“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.” PeopleThinkingBelieveGovernmentRolesStudyBenefitsLogicMechanismUnlimitedLimited Government Author:Murray Bookchin
“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.” PeopleIfsThinkingGivingDoeStatesOrderEnjoyDecisionViolenceLibertarianConsistentlyMonopoly Author:Murray Bookchin
“I don't think that the Soviet Union and China are accidents, aberrations; I think they follow from Marxism-Leninism. I think that Leninism comes out of Marx's basic convictions.” ThinkingUnionsConvictionChinaAccidentsSovietSoviet UnionMarxismAberrationMarxism Leninism Author:Murray Bookchin
“I believe that any attempt on the part of a libertarian communist society to abridge the rights of a community - for example, to operate on the basis of a market economy of the kind that you describe - would be unforgivable, and I would oppose the practices of such a society as militantly as I think any reader of your publication would.” ThinkingBelieveKindWould BeI BelieveCommunityPracticeEconomyRightsExampleReaderBasesLibertarianCommunistPublicationMarket EconomyUnforgivable Author:Murray Bookchin
“My concern over private property is that it no longer fosters individuality. The historic destiny of private property is that it has created a highly corporatized economy, and I have to ask myself why. What is it in the market that led 100 capitalists to dissolve into 10 as a result of rivalry and accumulation, 10 into 3, and I think if the system has its way, those 3 into 1?” IfsThinkingWayAsksResultsDestinyEconomyConcernPropertyIndividualityCapitalistHistoricAccumulationPrivate PropertyRivalry Author:Murray Bookchin
“When I talk about self-management, self-regulation, self-government, the word I emphasize is self, and my concern is with the reconstruction of the self. Marxists and even many, I think, overly enthusiastic anarchists have neglected that self.” ThinkingSelfGovernmentConcernManagementRegulationEnthusiasticNeglectedAnarchistMarxistReconstructionSelf-governmentSelf RegulationSelf Management Author:Murray Bookchin
“I've had training in electronics engineering, of all things, and in languages. But I've never taken any degree, something I share with Lewis Mumford, I think.” ThinkingLanguageTakenShareDegreesTrainingAll ThingsEngineeringElectronics Author:Murray Bookchin
“I've worked in the factories of this land, and I've thought freely and creatively. And I think that that has greatly enriched my capacity to abstract intellectually. The experience of being with workers, my encounters with management and my recognition of its foibles, my personal encounters with American industrial efficiency, my military experience - all of these things packaged together have greatly enriched my reading and my understanding, and I've written with what I hope is a reasonable fluency of style that is much more expressive than the academic stuff.” ThinkingTogetherReadingStuffUnderstandingWrittenLandMilitaryStyleCapacityManagementWorkersRecognitionAbstractEncountersReasonableFactoriesAcademicEfficiencyExpressiveFoiblesFluencyMilitary Experience Author:Murray Bookchin
“My thinking is very flexible, and I hope that it will remain flexible and creative as long as biology permits me to think and that I will remain a rebel all my life.” ThinkingLongCreativeBiologyPermitRebelFlexible Author:Murray Bookchin
“My feeling is that anarchists have to think in terms of a specific. I think the dispersal of anarchists all over the place, particularly very gifted ones who can turn out periodicals and do very effective public work, and their tendency to just pick up and take off is a liability.” ThinkingFeelingsTurnsTermPicksTendenciesGiftedAnarchistLiability Author:Murray Bookchin
“I don't want to think any longer simply in terms of the Spanish Revolution or the Russian Revolution. It doesn't make any sense to talk [Peter] Makhno to an American.” ThinkingWantTermRevolutionPeterRussian Revolution Author:Murray Bookchin
“I think it's terribly important that networks of anarchists establish themselves with a view toward educating people.” PeopleThinkingImportantViewsAnarchist Author:Murray Bookchin
“In my case I would emphasize anarcho-communalism, along with the ecological questions, the feminist questions, the anti-nuclear issues that exist, and along with the articulation of popular institutions in the community. I think it's terribly important for anarchists to do that because at this moment not very much is happening anywhere in North America.” ThinkingImportantMomentsAmericaCommunityCasesIssuesHappeningsInstitutionsFeministNuclearAnarchistEcologicalNorth AmericaArticulationCommunalism Author:Murray Bookchin
“My main interests right now are to publish, to write, to explicate various views which I hope have an impact on thinking people.” PeopleThinkingWritingInterestViewsRight NowImpactVariousPublish Author:Murray Bookchin
“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.” ThinkingIdeasTodayTheoryHistoricalMaterialismDespotismDebris Author:Murray Bookchin
“I've been criticized by many anarchists as believing that anarchism is impossible without affluence. On the contrary, I think affluence is very destructive to anarchism. If you are absorbed by that commodity world then you're not going to move toward any radical positions, you're going to move toward a stance of protectiveness.” IfsThinkingWorldBelieveMovingImpossiblePositionContraryRadicalDestructiveCommodityAnarchismAnarchistStanceAffluenceProtectiveness Author:Murray Bookchin
“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.” ThinkingSelfSpiritBeliefNotionSorryI'm SorryAnarchistTheologicalCrude Author:Murray Bookchin
“I don't think anarchism consists of sitting down and saying let's form a collective. I don't think it consists of saying we're all anarchists: you're an anarcho-syndicalist; you're an anarcho-communist; you're an anarcho-individualist.” ThinkingFormSittingDown AndCollectivesCommunistAnarchismAnarchistSitting Down Author:Murray Bookchin
“I would like to see a critical mass of very gifted anarchists come together in an appropriate place in order to do highly productive work. That's it. I don't know why that can't be done except for the fact that I think that people mistrust their own ideals today. I don't think that they don't believe in them; I think they mistrust the viability of them. They're afraid to commit themselves to their ideals.” PeopleThinkingKnowsBelieveDoneFactsTodayTogetherOrderMassIdealsDon't BelieveCriticalCommitProductiveAppropriateGiftedAnarchistMistrustCritical MassProductive Work Author:Murray Bookchin
“The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking.” ThinkingExistenceLibertarianAssumptionAcidAnarchistVisionaries Book:Urbanization without cities: the rise and decline of citizenship Source: Urbanization without cities: the rise and decline of citizenship
“We are part of nature, a product of a long evolutionary journey. To some degree, we carry the ancient oceans in our blood. … Our brains and nervous systems did not suddenly spring into existence without long antecedents in natural history. That which we most prize as integral to our humanity - our extraordinary capacity to think on complex conceptual levels - can be traced back to the nerve network of primitive invertebrates, the ganglia of a mollusk, the spinal cord of a fish, the brain of an amphibian, and the cerebral cortex of a primate.” ThinkingLongHumanityNaturalLevelsExistenceBrainBloodJourneyProductsDegreesOceanSpringCapacityComplexesExtraordinaryAncientFishesNervousPrizeNervesPrimitiveNervous SystemCordsCerebralPrimatesNatural HistorySpinal CordAmphibiansMollusksInvertebrates Author:Murray Bookchin
“If we recognise that every ecosystem can also be viewed as a food web, we can think of it as a circular, interlacing nexus of plant animal relationships (rather than a stratified pyramid with man at the apex)… Each species, be it a form of bacteria or deer, is knitted together in a network of interdependence, however indirect the links may be.” IfsThinkingMenMayTogetherFormAnimalPlantSpeciesLinksRecognisePyramidsEcosystemsDeerInterdependenceIndirectBacteriaApexNexus Author:Murray Bookchin
