestatebuttoanyformofconstraint,law,andoftenorganizationanddemocraticdecision-makingbasedonmajorityvoting.Allsuchconstraints are dismissed in principle as forms of “coercion,” “domination,”“government,”andeven“tyranny”—oftenasthoughthesetermswerecoequalandinterchangeable.Nor do anarchist theorists take cognizance of the social and historical

conditions that limit or modify the ability to attain “Anarchy,” which is oftendescribedasahighlypersonalaffairorevenanepisodicor“ecstatic”experience.Followed to its logical conclusion, indeed to its most fundamental premises,Anarchyisessentiallyamoraldesideratum,a“wayoflife,”asoneanarchistputitto me, independent of time or place. Anarchy, we are justified in concluding,emergesfromtheexerciseofpurewill.Presumably,whenenoughwillsconvergeto “adopt”Anarchy, itwill simplybe like the soil that remainsbeneathmeltingsnow, as one British anarchist put it. This revelatory interpretation of howAnarchymakesitsappearanceintheworldliesatthecoreoftheanarchistvision.Anarchy, it would appear, has always been “there,” as Isaac Puente, the mostimportant theorist of Spanish anarchism in the 1930s, put it, save that it wasconcealedovertheagesbyahistoricallyimposedlayerofinstitutions,entrenchedexperiences, and values that are typified by the state, civilization, history, andmorality. Somehow, it must merely be restored from its unsullied past like ahiddengeologicalstratum.This summary easily explains the emphasis on primitivism and the notion of

“recovery”thatonesooftenencountersinanarchistwriting.Recoveryshouldbedistinguished from thenotionsof discovery and innovation thatmodern thinkingandrationalismwereobligedtocounterposetothepremodernbeliefthattruthandvirtue in all their aspects were already in existence but concealed by anoppressive or obfuscating historical development and culture. Anarchists couldjust as easily use this formulation to justify social passivity rather than protest.

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Onehadonlytolet the“snow”(thatis, thestateandcivilization)meltawayforAnarchy to be restored, a view that may well explain the pacifism that is sowidespreadamonganarchiststhroughouttheworldtoday.In recent years, some anarchists have singled out civilization, technics, and

rationalityasthegreatestfailingsofthehumanconditionandarguetheymustbereplacedbyamoreprimitive,presumably“authentic”culturethateschewsalltheattainmentsofhistoryinordertorestorehumanity’sprimal“harmony”withitselfand an almost mystical “Nature.” Insofar as anarchists currently espouse thisview, they have actually returned anarchism to its true home after its centuries-long meanderings through the mazes of syndicalism and other basically aliensocial causes. Proudhon’s wistful image of the self-sufficient peasant farm orvillage, wisely presided over by an all-knowing paterfamilias, is finallyrecovered;this,Iwouldadd,atatimewhentheworldismoreinterdependentandtechnologicallysophisticatedthanatanyotherinhistory.Inasmuch as anarchism emphasizes primitivism as against acculturation,

recoveryasagainstdiscovery,autarchyasagainstinterdependence,andnaturismas against civilization—often rooting its conceptual apparatus in a “natural,”conceivably “basic” ahistorical autonomous ego, freed of the rationalism andtheoreticalburdenof“civilization”—itinfactstandsinmarkedcontrasttotherealego, which is always located in a given temporal, technological, cultural,traditional,intellectual,andpoliticalenvironment.Indeed,theanarchistversionofthe stripped-down, indeed, vacuous, ego disturbingly resembles Homer’sdescription of the lotus eater in theOdyssey, who, while eating the lotus fruit,slipsintoanindolenceofforgetfulness,atemporality,andblissfulnessthatactuallyrepresentstheveryannihilationofpersonalityandselfhood.Historically, this“autonomousego”became thebuildingblock thatanarchists

usedtocreatevariousmovement-typestructuresthatoftengaveitahighlysocialand revolutionary patina. Syndicalism, to cite themost important case in point,became the architectural form in which these blocks were most commonlyarranged—notasadefiningfoundationforananarchistmovementbutasahighlyunstable superstructure.Whenworkers in the closing decades of the nineteenthcentury became actively involved in socialism, unionism, organization,democracy, and everyday struggles for better living and working conditions,anarchism took on the form of a radical trade unionism. This association wasprecarious at best. Although both shared the same libertarian ambience,syndicalism existed in sharp tension with the basic individualism that pureanarchistsprized,oftenabove—andagainst—allorganizationalinstitutions.Both ideologies—Marxismand anarchism—emergedat timeswhen industrial

societieswerestill intheir infancyandnation-stateswerestill intheprocessof

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beingformed.WhileMarxtriedtoconceptualizesmall-scale,oftenwell-educatedParisian craftsmen as “proletarians,”Bakunin’s imaginationwas caught upwithimagesofsocialbanditsandpeasantjacqueries.Bothmen,tobesure,contributedvaluable insights to revolutionary theory, but they were revolutionaries whoformulatedtheirideasinasociallylimitedtime.Theycouldhardlybeexpectedtoanticipatetheproblemsthatemergedduringthehecticcenturythatfollowedtheirdeaths. A major problem facing radical social thought and action today is todeterminewhat canbe incorporated from their time into a new, highlydynamiccapitalistera thathas longtranscendedtheoldsemifeudalworldof independentpeasants and craftsmen; a new era, also, that has largely discarded the textile–metal–steam engine world of the Industrial Revolution, with its burgeoningpopulationoftotallydispossessedproletarianmasses.Theirplacehasbeentakeningreatpartbytechnologiesthatcanreplacelaborinnearlyallspheresofworkandprovideadegreeofabundanceinthemeansoflifethatthemostimaginativeutopiansofthenineteenthcenturycouldnothaveanticipated.Butjustasadvancesinanirrationalsocietyalwaystaint themostvaluableof

humanachievementswithevil,sotootheIndustrialRevolutionhasproducednewproblemsandpotential crises that call fornewmeans todealwith them.Thesenew means must go beyond mere protest if they are not to suffer the fate ofmovementssuchas theLuddites,whocouldoffer littlemorethanareturnto thepastbytryingtodestroythetechnicalinnovationsoftheirera.AnyassessmentoftherevolutionarytraditionimmediatelyraisesthequestionofthefutureoftheLeftinasocialenvironmentthatisnotonlybesetbynewproblemsbutdemandsnewsolutions.Whatapproachcanincorporatethebestoftherevolutionarytradition—Marxismandanarchism—inwaysand forms that speak to thekindofproblemsthatfacethepresent?Indeed,inviewoftheremarkabledynamismofthetwentiethcentury and the likelihood that changes in the new one will be even moresweeping,itnowbehoovesustospeculateabouttheanalysesthatwillexplainitsforthcomingdevelopment,thekindofcrisesitislikelytoface,andtheinstitutions,methods,andmovementsthatcanhopetorendersocietyrationalandnourishingasan arena for human creativity. Above all, wemust think beyond the immediatepresentanditsproximatepastbytryingtoanticipateproblemsthatmaylieatleastageneration,ifnotfurther,beyondahighlytransitorypresent.WhatremainsverycontemporaryinMarx’swritings,evenafteracenturyanda

half, is the insight theybring to thenatureofcapitalistdevelopment.Marx fullyexplored the competitive forces that inhere in the buyer-seller exchange, arelationshipthat,undercapitalism,compelsthebourgeoisietocontinuallyexpandits enterprises and operations. Ever since the capitalist economy becameprevalentoverasizableareaoftheworld,ithasbeenguidedbythecompetitive

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marketimperativeof“growordie,”leadingtocontinualindustrialexpansionandthe consolidation of competing concerns into ever-larger, quasi-monopolisticcomplexes.Wouldtheprocessofcapitalconcentrationculminateinaworldwideeconomy under the tutelage of a few or of a single corporate entity, therebyterminating the process of accumulation and bringing capitalism to an end? Orwouldcapitalexpansion(that is,globalization)solevelmarketdifferentials thatthe exchangeof commodities as a sourceof accumulationbecomes impossible?ThesewereserioustopicsofdiscussionduringtheheydayofclassicalMarxism.Theyremainconundrumstoday.Today, we can say for certain that existing quasi-monopolistic complexes

furiously accelerate the rate at which society undergoes economic and socialchange.Notonlydofirmsexpandatanever-increasingpace,eitherannihilatingorabsorbingtheircompetitors,butthecommoditiestheyproduceandtheresourcesthey devour affect every corner of the planet. Globalization is not unique tomodern capitalist industry and finance; the bourgeoisie has been eating itswayinto isolated and seemingly self-contained cultures for centuries and, eitherdirectly or indirectly, transforming them. What is unusual about present-dayglobalizationisthescaleonwhichitisoccurringandthefar-reachingimpactitishaving on cultures that once seemed to be insulated from modern commodityproduction and trade and from nation-state sovereignty. Now the presumably“quaint”traitsofprecapitalistpeopleshavebeenturnedintomarketableitemstotitillate Western tourists who pay exorbitant prices to enjoy a presumably“primitive”itemorexperience.Marxandhisfollowersconsideredthisprocessofexpandingindustrialization

andmarketrelationstobeaprogressivefeatureofthecapitalist“stage”ofhistory,and they expected that it would eventually eliminate all preexisting territorial,cultural,national,andethnic tiesandreplace themwithclasssolidarity, therebyremoving obstacles to the development of revolutionary internationalism.Commodification,Marx famously emphasized, turns everything solid into air. Itonceeliminatedtheeconomicexclusivityofguildsandothereconomicbarrierstoinnovation,anditcontinuestocorrodeart,crafts,familialties,andallthebondsofhumansolidarity—indeed,all thehonoredtraditions thatnourishedthehumanspirit.Marx saw the homogenizing effects of globalization as destructive insofar as

they dissolved the meaningful relationships and sentiments that knitted societytogether;buthisformulationwasnotonlyacritique.Healsosawtheseeffectsasprogressiveinsofarastheyclearedawayprecapitalistandparticularisticdetritus.Today, radicals emphasize that the worldwide invasion of the commodity intosociety isoverwhelminglydestructive.Capitalism (not simplyglobalizationand

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corporatization) not only turns everything solid into air but replaces earliertraditionswithdistinctlybourgeoisattributes.ImplicitinMarx’sremarkswasthebelief that globalized capitalismwouldprovide the futurewith a clean slateonwhich to inscribe theoutlinesof a rational society.But as capitalismwrites itsmessage of uniquely bourgeois values, it creates potentially monstrousdevelopments thatmaywell undermine social life itself. It supplants traditionalties of solidarity and community with an all-pervasive greed, an appetite forwealth,asystemofmoralaccountingfocusedon“thebottomline,”andaheartlessdisregardforthedesperationofthepoor,aged,andphysicallydisabled.Notthatgreedandheartlessnesswereabsentfromcapitalisminthepast.Butin

an earlier time, the bourgeoisie was relatively marginal and vulnerable to thepatronizingoutlookofthelandednobility;preindustrialvaluesmoreorlessheldcapitalistsincheck.Thenthemarketeconomyrenderedincreasinglyprevalentanunbridled capitalist spirit of self-aggrandizement and unfeeling exploitation.Naked bourgeois greed and heartlessness, illuminated by the vigilance of greatwriters such as Balzac andDickens, produced a wave of revulsion that sweptoverthepeopleexposedtoit. Inpastepochs, therichwereneitheradmirednorturnedintoembodimentsofvirtue.Thehonoredvirtueofmostoftheprecapitalistworld,rather,wasnotself-aggrandizementbutself-sacrifice,notaccumulatingbutgiving,howevermuchthesevirtueswerehonoredinthebreach.But today, capitalism has penetrated into all aspects of life. Greed, an

inordinateappetiteforwealth,anaccountingmentality,andadisdainfulviewofpovertyandinfirmityhavebecomeamoralpathology.Underthesecircumstances,bourgeois traits are the celebrated symbols of the “beautiful people” and,moresubtly, of yuppified baby boomers. These values percolate into less fortunatestrata of the population who, depending upon their own resources, view thefortunatewithenvy,evenawe,andguiltilytargetthemselvesfortheirownlackofprivilegeandstatusas“ne’er-do-wells.”In this newembourgeoisement, the dispossessedharbor no class antagonisms

towardthe“richandbeautiful”(auniquejuxtaposition)butratheresteemthem.Atpresent,poorandmiddle-classpeoplearelesslikelytoviewthebourgeoisiewithhatred than with servile admiration; they increasingly see the ability to makemoney and accrue wealth not as indicative of a predatory disposition and theabsenceofmoralscruples,aswasthecaseafewgenerationsago,butasevidenceof innateabilitiesandintelligence.Newsstandsandbookstoresarefilledwithamassive literaturecelebrating the lifestyles,careers,personalaffairs,andrichesofthenewwealthy,whoareheldupasmodelsofachievementandsuccess.Thatthese“celebrities”ofpostmodernitybubbleupfromobscurityisanaddedasset:itsuggests that theadmiringbutdebt-burdenedreadercanalso“makeit”inanew

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bourgeois world. Any obscure candidate can “become a millionaire”—or amultimillionaire—merelybywinninginatelevisiongameshoworalottery.Themyriadmillionswhoenvyandadmirethebourgeoisienolongerseeitsmembersaspartofa“class”;theyarerathera“meritocracy,”whohavebecome,asaresultof luck and effort, winners in the lottery of life. If Americans once widelybelieved that anyone could become the president of theUnited States, the newbeliefholdsthatanyonecanbecomeamillionaireor—whoknows?—oneof thetenrichestpeopleintheworld.Capitalism, in turn, is increasingly assumed to be the natural state of affairs

toward which history has been converging for thousands of years. Even ascapitalism is achieving this splendor, we are witnessing a degree of publicignorance,fatuity,andsmugnessunseensincetheinceptionofthemodernworld.Likefastfoodandquicksex,ideasandexperiencessimplyracethroughthehumanmind, and far from being absorbed and used as building blocks forgeneralizations, theyquicklydisappear tomake roomfor stillnewerand faster-movingideasandexperiencesofanever-moresuperficialordegradedcharacter.Every few years, it would seem, a new generation initiates ostensibly “newcauses” that were exhausted only a decade or two earlier, thereby casting intoideologicaloblivioninvaluablelessonsandknowledgethatareindispensableforaradicalsocialpractice.Eachnewgenerationhasaconcomitantlyarrogantnotionthat history began onlywhen itwas born; hence, all experiences from the past,even the recent past, are to be ignored.Thus, the struggle against globalization,which was fought for decades under the rubric of anti-imperialism, has beenreinventedandrenamed.Theproblemof lostdefinitionandspecificity,ofeverythingbeing turned into

“air,”and thedisastrous lossof thememoryofexperiencesand lessonsvital toestablishing a Left tradition, confronts any endeavor to create a revolutionarymovementinthefuture.Theoriesandconceptslosetheirdimensions,theirmass,their traditions, and their relevance, as a result of which they are adopted anddroppedwith juvenile flippancy.The chauvinisticnotionof “identity,”which isthebyproductofclassandhierarchicalsociety,ideologicallycorrodestheconceptof “class,” prioritizing a largely psychological distinction at the expense of asociopolitical one. “Identity” becomes a highly personal problem with whichindividualsmustwrestlepsychologicallyandculturally rather thana root socialproblem that must be understood by and resolved through a radical socialapproach.Indeed, the bourgeoisie can easily remedy such a problem by promoting

ethnically discriminated employees to upper-level managers and by promotingfemale lieutenants in the military into majors or generals. Hence the amazing

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willingness that new enterprises and the media exhibit in selecting blacks andwomen for high spots in their operations ormedia presentations. Baby boomercapitalists such as Tom Peters, who season their ideas of nonhierarchicalpractices in business administrationwith dashingly anarchic traits, often regardraceandgenderasarchaisms.ColinPowellhasshownthatevenwithanAfricanAmericanaschairmanoftheJointChiefsofStaff,theAmericanmilitarycanbeasdeadly as it needs to be, and Oprah Winfrey has demonstrated that whatAmericansreadorbuyneedshavenobearingontheraceorgenderofatelevisionpurveyorofthosecommodities.The middle and working classes no longer think of the present society as

structured around classes.Current opinionholds that the rich aredeserving andthe poor are not, while an incalculable number of people linger between thecategories.AhugesectionofpublicopinionintheWesternworldtendstoregardoppressionandexploitationasresidualabuses,notinherentfeaturesofaspecificsocialorder.Theprevailingsociety isneither rationallyanalyzednor forcefullychallenged; it isprudentlypsychoanalyzedandpolitelycoaxed,as thoughsocialproblems emerge from erratic individual behavior. Although strident protestsexplode from time to time, agrowinggentility iswateringdown the severityofsocialdisputesandantagonisms,evenamongpeoplewhoprofessleftistviews.What is absent in this type of sporadic and eruptive opposition is an

understandingofthecausalcontinuitiesthatonlyseriousand,aboveall,rationalexplorationscanreveal.Intheso-called“Seattlerebellion”inlateNovemberandearlyDecember 1999 against theWorldTradeOrganization,whatwas at issuewasnot thesubstitutionof“fair trade”for“free trade,”buthowmodernsocietyproduces the wealth of the world and distributes it. Although some militantdemonstrators attempted to invoke the “injustices” of capitalism (actually,capitalismwasnotbeingpeculiarly“unjust”anymorethanlethalbacilliarebeing“unfair” when they produce illness and death), far fewer of the demonstratorsappeared tounderstand the logicofamarketeconomy. Ithasbeen reported thatduring anti-WTO demonstrations, little literaturewas distributed that explainedthebasicreasonfordenouncingtheWTOandpreventingitsdelegatesfromdoingtheirbusiness.Indeed, the demonstration in Seattle, like the one in Washington, DC, that

followed it severalmonths later, however well-meant, created the illusion thatacts of mere disruption, which became increasingly staged, can do more thanmoderatethe“excesses”ofglobalization.TheWashingtondemonstration,infact,wassonegotiatedincharacterthatthepoliceallowedthedemonstratorstowalkacrossachalkedlineasameresymbolofillegalityandthenallowedthemselvestobeescortedintobusesasarrestees.Policespokesmenpleasantlyagreedthatthe

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young demonstrators were “decent” and “socially concerned kids” who meantwell, andWTO delegates tolerantly acknowledged that the demonstrators drewtheir attention to troubling economic and environmental problems that neededcorrection.Undoubtedly,theauthoritiesexpectthese“sociallyconcernedkids”toeventuallygrowupandbecomegoodcitizens.Rather than meaningful protests, the demonstrations were noteworthy mainly

because protest of any kind is such a rarity today. The limited number ofparticipants seemed to lack an in-depth understanding of what the WTOrepresented.Eventoprotest“capitalism”issimply tovoiceanopposition toanabstractnoun,whichinitselftellsusnothingaboutcapitalistsocialrelations,theirdynamic, their transformationintodestructivesocialforces, theprerequisitesforundoing them, and finally the alternatives that exist to replace them.Fewof thedemonstrators appeared to know the answers to these questions; thus, theycastigatedcorporationsandmultinationalsasthoughthesearenottheunavoidableoutcomes of historic forces of capitalist production. Would the dangers ofglobalizationberemovedfromtheworldifthecorporationswerescaleddowninsize?More fundamentally, could smaller enterprises ever have been preventedfromdeveloping into industrial, commercial, and financialgiants thatwouldnotdifferfrommodernmultinationals?Mypointislesstoadvancecriticismsthantoquestiontheextenttowhichthe

Seattle andWashington demonstrators adequately understood the problems theyweredealingwith.Indeed,whatisademonstrationmeanttodemonstrate?Itmustnot only protest but also confront official power with popular power, even inincipient form.Demonstrations aremobilizations of sizable numbers of seriouspeoplewho, in taking to the streets, intend to let the authorities know that theyearnestly oppose certain actionsby thepowers-that-be.Reduced to such antics,they become self-deflating forms of entertainment. As such, they constitute nochallenge to the authorities; indeed, where idiosyncratic behavior replacesforcefulopposition, they show thepublic that advocatesof their viewaremereeccentricswhoneednotbetakenseriouslyandwhosecauseistrivial.Withoutthegravitas that commands respect—and, yes, the discipline that reveals seriousintentionality—demonstrations and other such manifestations are worse thanuseless;theyharmtheircausebytrivializingit.A politics of mere protest, lacking programmatic content, a proposed

alternative, and amovement togivepeopledirection and continuity, consists oflittlemorethanevents,eachofwhichhasabeginningandanendbutlittlemore.The social order can livewith an event or series of events and even find thispraiseworthy.Worse still, such a politics lives or dies according to an agendaestablishedbythesocialorderitopposes.CorporationsproposedtheWTO;they

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needed worldwide participation in the Organization and, in their own way,generatedtheveryoppositionthatnowdenouncesitslackofdemocracyandlackofhumaneness.Theyexpectedopposition,andonlypoliceamateurisminSeattlelet it get slightly out of hand. It ill-becomes such an opposition to then plan toprotestthenominatingconventionsofmajorpoliticalpartieswhoseveryexistencemanydemonstratorsprofesstooppose.Indeed,thedemonstrators,howeverwell-meaning,legitimatetheexistenceofthepartiesbycallinguponthemtoaltertheirpolicieson international trade,as though theyevenhavea justifiableplace inarationalsociety.Apoliticsofprotestisnotapoliticsatall.Itoccurswithinparameterssetby

theprevailingsocial systemandmerely responds to remediable ills,oftenmeresymptoms,insteadofchallengingthesocialorderassuch.Themaskedanarchistswhojoinintheseeventsbysmashingwindowsusetheclamorofshatteredglasstoglamorizelimitedstreetprotestswiththesemblanceofviolenceandlittlemore.IhavenotmadethesecriticalremarksaboutthestateoftheLefttodayinorder

to carp against people, activities, and events, or from any generational orsectariandisdain.On thecontrary,mycriticismsstemfromadeepsympathyforpeoplewhoaresensitivetoinjusticesandparticularlyforthosestrivingtoremedythem. Better to do something to end the silence of popular acquiescence thansimplytoperpetuatethecomplacencygeneratedbyaconsumer-orientedsociety.Nor have I presented my criticisms of Marxism and anarchism—the main

players in the classical Left—in order to try to astound a new generation ofactivistswiththegrandeurofrevolutionaryhistorythattheysomehowmustmatch.Againto thecontrary,IhaveinvokedtheclassicalLeftofyesteryearnotonlytosuggestwhatithastoteachusbutalsotonoteitsownlimitationsastheproductofa different era and one that, for better or worse, will never return. What theclassicalLefthastoteachusisthatideasmustbesystematic—coherent—iftheyaretobeproductiveandunderstandabletopeoplewhoareseriouslycommittedtobasicsocialchange.Indeed,afutureLeftmustshowthattheseeminglydisparateproblems of the present society are connected and stem from a common socialpathologythatmustberemovedasatotality.Moreover,noattemptstochangetheexistingsocietywilleverprovetobefundamentalunlessweunderstandhowitsproblems are interconnected and how their solutions can be educed fromhumanity’spotentialitiesforfreedom,rationality,andself-consciousness.Bycoherence, I donotmeanonlyamethodologyor a systemof thinking that

exploresrootcauses,butratherthattheveryprocessofattemptingtolinktogetherthevarious socialpathologies tounderlying factorsand to resolve them in theirtotality is an ethical endeavor. To declare that humanity has a potentiality forfreedom, rationality, and self-consciousness—and, significantly, that this

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potentialityisnotbeingrealizedtoday—leadsinexorablytothedemandthateverysociety justify its existence according to the extent to which it actualizes thesenorms. Any endeavor to assess a society’s success in achieving freedom,rationality, and self-consciousness makes an implicit judgment. It raises thesearing question ofwhat a society “should be”within itsmaterial and culturallimits. It constitutes the realizable ideal that social development raises for allthinkingpeopleandthat,uptonow,haskeptalivemovementsforthefulfillmentoffreedom.Withoutthatidealasacontinualandactivatingpresence,nolastingmovement

for human liberation is possible—only sporadic protests that themselves maymaskthebasicirrationalityofanunfreesocietybyseekingtocosmeticallyremoveitsblemishes.Bycontrast,aconstantawarenessthatagivensociety’sirrationalityisdeepseated, that itsseriouspathologiesarenot isolatedproblemsthatcanbecured piecemeal but must be solved by sweeping changes in the often hiddensources of crisis and suffering—that awareness alone is what can hold amovement together, give it continuity, preserve its message and organizationbeyond a given generation, and expand its ability to deal with new issues anddevelopments.Toooften, ideasmeant toyieldacertainpracticeare instead transported into

theacademy,asfarefor“enriching”acurriculumand,ofcourse,generatingjobsforthegrowingprofessoriat.SuchhasbeentheunhappyfateofMarxism,which,once an embattled and creative body of ideas, has now acquired academicrespectability—to the extent that it is even regarded asworthy of study.At thesame time, the routine use of the word “activist” raises problems that can beunintentionally regressive.Can therebe actionwithout insight into thenatureofsocial ills and a theoretical understanding of the measures needed to resolvethem?Cantheactivistevenactmeaningfullyandeffectivelywithoutdrawingupontherichbodyofexperiencesandideasthathavegrownovertheyearsandthatcanshowus the pitfalls that lie below the surface, or themany strategies that havebeentestedbyearliergenerations?Inwhatlikelydirectionsiscapitalistsocietydevelopinginthecomingcentury,

and what are the most basic problems it is raising for humanity? Is there anyspecial sector, class, orgroup in society towhichwemust appeal ifweare tohopetocreatearevolutionarymovement?Whatkindofmovementandinstitutionsmustwecreate thatwillplaya leading role in social change?Doweneedanywell-organized movement at all, or will our hoped-for changes occurspontaneously, emerging out of demonstrations around specific issues or streetfestivalsorcommunitarianenterprisessuchasco-ops,alternativeenterprises,andthelike?Ordowehavetobuildpoliticalentities,andifso,whatkind?Whatis

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therelationshipofarevolutionarymovementtothesenewpoliticalentities?Andhowshouldpowerbesituatedandinstitutionalizedinarationalsociety?Finally,whatethicalconsiderationsshouldguideusinourefforts?Marxism failed to form an adequate picture of the worker as a many-sided

humanbeingandindeedfetishizedhimorhertothepointofabsurdity.Itdidnotnormally seeworkers asmore than economic entities, but rather endowed themwithsemimysticalpropertiesasrevolutionaryagents,possessedofsecretpowerstounderstandtheirinterestsandauniquesensitivitytoradicalpossibilitiesintheexisting society. To read Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Leon Trotsky, thesyndicalistpropagandists,andevenrun-of-the-millSocialDemocratsistosensethat they held the socialist judgment of workers in awe and imbued themwithremarkable revolutionary powers. That workers could also become fascists orreactionarieswasinconceivable.Thismystification has not entirely been dispelled, but even so,wemust ask,

whichpartofsocietycanplayaleadingroleinradicalchangetoday?Thefactisthat the leveling role ofWestern capitalism and the increasing development ofsocialstrugglesalongever-vaguerlineshasopenedupavistamuchdifferentfromthat which once hypnotized the classical Left. The technological level of theIndustrialRevolutionwashighlylaborintensive;thebrutishexploitationoflaborandthesimplificationoftheworkprocesswithitsconsequentdestructionofskillsbyadeadeningdivisionoflabormadeitpossibleforMarxandothertheoriststosingle out the proletariat as the principal victim of capitalism and thus theprincipalengineofitsdemise.Althoughmany traditional factories are still with us, especially in the Third

World, inEurope andNorthAmerica they are givingway to highly skilled anddifferentiatedsystemsofproduction.Manynewstratacannolongerberegarded,exceptinthemostelasticway,as“workers”inanyindustrialsense.Suchpeopleare even becoming the majority of the “working class,” while the industrialproletariat(contrarytoMarx’sexpectations)isvisiblybecominganever-smallerminorityofthepopulation.Forthepresent,atleast,theseworkersarewellpaid(oftenreceivingsalariesratherthanwages),consumerorientedintastes,andfarremoved from a working-class outlook and a disposition to hold leftist socialviews.Capitalism,ineffect,iscreatingthebasesforapopulistpolitics—hopefullya

radical andultimately revolutionaryone—that is focusedon thebroadeningandexpandingofprofessionalopportunities, thequalityof life, andamorepleasantenvironment. Economically, maturing capitalism can properly be descriptivelydivided into strata of the wealthy, the well-off, the comfortable, and the poor.Industrial wage workers in the West have more in common with salaried

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technicians and professionals than with underpaid unskilled workers in theservicesectoroffast-foodrestaurantsandretailsalesandthelike,letalonewiththe nearly lumpenized poor. In the absence of economic crises, social disquietmayfocuson fearsofcrime,shortcomings inpublicservicesandeducation, thedecline of traditional values, and the like. More momentously, this populistoutlook fearsenvironmentaldegradation, thedisappearanceofopenspaces, andthe growing congestion of once-human-scaled communities—indeed, ofcommunitylifeinallitsaspects.For more than a half-century, capitalism has managed not only to avoid a

chroniceconomiccrisisofthekindMarxexpectedbutalsotocontrolcrisesthatpotentiallyhadahighlyexplosivecharacter.Asasystem,capitalismisoneofthemost unstable economies in history and hence is always unpredictable. Butequallyuncertain is the traditional radicalnotion that itmust slipwithunfailingregularityintoperiodiccrisesaswellaschronicones.ThegeneralpopulationinEurope and the United States has displayed a remarkable confidence in theoperations of the economy; more than 40 per cent of U.S. families have nowinvestedinthestockmarketandacceptitshugeswingswithoutbeingsweptupbypanicssuchas those thatafflicted financialmarkets in thepast.Astrictlyclass-orientedpoliticsbasedonindustrialworkershasreceded,andtheLeftnowfacestheimperativetocreateapopulistpoliticsthatreachesoutto“thepeople”astheyaretoday,inanticipationthattheycannowmoreeasilyberadicalizedbyissuesthatconcerntheircommunities,theircivilliberties,theiroverallenvironment,andthe integrity of their supplies of food, air, andwater, not simply by a focus oneconomic exploitation and wage issues. The importance of economic issuescannotbeoverstated,butespeciallyinperiodsofrelativewell-being,afutureLeftwill be successful only to the extent that it addresses the public as a “people”ratherthanasaclass,apopulationwhosedisquiethasatleastasmuchtodowithfreedoms,qualityof life, and futurewell-beingas it doeswitheconomiccrisesandmaterialinsecurity.38By the same token, a futureLeft canhope to exercise influenceonly if it can

mobilizepeopleon issues thatcutacrossclass lines.FromMarx’sdayuntil the1930s, theprincipalvictimsofcapitalistexploitationappearedtobeworkersatthe point of production. The French Revolution, it was argued, allowed thepeasantrytogaingreatercontroloftheland,andthedemocraticrevolutionsoftheeighteenthcenturygrantedthelowermiddleclassesamajorplaceinallspheresof French society. But they left one class unsatisfied: the emerging industrialproletariat, which was subjected to harsh working conditions, prevented fromorganizing, and suffered a declining standard of living. Engels portrayed aworking-classlifebasedontheEnglishproletariatof1844attheheightofthefirst

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Industrial Revolution; Marx argued that the concentration of capital and thedisplacement of workers by machines would create insufferable misery in thefactoriesofEnglandand thecontinent.Thisanticapitalistvisionwaspredicatedon the belief that the proletariat’s material conditions of life would worsensteadilywhileitsnumberswouldincreasetoapointwhereitbecamethemajorityofthepopulation.Bythelatenineteenthcentury,however,thesepredictionswerealreadyfalling

short,andby1950theywerewhollydiscredited.Whatwiththesophisticationofmachinery, the appearance of electronics, the spectacular increase in motorvehicleproduction,theriseofthechemicalindustry,andthelike,theproportionof industrial workers to the population at-large was diminishing, not rising.Moreover,dueinlargepart tothestrugglesof legal tradeunionstoimprovethelivingconditionsoftheproletariatinparticular,theconflictbetweencapitalandlaborwas being significantlymuted.Marxism, then,was clearly boxed into theclass relations of a historically limited period, the era of the first IndustrialRevolution.Farfrombecomingproletarianizedordecliningtoaminorityofthepopulation

as Marx had predicted, the middle class retained the psychology andconsciousnessofpeoplewhocouldhopeforanever-higherstatus.Propertylessasit may have been in reality and often cowed by the real bourgeoisie, the pettybourgeoisiewas(andremainstoagreatextent)convincedthatithasaprivilegedplaceinthemarketeconomyandentertainsexpectationsthatitcanclimbupwardon the social ladder of the capitalist system. If anything, theworking class hasmadesufficientgainsthatitexpectsitschildren,equippedwithabettereducationthantheirparents,tostepupwardinlife.Millionsofsmallpropertyownersinvestinfinancialmarkets.Workersnowdescribethemselvesas“middleclass”or,withanuancethatheightensthedignityoflabor,as“workingfamilies.”Combativeandexclusive expressions like “workers,” “toilers,” and “laborers” that onceimplicitlyhintedat theexistenceofclass strugglearenowusedwith increasingrarityornotatall.The sharp lines that oncedistinguished a factory’s accountingoffice from the

proletariat are being blurred ideologically and eating away at working-classconsciousness.NotwithstandingMarx’s theory of history as an account of classstruggles,withitsmanytruths,aclassisnomoreauthenticthantheconsciousnesswithwhichitviewsreality.Noworkeristrulyaclassbeing,howevermuchheisexploited,whenheviewssociallifeinbourgeoisterms.Thebourgeoisielearnedthisfactquiteearlywhenitexploitedethnic,religious,gender,andcraftdivisionswithin the proletariat as awhole.Hence, the blue- orwhite-collarworker is aclassbeingaccordingtohowshethinksofherself,relatestoherboss,andholds

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expectationsinlife.Aworkerwithoutacombativeclassconsciousnessisnomorean exploited proletarian, for all practical purposes, than a policeman is anordinaryworker.Radicalintellectuals’mystificationoftheworkerhasitsoriginsin their imputation that “consciousness followsbeing,” that is,when theworkerrecognizesthatheisexploitedandthatcapitalismishissocialenemy.What does this mean for a future Left? Unless capitalism unexpectedly

collapsesintoamajorchroniccrisis(inwhichcase,workersmaywellturntothefascismofaLePeninFranceorthereactionismofaBuchananintheU.S.),thentheLeftmustfocusonissuesthatareinterclassinnature,addressingthemiddleaswell as the working class. By the very logic of its grow-or-die imperative,capitalism may well be producing ecological crises that gravely imperil theintegrity of life on this planet. The outputs of factories and the raw materialindustries, thedestructiveagriculturalpractices,and theconsumptionpatterns inprivilegedpartsof theworldare simplifying thehighlycomplexecological tiesthat emergedovermillions of years of natural evolution, reducinghighly fertileareastoconcretelandscapes,turningusablewaterintoanincreasinglydegradedresource, surrounding the planet with a carbon dioxide layer that threatens toradically change the climate, and opening dangerous holes in the ozone layer.Rivers, lakes, and oceans are becoming garbage dumps for poisonous and life-inhibitingwastes.Almosteverytangiblecomponentofdailylife,fromthefoodonthedinner table to substancesused in theworkplace, isbecomingpollutedwithknownorpotentiallydangeroustoxicants.Citiesaregrowingintovast,polluted,sprawlingenvironmentswhosepopulationsarelargerthanthoseofmanynation-statesonlyafewdecadesago.Theequatorialbeltoftropicalforeststhatsurroundtheplanet’slandareasandlargepartsofthetemperatezonesarebeingdeforestedanddenudedoftheircomplexlife-forms.Yet for capitalism to desist from its mindless expansion would be for it to

commit social suicide. By definition, capitalism is a competitive economy thatcannotceasetoexpand.Theproblemsitmaybecreatingforhumanityasawhole—problems that transcendclassdifferences—caneasilybecome thebases foravastcritiqueifcurrentenvironmentalistsarewillingtoraisetheirconcernstothelevelofaradicalsocialanalysisandorganizenotsimplyaroundsavingaselectspeciesoraroundthevicesofautomobilemanufacturersbutaroundreplacingtheexisting irrational economyby a rational one.The fact that the nuclear industrystill exists must be seen not simply as an abuse or a matter of stupidity, forexample,butasanintegralpartofagreaterwhole:theneedforanindustryinacompetitiveeconomytogrowandoutcompeteitsrivals.Similarly,thesuccessesof thechemical industry inpromoting theuseof toxicants inagriculture,and thegrowingoutputof theautomobileandpetroleumindustries—allmustbeseenas

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theresultsoftheinnerworkingsofadeeplyentrenchedsystem.Notonlyworkersbut the public must be educated in the reality that our emerging ecologicalproblemsstemfromourirrationalsociety.Issuessuchasgenderdiscrimination,racism,andnationalchauvinismmustbe

recast not only as cultural and social regressions but as evidence of the illsproducedbyhierarchy.Agrowingpublicawarenessmustbefosteredinordertorecognizethatoppressionincludesnotonlyexploitationbutalsodomination,andthat it is based not only on economic causes but on cultural particularisms thatdividepeopleaccordingtosexual,ethnic,andsimilar traits.Where these issuescome to the foreground in the form of patent abuses, a conscious revolutionarymovement must expand their implications to show that society as it exists isbasicallyirrationalanddangerous.Sucharevolutionarymovementneedsadistinctivebodyoftacticsdesignedto

expand the scope of any issue, however reformist it may seem at first glance,steadily radicalizing it and giving it a potentially revolutionary thrust. It shouldmake no agreement with liberals and the bourgeoisie on retaining the existingorder.Ifthesolutiontoaspecificenvironmentalproblemseemsfairlypragmatic,thenthemovementmustregarditasastepforwideningapartlyopendooruntilitcanshowthattheentireecologicalproblemissystemicandexposeitassuchtopublicview.Thus,a revolutionarymovement should insistnotonlyonblockingthe construction of a nuclear plant but on shutting down all nuclear plants andreplacing themwith alternative energy sources that enhance the environment. Itshouldregardnolimitedgainsasconclusivebutrathermustclearlylinkagivendemandtotheneedforbasicsocialchange.Thesamestrategyappliestotheuseof chemicals in agriculture, current agricultural methods of growing food, themanufacture of harmful means of transportation, the manufacture of dangeroushousehold products; indeed, every item whose production and use debases theenvironmentanddegradeshumanvalues.I have examined elsewhere the reasons why power cannot be ignored—a

problem that beleaguered the Spanish anarchists. But can we conceive of apopular movement gaining power without an agency that can provide it withguidance?ArevolutionaryLeftthatseekstoadvancefromprotestdemonstrationsto revolutionary demonstrations must resolutely confront the problem oforganization.Ispeakherenotofadhocplanninggroupsbutratherofthecreationand maintenance of an organization that is enduring, structured, and broadlyprogrammatic. Such an organization constitutes a definable entity and must bestructured around lasting and formal institutions tomake it operational; it mustcontain a responsiblemembership that firmly and knowledgeably adheres to itsideals; and it must advance a sweeping program for social change that can be

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translated into everyday practice. Although such an organization may join acoalition (orunited front,as the traditionalLeftcalled it), itmustnotdisappearintosuchacoalitionorsurrender its independence, letalone its identity. Itmustretain its own name at all times and be guided by its own statutes. Theorganization’s program must be the product of a reasoned analysis of thefundamental problems that face society, their historical sources and theoreticalfundaments, and the clearlyvisiblegoals that follow from thepotentialities andrealitiesforsocialchange.One of the greatest problems that revolutionaries in the past faced, from the

EnglishrevolutionariesintheseventeenthcenturytotheSpanishinthetwentieth,was their failure to create a resolute, well-structured, and fully informedorganization with which to counter their reactionary opponents. Few uprisingsexpand beyond the limits of a riot without the guidance of a knowledgeableleadership.Themythofthepurelyspontaneousrevolutioncanbedispatchedbyacareful study of past uprisings (as I have attempted inmy ownwork, the four-volumehistorycalledTheThirdRevolution).Eveninself-consciouslylibertarianorganizations, leadership always existed in the form of “influential militants,”spirited men and women who constituted the nuclei around which crowdstransformed street protests intooutright insurrections. Inhis famous etchingTheRevolt,Daumierintuitivelyfocusesonasingleindividual,amidotherrebels,whoraisesthecrythatbringsthemassesintomotion.Eveninseemingly“spontaneousinsurrections,” advanced militants, scattered throughout rebellious crowds,spurred theuncertainmasseson to further action.Contrary toanarchisticmyths,none of the soviets, councils, and committees that arose in Russia in 1917,Germany in1918, andSpain in1936were formed simplyof their ownaccord.Invariably, specific militants (a euphemism for leaders) took the initiative informing them and in guiding inexperienced masses toward the adoption of aradicalcourseofaction.Absorbedas theywerewithmakingconcreteandimmediatedemands,fewof

these councils and committees had a broadoverviewof the social possibilitiesopenedbytheinsurrectionstheyinitiatedoraclearunderstandingoftheenemiestheyhadtemporarilydefeated.Bycontrast,thebourgeoisieanditsstatesmenknewonlytoowellhowtoorganizethemselves,thankstotheirconsiderableexperienceasentrepreneurs,politicalleaders,andmilitarycommanders.Buttheworkerstoooften lacked the knowledge and experience so vital to developing such aperspective. It remains a tragic irony that insurrections not defeated outright bysuperiormilitary forces often froze into immobility once they took power fromtheir class enemies and rarely took the organizational steps necessary to retaintheir power. Without a theoretically trained and militant organization that had

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developed a broad social vision of its tasks and could offerworkers practicalprogramsforcompletingtherevolutionthattheyhadinitiated,revolutionsquicklyfellapartforlackoffurtheraction.Theirsupporters,zealousattheoutsetandfora brief period afterward, soon floundered, became demoralized for want of athoroughgoing program, lost their élan, and then were crushed physically.Nowhere was this destructive process more apparent than in the GermanRevolutionof 1918–19and also to a great degree in theSpanishRevolutionof1936–37; mainly because the mass anarchosyndicalist union, the CNT,surrenderedthepowerithadreceivedfromtheCatalanworkersinJuly1936tothebourgeoisie.AfutureLeftmustcarefullystudythesetragicexperiencesanddeterminehowto

resolvetheproblemsoforganizationandpower.Suchanorganizationcannotbeaconventionalparty,seekingacomfortableplaceinaparliamentarystate,withoutlosing its revolutionary élan. The Bolshevik party, structured as a top-downorganizationthatfetishizedcentralizationandinternalpartyhierarchy,exemplifieshow a party can merely replicate a state to become a bureaucratic andauthoritarianentity.IfMarxists,when theyfound themselves in revolutionarysituations,couldnot

conceiveofanypoliticsthatabolishedthestate,thentheanarchists,andtragicallythe syndicalists who were deeply influenced by them intellectually, were sofixatedonavoidingthestatethattheydestroyedvital,self-governingrevolutionaryinstitutions. This is not the place to discuss Spanish anarchism and its ratherconfusedanarchosyndicalist“farrago,”asChrisEalhamhassoaptlycalledit,buttheCNT-FAIleadershipseemstohavelackedtheslightestideahowtoachievealibertarian communist revolution.39 When power was actually thrust into theirtremblinghands,theysimplydidnotknowwhattodowithit.Every revolution, indeed, even every attempt to achieve basic social change,

willalwaysmeetwith resistance fromelites inpower.Everyeffort todefendarevolutionwillrequiretheamassingofpower—physicalaswellas institutionalandadministrative—whichistosay,thecreationofagovernment.Anarchistsmaycallfortheabolitionofthestate,butcoercionofsomekindwillbenecessarytopreventthebourgeoisstatefromreturninginfullforcewithunbridledterror.Foralibertarian organization to eschew, out of misplaced fear of creating a “state,”takingpowerwhen it cando sowith the supportof the revolutionarymasses isconfusion at best and a total failure of nerve at worst. Perhaps the CNT-FAIactually lived in awe of the very state apparatus whose existence it wascommitted to abolishing. Better that such amovement gets out of the way thanremaincloaked ina seemingly“radical”camouflage thatmakespromises to themassesthatitcannothonor.

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ThehistoryofthelibertarianLeftdoessuggest,however,aformoforganizationthat is consistent with attempts to create a left libertarian society. In aconfederation, seeming higher bodies play the role of administering policydecisionsthataremadeatthebaseoftheorganization.Intheend,nearlyallpolicydecisions,especiallybasicones,aremadeat thebaseof theorganizationby itsbranchesorsections.Decisionsmadeat thebasemoveto the topand thenbackagaininmodifiedformtothebaseuntil,bymajorityvoteatthebase,theybecomepolicieswhoseimplementationisundertakenbyspecialorstandingcommittees.Noorganizationalmodel, however, shouldbe fetishized to thepointwhere it

flatlycontradictstheimperativesofreallife.Whereeventsrequireameasureofcentralization, coordination at a confederal level may have to be tightened toimplementapolicyortactic,totheextentthatitisnecessaryandonlyforaslongas it is necessary. A confederation can allow necessary centralization on atemporarybasis,withoutyieldingtoapermanentcentralizedorganization,onlyifitsmembershipisconsciousandthoroughlyinformedtoguardagainsttheabusesof centralization and only if the organization has structures in place to recallleaderswho seem tobe abusing their powers.Otherwise,wehaveno certaintythatanylibertarianpracticeswillbehonored.Ihaveseenpeoplewhofordecadeswere committed to libertarianpractices andprinciples throw their ideals to thewind, and even drift into a coarse nationalism, when events appealedmore totheiremotions than to theirminds.A libertarianorganizationmusthave inplaceprecautions suchas the right to recallby theorganization’smembershipand theright to demand a full accounting of a confederal body’s practices, but the factremainsthatthereisnosubstituteforknowledgeandconsciousness.Acommunalistsocietywouldhavetomakedecisionsonhowresourcesareto

be acquired, produced, allocated, and distributed. Such a society must seek toprevent the restoration of capitalism and of old or new systems of privilege. Itmust try to achieve a degree of administrative coordination and regulation on ahugescaleamongcommunities,anddecision-makingmustberesoluteifsociallifeofanykindisnottocollapsecompletely.These constraints are necessary to provide the greatest degree of freedom

possible, but they will not be imposed simply by “goodwill,” “mutual aid,”“solidarity,” or even “custom,” and any notion that they will rests more on aprayerthanonhumanexperience.Materialwantwillquicklyerodeanygoodwilland solidarity that a successful revolution might create among the libertarianvictors; hence, the need for postscarcity as a precondition for a communalistsociety. In the Spanish Revolution of 1936–37, many of the new society’scollectives,all flying theblack-and-redflagofanarchosyndicalism,entered intoblatant competition with one another for raw materials, technicians, and even

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marketsandprofits.Theresultwasthattheyhadtobe“socialized”bytheCNT,that is, the tradeunionhad toexert control toequalize thedistributionofgoodsand the availability of costlymachinery, and oblige “rich” collectives to sharetheirwealthwithpoorones. (Later thisauthoritywas takenoverby theMadridnation-state for reasons of its own.) Nor were all peasants eager to joincollectives when they were also afforded the opportunity to function as smallproperty owners. Still others left the collectives in sizable numbers when theyfoundthemselvesfreetodosowithoutfear.Inotherwords,toestablishaviablecommunalistsociety,morethanpersonalandmoralcommitmentswillbeneeded—least of all, those extremely precarious variables that are based on “humannature”and“instinctsformutualaid.”Theproblemofachievinglibertariancommunismisoneofthemostuntheorized

aspectsofthelibertarianrepertoire.Thecommunistmaxim“Fromeachaccordingto ability, to each according to need” presupposes a sufficiency of goods andhence complex technological development. That achievement involves a closeagreementwithMarx’s emphasis that advances in the instruments of productionareaprecondition forcommunism.Thesuccessof libertariancommunism, then,dependsprofoundlyon thegrowthof theproductive forcesovermanycenturiesandontheincreasingavailabilityofthemeansoflife.History is filled with countless examples where natural scarcity or limited

resourcesobligedpeoplestoturnpopulargovernmentsintokinglystates,captivesintoslaves,womenintosubjugateddrudges,freepeasantsintoserfs,andthelike.Nosuchdevelopmentlacksexcesses,andifkindlyrulersdidnotturnintobrutaldespots, it would have beenmiraculous. That we can sit in judgment on thesesocieties,theirstates,andtheiroppressivemethodsisevidencethatprogresshasoccurredand,equally importantly, thatourcircumstancesdifferprofoundlyfromtheirs.Where faminewas once a normal feature of life, we today are shockedwhennoeffortismadetofeedthestarving.Butweareshockedonlybecausewehave already developed the means to produce a sufficiency, disallowingindifference to scarcity. In short, the circumstances have changed profoundly,howeverunjust thedistributionof themeansof lifemaycontinue tobe. Indeed,thatwecanevensaythedistributionisunjustisaverdictthatonlyasocietyableto eliminatematerial scarcity—and create, potentially, a postscarcity society—canmake.Thus, our expansive visions of freedom, today, have their preconditions:

minimally,technologicaladvancement.OnlygenerationsthathavenotexperiencedtheGreatDepressioncanignorethepreconditionalbasesforourmoregenerousideologies.TheclassicalLeft,particularly thinkerssuchasMarx,gaveusmuchsystematicthinkingonhistoryandcontemporarysocialaffairs.Butwillweelect

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to follow a truly libertarian use of the resources at our command and create asociety that is democratic, communistic, and communalistic, based on popularassemblies, confederations, and sweeping civil liberties? Or will we follow acourse that is increasingly statist, centralized, and authoritarian? Here, another“history”ordialecticcomesintoplay—thegreattraditionsoffreedomthatwereelaboratedovertimebyunknownrevolutionariesandbylibertarianthinkerssuchasBakunin,Kropotkin, andMalatesta.Weare thus facedwith two legacies thathaveunfoldedintandemwitheachother:amaterialoneandanideologicalone.Let us be frank and acknowledge that these legacies are not well known or

easily understood.But from them,we canweave an ethical approach to socialchangethatcangiveourendeavorsdefinitionandapossibilityofsuccess.Foronething, we can declare that “what should be”—humanity’s potentialities forfreedom, rationality, and self-consciousness—is to be actualized and guide oursocial lives. We can affirm “what should be” on the basis of decidedly realmaterial possibilities and realizable ideological ones. Knowledge of “whatshould be,” if reason is to guide our behavior, becomes the force driving us tomake social change and to produce a rational society. With our materialpreconditions in place and with reason to guide us to the actualization of ourpotentialities,wecanbegintoformulatetheconcretestepsthatafutureLeftwillbe obliged to take to achieve its ends. The material preconditions aredemonstrablyathand,andreason,fortifiedbyaknowledgeofpastendeavorstoproduce a relatively rational society, provides the means to formulate themeasuresandthemeans,stepbystep,toproduceanewLeftthatisrelevantfortheforeseeablefuture.Farfromeschewingreasonandtheory,afutureLeftthatismeaningfulmustbe

solidlygroundedintheoryifitistohaveanypowertounderstandthepresentinrelationship to the past, and the future in relationship to the present. A lack ofphilosophical equipment to interpret events, past and present, will render itstheoreticalinsightsfragmentaryandbereftofcontextualityandcontinuity.Norwillit be able to show how specific events relate to a larger whole and link themtogetherinabroadperspective.Itwasthisadmirableintention,Ishouldnote,thatinducedMarx togivehis ideas a systematic andunified form,not anypersonaldispositiononhispartfor“totalitarianism.”Theworldinwhichhelivedhadtobe shown that capital accumulation and the bourgeoisie’s unrelentingconcentration of industrial resources were not products of greed but vitalnecessitiesforenterprisesinasharplycompetitiveeconomy.Onecanprojectanalternativetothepresentsocietyonlybyadvancingrational

alternatives to theexistingorderof things—alternatives thatareobjectivelyandlogically based on humanity’s potentialities for freedom and innovation. In this

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respect, the ability of human beings to project themselves beyond their givencircumstances, to re-create theirworld and their social relations, and to infuseinnovation with ethical judgments becomes the basis for actualizing a rationalsociety.This “what should be,” as educed by reason, stands on a higher plane of

truthfulness and wholeness than does the existential and pragmatic “what is.”Figuratively speaking, the contrastbetween the “what shouldbe”and the “whatis,” as elaborated and challengedbymindaswell asby experience, lies at theheart of dialectic. Indeed, the “what should be,” by sitting in judgment on thevalidity of the given, joins dialectical development in the biosphere withdialecticaldevelopmentinthesocialsphere.Itprovidesthebasisfordeterminingwhether a society is rational and towhat degree it has rational content.Absentsuch a criterion, we have no basis for social ethics apart from the egocentric,adventitious,anarchic,andhighlysubjectivestatement“Ichoose!”Asocialethicscannot remain suspended in the air without an objective foundation, acomprehensiveevolutionfromtheprimitivetotheincreasinglysophisticated,andacoherentcontentthatsupportsitsdevelopment.Moreover, without an objective potentiality (that is, the implicit reality that

lends itself to rational eduction, in contrast to mere daydreaming) that sits in“judgment” of existential reality as distinguished from a rationally conceivedreality,wehavenowaytoderiveanethicsthatgoesbeyondmerepersonaltaste.What is to guide us in understanding the nature of freedom? Why is freedomsuperiortomerecustomorhabit?Whyisafreesocietydesirableandanenslavedonenot,apartfromtasteandopinion?Nosocialethicsisevenpossible,letalonedesirable,withoutaprocessualconceptionofbehavior, from itsprimal roots inthe realm of potentiality at the inception of a human evolution, through thatevolution itself, to the level of the rational and discursive. Without criteriasuppliedbythedialecticallyderived“ought,”thefoundationsforarevolutionarymovement dissolve into an anarchic vacuum of personal choice, the muddlednotion that “what is good forme constitutes the good and the true—and that isthat!”Asmuch aswe are obliged to deal with the “what is”—with the existential

factsoflife,includingcapitalism—itisthedialecticallyderived“true,”asHegelmight put it, thatmust always remain our guide, precisely because it defines arational society.Abandon the rational andwe are reduced to the level ofmereanimalityfromwhichthecourseofhistoryandthegreatstrugglesofhumanityforemancipationhavetendedtofreeus.ItistobreakfaithwithHistory,conceivedasa rational development toward freedom and innovation, and to diminish thedefiningstandardsofourhumanity.Ifweoftenseemadrift,itisnotforlackofa

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compassandamapbywhich toguideourselves toward theactualizationofouruniquelyhumanandsocialpotentialities.This leadsus toanotherpremise foracquiring social truth: the importanceof

dialecticalthinkingasourcompass.Thislogicconstitutesboththemethodandthesubstance of an eductive process of reasoning and unfolding. Eduction is theprocedure that immanently elicits the implicit traits that lend themselves torational actualization, namely, freedom and innovation. A deep ecologist oncechallengedmebyaskingwhyfreedomshouldbemoredesirablethanunfreedom.Ireplythatfreedom,asitdevelopsobjectivelythroughvariousphasesoftheascentof life, frommerechoiceasa formofself-maintenance to there-creationof theenvironment by intellection and innovation, canmake for a world that is morehabitable,humane,andcreativethananythingachievedbytheinterplayofnaturalforces.Indeed,torephraseafamousaxiomofHegel’s,apointcanbereachedinafreesocietywherewhatisnotfreeisnotreal(oractual).Indeed, a task of dialectical thinking is to separate the rational from the

arbitrary,external,andadventitiousinwhichitunfolds,anendeavorthatdemandsconsiderable intellectual courage as well as insight. Thus, the conquests ofAlexander theGreat dovetailwith the rationalmovement ofHistory, insofar asAlexander unified a decomposing world made up of rotting city-states andparasiticmonarchiesand transmittedHellenic thought to it.But theexplosionofMongol horsemen from the steppes of central Asia contributed no more to therationalcourseofeventsthandid,say,adeclineinrainfalloverNorthAfricathatturnedavastforestedareaintoagrim,formidabledesert.Moreover,tospeakofaMongol invasion as evidence of a “potentiality for evil” is to divest the richphilosophicaltermpotentialityofitscreativecontent.Muchbettertouseheretheideologically neutral term capacity, which can be applied anywhere for anyphenomenon—andtonointelligiblepurposewhatever.Remote as it may seem to some, dialectical thinking is, in my view,

indispensableforcreatingthemapandformulatingtheagendaforanewLeft.Theactualization of humanity’s potentiality for a rational society—the “what shouldbe”achievedbyhumandevelopment—occursinthefullydemocraticmunicipality,themunicipalitybasedona face-to-facedemocraticassemblycomposedof freecitizens, for whom the word politics means direct popular control over thecommunity’spublicaffairsbymeansofdemocraticinstitutions.Suchasystemofcontrolshouldoccurwithin theframeworkofadulyconstitutedsystemof laws,rationallyderivedbydiscourse,experience,historicalknowledge,andjudgment.Thefreemunicipality,ineffect,isnotonlyaspherefordeployingpoliticaltacticsbutaproductofreason.Here,meansandendsareinperfectcongruence,withoutthetroubling“transitions”thatoncegaveusa“dictatorshipoftheproletariat”that

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soonturnedintoadictatorshipoftheparty.Furthermore,thelibertarianmunicipality,likeanysocialartifact,isconstituted.

It is to be consciously created by the exercise of reason, not by arbitrary“choices” that lack objective ethical criteria and therefore may easily yieldoppressive institutions and chaotic communities. Themunicipality’s constitutionandlawsshoulddefinethedutiesaswellastherightsofthecitizen,thatis,theyshouldexplicitlyclarify therealmofnecessityaswellas therealmof freedom.Thelifeofthemunicipalityisdeterminedbylaws,notarbitrarily“bymen.”Law,as such, is not necessarily oppressive: indeed, for thousands of years theoppresseddemandedlaws,asnomos,topreventarbitraryruleandthe“tyrannyofstructurelessness.” In the free municipality, law must always be rationally,discursively,andopenlyderivedandsubjecttocarefulconsideration.Atthesametime, we must continually be aware of regulations and definitions that haveharnessedhumanitytotheiroppressors.AsRousseausaw,themunicipalityisnotmerelyanagglomerationofbuildings

butoffreecitizens.Combinedwithreason,ordercanyieldcoherentinstitutions.Lacking order and reason, we are left with a system of arbitrary rule, withcontrols that are not accountable or answerable to the people—in short, withtyranny.Whatconstitutesastate isnot theexistenceof institutionsbut rather theexistenceofprofessionalinstitutions,setapartfromthepeople,thataredesignedtodominatethemfortheexpresspurposeofsecuringtheiroppressioninoneformoranother.Arevolutionarypoliticsdoesnotchallengetheexistenceofinstitutionsassuch

but rather assesses whether a given institution is emancipatory and rational oroppressiveand irrational.Thegrowingproclivity inoppositionalmovements totransgress institutions and lawsmerely because they exist is in fact reactionaryand,inanycase,servestodivertpublicattentionawayfromtheneedtocreateortransforminstitutionsintodemocratic,popular,andrationalentities.A“politics”ofdisorderor“creativechaos,”oranaïvepracticeof“takingover the streets”(usuallylittlemorethanastreetfestival),regressesparticipantstothebehaviorofa juvenile herd; by replacing the rational with the “primal” or “playful,” itabandonstheEnlightenment’scommitmenttothecivilized,thecultivated,andtheknowledgeable.Joyfulasrevolutionsmaysometimesalsobe, theyareprimarilyearnestlyseriousandevenbloody;andiftheyarenotsystematicandastutelyled,theywillinvariablyendincounterrevolutionandterror.TheCommunardsof1871mayhavebeendeliriouslydrunkwhenthey“stormedtheheavens”(asMarxputit),butwhentheysoberedup,theyfoundthatthewallssurroundingParishadbeenbreachedby the counterrevolutionaryVersaillais.After aweekof fighting, theirresistance collapsed, and theVersaillais shot themarbitrarily and inbatchesby

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thethousands.ApoliticsthatlackssufficientseriousnessinitscorebehaviormaymakeforwonderfulAnarchybutisdisastrousrevolutionism.Whatspecificpoliticalconclusionsdotheseobservationsyield?Whatpolitical

agendadotheysupport?First,the“whatshouldbe”shouldpresideovereverytenetofafuturepolitical

agenda and movement. As important as a politics of protest may be, it is nosubstituteforapoliticsofsocialinnovation.Today,Marxistsandanarchistsaliketendtobehavedefensively,merelyreactingtotheexistingsocialorderandtotheproblems it creates. Capitalism thus orchestrates the behavior of its intuitiveopponents. Moreover, it has learned to mute opposition by shrewdly makingpartialconcessionstoprotesters.Themunicipality,aswehaveseen,istheauthenticterrainfortheactualization

of humanity’s social potentialities to be free and innovative. Still, left to itself,even the most emancipated municipality may become parochial, insular, andnarrow. Confederalism remains at once the operational means of rounding outdeficits that any municipality is likely to face when it introduces a libertariancommunist economy. Few, if any, municipalities are capable of meeting theirneeds on their own. An attempt to achieve economic autarchy—and theconcomitant cultural parochialism that it so often yields in less economicallydevelopedsocieties—wouldbesociallyundesirable.Nordoesthemereexchangeof surplus products remove the commodity relationship; the sharing of goodsaccording toa truly libertarianviewis fardifferent fromanexchangeofgoods,whichcloselyresemblesmarketexchanges.Bywhatstandardwouldthe“value”ofsurpluscommoditiesbedetermined—by theircongealed labor?The incipientbases for a capitalist economy remained unrecognized, even in anarchistCatalonia,amongthosewhoboastedoftheircommunistconvictions.Still another distinction that must be drawn is that between policymaking

decisions and strictly administrative ones. Just as the problems of distributionmust not be permitted to drag a community into capitalist mores and marketpractices, administratorsmust not be allowed tomake policy decisions, whichproperly belong to popular assemblies. Such practices must be made, quitesimply, illegal, that is, the community must establish regulations, with punitivefeatures, forbidding committees and agencies to exercise rights that properlybelongtotheassembledcommunity.Asinsensitiveassuchmeasuresmayseemtodelicatelibertariansensibilities,theyarejustifiedbyahistoryinwhichhard-wonrightswereslowlyerodedbyeliteswhosoughtprivileges for themselvesat theexpenseofthemany.Postscarcityintheavailabilityofthemeansoflifemayserveto render any pursuit of economic privilege a laughable anachronism. But, ashierarchicalsocietyhasshown,somethingmorethaneconomicprivileges,suchas

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theenhancementofstatusandpower,maybeinvolved.Human beings actualize their potentialities in free municipalities that are

rationally and discursively constituted and institutionalized in free popularassemblies.Whateverpoliticsabetsthisdevelopmentishistoricallyprogressive;any self-professed politics that diminishes this development is reactionary andreinforces the existing social order.Mere expressions of formless “community”thatdevolveinto“streetfestivals,”particularlywhentheybecomesubstitutesfora libertarian municipalist politics (or, more disturbingly, a distortion of them),feed the overall juvenilization that capitalism promotes through its impetus todumbdownsocietyonamassivescale.During the interwar years, when proactive forces for revolutionary change

seemed to threaten theveryexistenceof thesocialorder, theclassicalLeftwasfocusedonadistinctsetofissues:theneedforaplannedeconomy,theproblemsofachroniceconomiccrisis,theimminenceofaworldwidewar,theadvanceoffascism, and the challenging examples provided by the Russian Revolution.Today,contemporaryleftistsaremorefocusedonmajorecologicaldislocations,corporategigantism, the influenceof technologyondaily life, and the impactofthemassmedia.TheclassicalLeftlookedatdeep-seatedcrisesandthefeasibilityof revolutionary approaches to create social change; the contemporary Left ismoreattentivetoadifferentsetofabuses.Thecapitalismunderwhichwelivetodayisfarremovedfromthecapitalism

thatMarxknewandthatrevolutionariesofallkindstriedtooverthrowinthefirsthalfofthetwentiethcentury.Ithas,indeed,developedingreatpartalongthelinesMarx suggested in his closing chapters of the first volume of Capital: as aneconomywhosevery lawof life is accumulation, concentration, and expansion.When itcanno longerdevelopalong these lines, itwillcease tobecapitalism.This followsfromthevery logicofcommodityexchange,with itsexpression incompetitionandtechnologicalinnovation.Marxistproductivismandanarchistindividualismhavebothledtoblindalleys,

albeitwidelydivergentones.WhereMarxismtends tooverorganizepeople intoparties, unions, and proletarian “armies” guided by elitist leaders, anarchismeschewsorganizationandleadersas“vanguards”andcelebratesrevolutionismasan instinctive impulseunguidedby reasonor theory.WhereMarxismcelebratestechnologicaladvances,withoutplacingtheminarational,ethical,andecologicalcontext,anarchismdeprecatessophisticatedtechnicsasthedemonicparentofthe“technocratic man,” who is lured to perdition by reason and civilization.Technophiliahasbeenpittedagainsttechnophobia;analyticalreasonagainstrawinstinct;andasyntheticcivilizationagainstapresumablyprimevalnature.The future of theLeft, in the last analysis, depends upon its ability to accept

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what is valid in bothMarxism and anarchism for the present time and for thefuture that iscoming intoview. Inaneraofpermanent technological revolution,thevalidityofatheoryandamovementwilldependprofoundlyonhowclearlyitcanseewhatliesjustahead.Radicallynewtechnologies,stilldifficulttoimagine,will undoubtedly be introduced that will have a transformative effect upon theentireworld.Newpower alignmentsmay arise that produce a degreeof socialdisequilibriumthathasnotbeenseenfordecades,accompaniedbynewweaponsofunspeakablehomicidalandecocidaleffects,andacontinuingecologicalcrisis.But nogreater damage could afflict human consciousness than the loss of the

Enlightenment program: the advance of reason, knowledge, science, ethics, andeventechnics,whichmustbemodulatedtofindaprogressiveplaceinafreeandhumane society. Without the attainments of the Enlightenment, no libertarianrevolutionaryconsciousnessispossible.Inassessingtherevolutionarytradition,areasonedLefthastoshakeoffdeadtraditionsthat,asMarxwarned,weighontheheadsof the living,andcommit itself tocreatea rationalsocietyanda roundedcivilization.

December2002

34WhetherinRussiaorinGermany,theconvictionthat“bourgeoisdemocracy”(thatis,capitalism)wasapreconditionalstageforleadingsocietytosocialismhelpedjustifythereluctanceofSocialDemocracytoleadtheworkerstomakeaproletarianrevolutionbetween1917and1919.Marx’s“stagestheory,”ineffect,wasnotonlyanattempttogiveaninterpretationtohistoricaldevelopment;itplayedavitalroleinMarxistpoliticsfromtheGermanandRussianRevolutionsof1917–21totheSpanishRevolutionof1936–37.35IreferherenottotheconventionalcriticismsthatweremountedagainstMarxismbypoliticalopponents

—criticisms that emerged from thevery inceptionofMarx’s theoretical activities and the emergenceof thesocialistmovementsbasedinvaryingdegreesonhis ideas.NoramIconcernedwithMarxistcriticssuchasEduardBernstein,whomountedtheircritiqueswithintheMarxistmovementitselfinthe1890s.Rather,Ireferto thecritiques thatemergedwith theFrankfurtSchoolandassortedwriters likeKarlKorsch,whoseriouslychallengedthemanypremisesofMarx’sphilosophicalandhistoricalconcepts.36Marx, “Preface to aContribution of theCritique of PoliticalEconomy,” inSelectedWorks,Moscow:

ProgressPublishers,1969,vol.1,504.37 All of which induced Georg Lukács to impart this hegemonic role to the “proletarian party,” which

mystically embodies the proletariat as a class, even when its leadership is usually predominantly pettybourgeois.38 I am not trying to downplay the importance of economic issues.Quite to the contrary: only in recent

times,especiallysince themid-twentiethcentury,hascapitalism’scommodityeconomybecomeacommoditysociety.Commodificationhasnowpenetrated into themost intimate levelsofpersonalandsocial life. In thebusiness-esethatprevailstoday,almosteverythingisseenasatrade-off.Loveitselfbecomesa“thing,”withitsownexchangevalueandusevalue,evenitsownprice—afterall,dowenot“earn”theloveofothersbyourbehavior? Still, this kind of commodification is not complete; the value of love is not entirelymeasurable intermsoflabororsupplyanddemand.39Ealham,C., “From theSummits to theAbyss:TheContradictions of Individualism andCollectivism in

SpanishAnarchism,”inTheRepublicBesieged:CivilWarinSpain,eds.Preston,P.andMackenzie,A.L.,Edinburgh:EdinburghUniversityPress,1996,140.ThisessayisoneofthemostimportantcontributionsIhavereadtotheliteratureonthecontradictionsinanarchism.

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Acknowledgements

Someoftheseessaysappearedpreviouslyinothervenuesandwewouldliketoacknowledgethemasfollows:Theessay“TheEcologicalCrisisandtheNeedtoRemakeSociety”wasoriginallywritten foraGreekaudience in1992and laterpublished in English under the title “The Ecological Crisis, Socialism, and theNeedtoRemakeSociety”inthejournalSocietyandNaturevol.2,no.3,1994.“A Politics for the Twenty-First Century” was originally a video-transmittedspeech presented to the First International Conference on LibertarianMunicipalism, Lisbon, 1998. “The Meaning of Confederalism” was originallypublished inFromUrbanization toCities, London:Cassell, 1995. “LibertarianMunicipalism:APoliticsofDirectDemocracy”wasoriginallytitled“LibertarianMunicipalism:AnOverview”andappearedinGreenPerspectives,no.24,1991.“Cities: The Unfolding of Reason in History” was excerpted from the article,“CommentsontheInternationalSocialEcologyNetworkGatheringandthe‘DeepSocialEcology’ofJohnClark”publishedinDemocracyandNature,vol.3,no.3,1997.“Nationalismandthe‘NationalQuestion’”wasoriginallypublishedinSociety andNature vol. 2, no. 2, 1994. “Anarchism and Power in the SpanishRevolution”appearedinCommunalism,no.2,2002.WegratefullyacknowledgeAudreaLim,JacobStevens,MarkMartin,and the

entireteamatVersofortheirtirelesseffortsindisseminatingradicalthought.WewanttoalsoacknowledgethelongstandingdedicationtotheseideasbyeveryoneattheInstituteforSocialEcology.Finally,JimSchumacherhassupportedMurrayBookchinandhisworkinwaysthatgofarbeyondtheloveandloyaltyofatypicalson-in-law;hiscommitmenttoMurray’svisionandlegacywereinvaluableintherealizationofthisvolume.

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FurtherReading

BOOKSBYMURRAYBOOKCHIN

Post-Scarcity Anarchism. Berkeley: Ramparts Press, 1971; and Oakland:AKPress,2004.

TheLimitsoftheCity.NewYork:HarperandRow,1974.TheSpanishAnarchists:TheHeroicYears1868-1936.NewYork:FreeLifeEditions,1977;andSanFransisco:AKPress,2001.

TowardanEcologicalSociety.Montreal:BlackRoseBooks,1980.The Ecology of Freedom. Palo Alto: Cheshire Books, 1982; and SanFrancisco:AKPress,2001.

TheModernCrisis.Philadelphia:NewSocietyPublishers,1986;Montreal:BlackRoseBooks,1987.

TheRise ofUrbanization and theDecline ofCitizenship. San Francisco:Sierra Club Books, 1987. Revised edition as From Urbanization toCities:TowardsaNewPoliticsofCitizenship.London:Cassell,1995.

RemakingSociety:PathstoaGreenFuture.Boston:SouthEndPress,1990.The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays on Dialectical Naturalism.Montreal:BlackRoseBooks,1990.

Defending the Earth: A Dialogue Between Murray Bookchin and DaveForeman,coauthoredwithDaveForeman.Boston:SouthEndPress,1991.

WhichWayfortheEcologyMovement?SanFrancisco:AKPress,1994.To Remember Spain: The Anarchist and Syndicalist Revolution of 1936.SanFrancisco:AKPress,1994.

Re-Enchanting Humanity: A Defense of the Human Spirit Against Anti-Humanism, Misanthropy, Mysticism, and Primitivism. New York:Cassell,1995.

Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm. SanFrancisco:AKPress,1995.

TheThirdRevolution:PopularMovementsintheRevolutionaryEra.NewYork: Cassell, Vol. 1, 1996; Vol. 2, 1998. London: Continuum, Vol. 3,

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2004;Vol.4,2005.Anarchism,MarxismandtheFutureoftheLeft.SanFrancisco:AKPress,1999.

SocialEcologyandCommunalism.Oakland:AKPress,2007.ThePoliticsofCosmology.Forthcoming.TheMurrayBookchinReader.Forthcoming.Herber,Lewis(pseudonym),OurSyntheticEnvironment.NewYork:AlfredA.Knopf,1962.

Herber, Lewis (pseudonym),Crisis in Our Cities. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:PrenticeHall,1965.

BOOKSABOUTMURRAYBOOKCHIN

White,Damian,Bookchin:ACriticalAppraisal.London:PlutoPress,2008.Price,Andy,RecoveringBookchin:SocialEcologyand theCrisesofOurTime.Porsgrunn,Norway:NewCompassPress,2012.

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