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Showing posts from August, 2006

r. i. p. Murray Bookchin

Following Paul Avrich in February, another major figure in the anarchist movement, Murray Bookchin, passed away last month. Reason 's Jesse Walker has posted an RIP, which also discusses the interactions between Bookchin and libertarianism. Like many individuals on the left and right (Ronald Radosh comes to mind), Bookchin was willing for a period to ally with libertarians, which he later downplayed when he became more dismissive of libertarianism. To illustrate this, Walker has an amusing side-by-side analysis of Bookchin with libertarianism's Murray Rothbard, with whom he at one point collaborated on something called the Left-Right Anarchist Supper Club, but he later dismissed him as an advocate of "naked greed" with "repulsive" ideas. I wasn't particularly familiar with Bookchin's stuff or his "social ecology" philosophy of eco-anarchism, but I've read a few bits. His famous New Left rant "Listen, Marxist!" was a cri