# Post-Scarcity Anarchism

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1971 book by Murray Bookchin

Post-Scarcity Anarchism Cover of the first edition Author Murray Bookchin Language English Subject Anarchism Publisher Ramparts Press Publication date 1971 Publication place United States Media type Print (Hardcover and Paperback) Pages 288 ISBN 0-87867-005-X OCLC 159676 Dewey Decimal 335/.83 LC Class HX833 .B63

Part of a series on Anarchism in the United States Ideologies Black Chicago idea Christian Green Individualist Pacifist Philosophical Without adjectives History Cincinnati Time Store Most–Grottkau debate Haymarket affair Homestead strike Assassination of William McKinley Immigration Act of 1903 Ferrer Center and Colony Immigration Act of 1918 Galleanisti First Red Scare 1919 bombings Palmer Raids Sacco and Vanzetti Libertarian Book Club and League Counterculture of the 1960s Protests of 1968 Battle of Seattle Occupy Wall Street Qilombo Capitol Hill Occupied Protest People Alston Andrews Austin Balagoon Bari Berkman Berrigan Best Biehl Bookchin Bushnell Chomsky Cleyre Czolgosz Day Dolgoff Emerson Ervin Fielden Fischer Galleani Garrison Georgakas Goldman Goodman Grace Graeber Greene Hahnel Haldeman-Julius Hammond Harman Heywood (Angela) Heywood (Ezra) Hill Hoffman Holmes Ingalls Inglis Kaczynski Konkin Labadie Lingg Lloyd Lum Magón Most Parsons Perlman Sale Solanas Spies Spooner Thoreau Tucker Warren Wilson Wolff Zerzan Zinn Active organizations ABC No Rio Anarcho-Syndicalist Review Anti-Racist Action Beehive Design Collective Catholic Worker Movement Common Ground Collective CrimethInc. Earth Liberation Front Indecline Industrial Workers of the World Institute for Anarchist Studies Institute for Social Ecology Kate Sharpley Library Labadie Collection Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council MOVE Profane Existence Red Emma's Ruckus Society Defunct organizations Cincinnati Time Store Curious George Brigade Diggers Don't Just Vote, Get Active Ferrer Center and Colony George Jackson Brigade Institute for Applied Autonomy International Working People's Association Libertarian Book Club and League Love and Rage New England Non-Resistance Society New York Social Revolutionary Club Portland Anarchist Road Care Qilombo Right to Existence Group Spanish Camp Tenacious Unicorn Ranch Union of Russian Workers Up Against the Wall Motherfucker Vanguard Group Why? Group Youth International Party Media AK Press Autonomedia The Blast Catholic Worker Cronaca Sovversiva Fifth Estate Free Society Freiheit Golos Truda Liberty Loompanics Mother Earth PM Press Regeneración Vanguard The Word Literature "Resistance to Civil Government" (1849) "To the Workingmen of America" (1883) Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Now and After (1929) In Defense of Anarchism (1970) Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971) "The Abolition of Work" (1986) Industrial Society and Its Future (1995) From Bakunin to Lacan (2001) Understanding Power (2002) Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (2004) Direct Action: An Ethnography (2009) Related topics American Left Anarchism in Puerto Rico Anarcho-capitalism Libertarianism in the U.S. Labor history of the United States Minarchism Socialism in the U.S. Anarchism portal United States portal v t e

***Post-Scarcity Anarchism*** is a collection of [essays](/source/Essay) by [Murray Bookchin](/source/Murray_Bookchin), first published in 1971 by [Ramparts Press](/source/Ramparts_Press).[1] In it, Bookchin outlines the possible form [anarchism](/source/Anarchism) might take under conditions of [post-scarcity](/source/Post_scarcity). One of Bookchin's major works,[2] its author's radical thesis provoked controversy for being [utopian](/source/Utopia) in its faith in the liberatory potential of [technology](/source/Technology).[3]

## Summary

Bookchin's "post-scarcity anarchism" is an economic system based on [social ecology](/source/Social_ecology_(theory)), [libertarian municipalism](/source/Libertarian_municipalism), and an abundance of fundamental resources. Bookchin argues that [post-industrial societies](/source/Post-industrial_society) have the potential to be developed into post-scarcity societies, and can thus imagine "the fulfillment of the social and cultural potentialities latent in a technology of abundance".[3] The self-administration of society is now made possible by technological advancement and, when technology is used in an ecologically sensitive manner, the revolutionary potential of society will be much changed.[4]

Bookchin claims that the expanded [production](/source/Manufacturing) made possible by the technological advances of the twentieth century were in the pursuit of market [profit](/source/Profit_(economics)) and at the expense of the needs of humans and of ecological [sustainability](/source/Sustainability). The [accumulation of capital](/source/Capital_accumulation) can no longer be considered a prerequisite for liberation, and the notion that obstructions such as the [state](/source/State_(polity)), [social hierarchy](/source/Social_hierarchy), and [vanguard political parties](/source/Vanguard_party) are necessary in the struggle for freedom of the [working classes](/source/Working_class) can be dispelled as a myth.[4]

## Reception

Bookchin's thesis has been seen as a form of anarchism more radical than that of [Noam Chomsky](/source/Noam_Chomsky); while both concur that [information technology](/source/Information_technology), being controlled by the [bourgeoisie](/source/Bourgeoisie), is not necessarily liberatory, Bookchin does not refrain from countering this control by developing new, innovative and radical technologies of the self.[3] [Postanarchist](/source/Post-anarchism) scholar [Lewis Call](/source/Lewis_Call) compares Bookchin's language to that of [Marcel Mauss](/source/Marcel_Mauss), [Georges Bataille](/source/Georges_Bataille) and [Herbert Marcuse](/source/Herbert_Marcuse), and notes that Bookchin anticipates the importance of [cybernetic technology](/source/Cybernetics) to the development of human potential over a decade before the origin of [cyberpunk](/source/Cyberpunk).[3] The collection has been cited favourably by Marius de Geus as presenting "inspiring sketches" of the future,[5] and as "an insightful analysis" and "a discussion of revolutionary potential in a technological society" by [Peggy Kornegger](/source/Peggy_Kornegger) in her essay "Anarchism: The Feminist Connection".[6]

## See also

- *[Counterrevolution and Revolt](/source/Counterrevolution_and_Revolt)*

- *[The Dispossessed](/source/The_Dispossessed)*

- [Nanosocialism](/source/Nanosocialism)

- [Post-scarcity](/source/Post-scarcity)

- [Social ecology](/source/Social_ecology_(theory))

- [List of books about anarchism](/source/List_of_books_about_anarchism)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** *Post-scarcity anarchism, [WorldCat.org]*. [WorldCat.org](/source/WorldCat.org). [OCLC](/source/OCLC_(identifier)) [159676](https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/159676).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** Smith, Mark (1999). *Thinking through the Environment*. New York: Routledge. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0-415-21172-7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-415-21172-7).

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-call_3-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-call_3-1) [***c***](#cite_ref-call_3-2) [***d***](#cite_ref-call_3-3) [Call, Lewis](/source/Lewis_Call) (2002). *Postmodern Anarchism*. Lexington: Lexington Books. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0-7391-0522-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-7391-0522-1).

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-AK_4-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-AK_4-1) ["Post-Scarcity Anarchism"](https://www.akpress.org/catalog/product/view/id/807/s/postscarcityanarchism/). [AK Press](/source/AK_Press). Retrieved 2016-08-01.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** Geus, Marius (1998). *Ecological Utopias*. Utrecht: International Books. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [90-5727-019-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/90-5727-019-6).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** [Kornegger, Peggy](/source/Peggy_Kornegger) (2003). "Anarchism: The Feminist Connection". In Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (ed.). *Quiet Rumours*. Stirling: [AK Press](/source/AK_Press). [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [1-902593-40-5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1-902593-40-5).

## Further reading

- Battersby, Mark (1973). "Review of Post-Scarcity Anarchism". *Alternatives*. **3** (1): 8–9. [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0002-6638](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0002-6638). [JSTOR](/source/JSTOR_(identifier)) [45029923](https://www.jstor.org/stable/45029923).

- Gitlin, Todd (March 6, 1972). "To the Far Side of the Abyss". *[The Nation](/source/The_Nation)*. p. 309.

- Perlin, Terry M. (1972). "Radical Mavericks". *[Dissent](/source/Dissent_(American_magazine))*. pp. 538–539.

- [Book Review Digest](/source/Book_Review_Digest) 1972

v t e Murray Bookchin Bibliography Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971) The Spanish Anarchists (1976) The Ecology of Freedom (1982) Related Ecology or Catastrophe

v t e Anarchism in the United States History Cincinnati Time Store Most–Grottkau debate Haymarket affair Homestead strike Assassination of William McKinley Immigration Act of 1903 Ferrer Center and Colony Immigration Act of 1918 First Red Scare 1919 bombings Palmer Raids Sacco and Vanzetti Libertarian Book Club and League Counterculture of the 1960s Protests of 1968 Battle of Seattle Occupy Wall Street Qilombo Capitol Hill Occupied Protest People Abbott Alston Andrews Appleton Austin Balagoon Bari Berkman Best Biehl Bookchin Bushnell Carson Chomsky Cleyre Cornell Czologsz Day Dixon Dolgoff Duffy Turner Emerson Ervin Fielden Fischer Goldman Goodman Graeber Greene Hahnel Haldeman-Julius Hammond Heywood (Angela) Heywood (Ezra) Hill Hoffman Holmes Ingalls Kaczynski Labadie Lingg Lloyd Lum Magón Milstein Most Newman Parsons Perlman Sale Schwab (Justus) Schwab (Michael) Solanas Spies Spooner Thoreau Tucker Waisbrooker Walker Warren Wilson Winn Wolff Zerzan Zinn Organizations Active ABC No Rio Anarcho-Syndicalist Review Anti-Racist Action Beehive Design Collective Catholic Worker Movement Common Ground Collective CrimethInc. Curious George Brigade Earth Liberation Front Industrial Workers of the World Institute for Anarchist Studies Institute for Social Ecology Kate Sharpley Library Labadie Collection Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council MOVE Portland Anarchist Road Care Profane Existence Red Emma's Ruckus Society Defunct Cincinnati Time Store Don't Just Vote, Get Active Ferrer Center and Colony George Jackson Brigade Institute for Applied Autonomy International Working People's Association Libertarian Book Club and League New England Non-Resistance Society New York Social Revolutionary Club Qilombo Spanish Camp Tenacious Unicorn Ranch Union of Russian Workers Up Against the Wall Motherfucker Vanguard Group Why? Group Youth International Party Media Publications AK Press Autonomedia The Blast Catholic Worker Cronaca Sovversiva Fifth Estate Free Society Freiheit Golos Truda Liberty Loompanics Mother Earth PM Press Regeneración Vanguard The Word Works "Resistance to Civil Government" (1849) No Treason (1867-1870) "To the Workingmen of America" (1883) Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) Now and After (1929) In Defense of Anarchism (1970) Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971) "The Abolition of Work" (1986) From Bakunin to Lacan (2001) Understanding Power (2002) Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (2004) Direct Action: An Ethnography (2009) See also American Left Anarchism History in Puerto Rico Anarchist economics Anarcho-capitalism Anarcho-pacifism Autarchism Chicago idea Galleanisti Green anarchism Individualist anarchism in the United States Labor history of the United States Libertarianism in the U.S. Minarchism Outline of anarchism Philosophical anarchism Politics of the United States Socialism in the U.S. Anarchism portal

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