Social ecology

This article is about a political view and the associated movement. It should not be confused with Socioecology.

Social ecology is, in the words of its leading exponents, "a coherent radical critique of current social, political, and anti-ecological trends" as well as "a reconstructive, ecological, communitarian, and ethical approach to society". Social Ecology is a radical view of ecologyand of social/political systems.

Social Ecologists believe that the current ecological crisisis the product of capitalism. They believe it is not the number of people, but the way people relate to one another that has fueled the current economic crisis. Over-consumption, productivismand consumerismare thus symptoms, not causes, of a deeper issue with ethical relationships.

Social Ecology and Anarchism

Undoubtedly Social Ecology is one of the most influential currents in the eco-anarchistthread within anarchism. Social Ecology is associated with the ideas and works of Murray Bookchin, who has been writing on ecological matters since the 1950sand, from the 1960s, has combined these issues with revolutionary social anarchism. His works include Post-Scarcity Anarchism, Toward an Ecological Society, The Ecology of Freedom and a host of others.

Social Ecology locates the roots of the ecological crisisfirmly in relations of dominationbetween people. The domination of natureis seen as a product of domination within society, but this domination only reaches crisis proportions under capitalism. In the words of Murray Bookchin:

"The notion that man must dominate nature emerges directly from the domination of man by man? But it was not until organic communityrelations? dissolved into marketrelationships that the planet itself was reduced to a resource for exploitation. This centuries-long tendency finds its most exacerbating development in modern capitalism. Owing to its inherently competitive nature, bourgeois society not only pits humans against each other, it also pits the mass of humanity against the nature world. Just as men are converted into commodities, so every aspect of nature is converted into a commodity, a resource to be manufactured and merchandised wantonly." (Op. Cit., p. 63)

"The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital." (Ibid., p. 65)

Therefore social ecologists consider it essential to attack hierarchyand capitalism, not civilisationas such as the root cause of ecological problems. In the words of Murray Bookchin:

"Deep Ecology's problems stem from an authoritarian streak in a crude biologismthat uses 'natural law' to conceal an ever-diminishing sense of humanity and papers over a profound ignorance of social reality by ignoring the fact it is capitalism we are talking about, not an abstraction called 'Humanity' and 'Society.'" (The Philosophy of Social Ecology, p. 160)

See also

• Murray Bookchin
• Peter Kropotkin

Contrasting views

• Deep Ecology
• Green syndicalism
• Ecofeminism
• Gaia philosophy
• Greens
• Primitivism

External links

• Institute for Social Ecology (ISE)
• Libertarian Communist Library Murray Bookchin holdings
• Communalism Journalel:????????? ?????????

nn:sosialøkologisme ru:Социальная экология (движение)

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social+ecology Wikipedia article Social ecology.