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There are people, of course, who profess to be libertarian Marxists. I believe they mean very well, and I even write in their periodicals but I write very militantly that I regard Marxism as a very subtle form of what I would call the totalitarian ideology - all the more subtle because it professes to advance the notions of freedom.

Murray Bookchin

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Murray Bookchin
Age: 85 †
Born: 1921
Born: January 14
Died: 2006
Died: July 30
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We don't have to go around as the Protestant reformation did, or as the socialist revolution did, and execute each other as soon as we are successful - assuming we'll ever be successful.
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I regard individuality as the most precious trait we have, because without it there is no creativity, there is no consciousness, there is no rationality. There is nothing that could make me speak more strongly to this point.
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In the 60s there were a lot of things which were anarchistic. May-June '68 was riddled by anarchistic sentiments, dreams and ideals, but insofar as this was not strengthened organizationally and intellectually by a very effective, powerful infrastructure, then what happens is the movement becomes dissipated.
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I think it's terribly important that networks of anarchists establish themselves with a view toward educating people.
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I believe in a libertarian communist society.
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Anarchists should get together who agree, and develop their gifts at a critical point, in a critical place, and form genuine affinity groups in areas where they can have certain results, notable results - not move into areas of great resistance where they're almost certain to be crushed, defeated, demoralized.
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I believe that if we do have a commonality of beliefs we should clarify them, we should strengthen their coherence and we should also develop common projects that produce a lived community of relationships.
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I'm less influenced by any of [Karl] Marx's ideas today than I've ever been in my life, and most significantly Marx's theory of historical materialism, which I think is virtually a debris of despotism.
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We have to give people the freedom to choose lifestyles and material satisfactions that suit their needs, and we have to redefine need itself. We can't redefine need among ghetto people by telling them we should all give up our TV sets or automobiles: we have to tell them there's enough to go around, now let's talk about using it sensibly.
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My anarchism is frankly anarcho-communalism, and it's eco-anarchism as well. And it's not oriented toward the proletariat.
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If the State does not enjoy a monopoly of violence, which then gives it the power to order people's lives and to compel them to obey decisions over which they have no control, or just limited control, then I think you have a consistently libertarian society.
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I'm sorry that some self-styled anarchists have picked up on the word spirit and have turned me into a theological ecologist, a notion which I think is crude beyond all belief.
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I am puzzled by people today who, after moralizing about the need for cooperation and goodwill and love-thy-neighbor-as-thyself, suddenly invoke the most primitive, barbarous motivations for any kind of progress.
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I am concerned that people who admire [Ayn] Rand are not often critical enough of the extent to which she has abridged the implications of [her] novels.
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Capitalism is a social cancer. It has always been a social cancer. It is the disease of society. It is the malignancy of society.
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We don't have an appreciable American left any more in the United States. What I saw of the SDS in the '60s was very abhorrent to me: Marxism, Leninism, almost the KGB mentality - a police politics that I found completely totalitarian in nature.
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Until society can be reclaimed by an undivided humanity that will use its collective wisdom, cultural achievements, technological innovations, scientific knowledge, and innate creativity for its own benefit and for that of the natural world, all ecological problems will have their roots in social problems.
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I think that people who believe in limited government would benefit greatly by studying the logic in government itself and the role of power as a corruptive mechanism in leading finally to unlimited government.
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We should try to become better people, ethically speaking, reflect upon ourselves and our very limited existences and develop a sense of tolerance for each other, as well as for other anarchist groups with which we may disagree. But we're not committed to toeing a line called anarchism there are many different anarchisms.
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Until we become the architects of a society that is truly free and ecological, it will always seem that when the human brain is not adaptive, it is more often destructive than creative.
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