Post-Scarcity Anarchism

{{short description|1971 book by Murray Bookchin}} {{Infobox book |name = Post-Scarcity Anarchism |title_orig = |translator = |image = File:Post Scarcity Anarchism, 1971 edition.JPG |caption = Cover of the first edition |author = [[Murray Bookchin]] |illustrator = |cover_artist = |country = United States |language = English |series = |subject = [[Anarchism]] |publisher = [[Ramparts Press]] |pub_date = 1971 |media_type = Print ([[Hardcover]] and [[Paperback]]) |pages = 288 | isbn = 0-87867-005-X | dewey= 335/.83 | congress= HX833 .B63 |oclc = 159676 |preceded_by = |followed_by = }} {{Anarchism US}} '''''Post-Scarcity Anarchism''''' is a collection of [[essay]]s by [[Murray Bookchin]], first published in 1971 by [[Ramparts Press]].<ref> {{cite book |title=Post-scarcity anarchism,<nowiki> [WorldCat.org]</nowiki> |publisher=[[WorldCat.org]] |oclc = 159676}} </ref> In it, Bookchin outlines the possible form [[anarchism]] might take under conditions of [[Post scarcity|post-scarcity]]. One of Bookchin's major works,<ref>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Mark |title=Thinking through the Environment |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |year=1999 |isbn=0-415-21172-7 }}</ref> its author's radical thesis provoked controversy for being [[utopia]]n in its faith in the liberatory potential of [[technology]].<ref name=call/>

==Summary==

Bookchin's "post-scarcity anarchism" is an economic system based on [[Social ecology (theory)|social ecology]], [[libertarian municipalism]], and an abundance of fundamental resources. Bookchin argues that [[Post-industrial society|post-industrial societies]] have the potential to be developed into post-scarcity societies, and can thus imagine "the fulfillment of the social and cultural potentialities latent in a technology of abundance".<ref name=call/> The self-administration of society is now made possible by technological advancement and, when technology is used in an ecologically sensitive manner, the revolutionary potential of society will be much changed.<ref name=AK> {{cite web |url=https://www.akpress.org/catalog/product/view/id/807/s/postscarcityanarchism/ |title=Post-Scarcity Anarchism |publisher=[[AK Press]] |access-date=2016-08-01 }} </ref>

Bookchin claims that the expanded [[manufacturing|production]] made possible by the technological advances of the twentieth century were in the pursuit of market [[profit (economics)|profit]] and at the expense of the needs of humans and of ecological [[sustainability]]. The [[capital accumulation|accumulation of capital]] can no longer be considered a prerequisite for liberation, and the notion that obstructions such as the [[State (polity)|state]], [[social hierarchy]], and [[Vanguard party|vanguard political parties]] are necessary in the struggle for freedom of the [[working class]]es can be dispelled as a myth.<ref name=AK/>

== Reception == Bookchin's thesis has been seen as a form of anarchism more radical than that of [[Noam Chomsky]]; while both concur that [[information technology]], being controlled by the [[bourgeoisie]], is not necessarily liberatory, Bookchin does not refrain from countering this control by developing new, innovative and radical technologies of the self.<ref name=call>{{cite book |author-link=Lewis Call |last=Call |first=Lewis |title=Postmodern Anarchism |publisher=Lexington Books |location=Lexington |year=2002 |isbn=0-7391-0522-1 }}</ref> [[Post-anarchism|Postanarchist]] scholar [[Lewis Call]] compares Bookchin's language to that of [[Marcel Mauss]], [[Georges Bataille]] and [[Herbert Marcuse]], and notes that Bookchin anticipates the importance of [[cybernetics|cybernetic technology]] to the development of human potential over a decade before the origin of [[cyberpunk]].<ref name=call/> The collection has been cited favourably by Marius de Geus as presenting "inspiring sketches" of the future,<ref>{{cite book |last=Geus |first=Marius |title=Ecological Utopias |publisher=International Books |location=Utrecht |year=1998 |isbn=90-5727-019-6 }}</ref> and as "an insightful analysis" and "a discussion of revolutionary potential in a technological society" by [[Peggy Kornegger]] in her essay "Anarchism: The Feminist Connection".<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Anarchism: The Feminist Connection |editor=Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz |last=Kornegger |first=Peggy |author-link=Peggy Kornegger |title=Quiet Rumours |publisher=[[AK Press]] |location=Stirling |year=2003 |isbn=1-902593-40-5 }}</ref>

== See also == * ''[[Counterrevolution and Revolt]]'' * ''[[The Dispossessed]]'' * [[Nanosocialism]] * [[Post-scarcity]] * [[Social ecology (theory)|Social ecology]] * [[List of books about anarchism]]

== References == {{reflist}}

== Further reading == {{refbegin}} * {{Cite journal |last1=Battersby |first1=Mark |title=Review of Post-Scarcity Anarchism |journal=Alternatives |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=8–9 |date=1973 |issn=0002-6638 |jstor=45029923 |df=mdy-all }} * {{Cite news |last1=Gitlin |first1=Todd |title=To the Far Side of the Abyss |work=[[The Nation]] |page=309 |date=1972-03-06 |language=en |df=mdy-all }} * {{Cite news |last1=Perlin |first1=Terry M. |title=Radical Mavericks |work=[[Dissent (American magazine)|Dissent]] |pages=538–539 |date=1972 |language=en |df=mdy-all }} * [[Book Review Digest]] 1972 {{refend}}

[[Category:1971 non-fiction books]] [[Category:American non-fiction books]] [[Category:Books about anarchism]] [[Category:English-language non-fiction books]] [[Category:Green anarchism]] [[Category:Anarchist works]] [[Category:Works about scarcity]] [[Category:Works by Murray Bookchin]] [[Category:Essay collections]]