Social ecology and nature
In an ecological context, the work of Devall and Sessions (1985) offers an important deep ecology perspective where Nature has intrinsic, or inherent value which should be preserved. This perspective, however, runs into pragmatic problems when people enter political space. It is for this reason that Taylor’s perspective is useful in connecting with the ‘shallow’ green axiom that Nature is worthy of respect in the attempt to integrate ecological values into modern cultures that treat Nature as a refilling station. It is argued that Taylor’s ethic can be adapted through Bookchin’s principle as a
Deep Ecology and interpretation 229 clarifying principle in rhe debate surrounding humanity’s relationship with other Nature. The social ecologist, Bookchin, argues:
To reverse this trend, capitalism [has] to be replaced by an ecological society based on non-hierarchical relationships, decentralized communities, eco-technologies like solar power, organic agriculture, and humanly scaled industries - in short by face to face democratic forms of settlement economically and structurally tailored to the ecosystems in which they [are] located.
(Bookchin, 1990, p. 155)
Bookchin’s perspective is also highly critical of Marx’s work. Furthermore, social ecology is especially hostile to liberalism, neoliberalism and Marxism because its critique of capitalism fails to consider the way all human communities dominate both citizens and the natural environment. Marx, apparently, did not understand humanity’s drive for domination. Bookchin claims that Marx exaggerated the potential of the proletariat while ignoring the fact that the consumption patterns of the proletariat perpetuate capitalism. Clearly, Bookchin presents a vision of an ecological self that is diametrically opposed to Marx’s understanding, which is constructed through social labour and alienated by capitalism.
In Our Synthetic Environment (1974) and Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), Bookchin developed a ‘social ecological’ position informed by anarchist political theory'. He argues that modernity and its social structures disrupt Nature’s processes and require the abandonment of modernity (Bookchin, 1982, p. 2). Following the classical anarchist Peter Kropotkin (1914). Bookchin maintains that human practical reasoning has served simply to justify and legitimate ‘hierarchy and domination’ in all aspects of human civilisation. He offers the counter-argument that the search for intrinsic value in Nature is futile since all value depends on a valuing subject. He urges the development of a dialectical understanding of the relationship between freedom and hierarchy to work out how humanity can realign its practices with Nature. Modern communities cannot liberate humanity from the natural environment and this is because the domination of Nature itself reflects ‘the real domination of human by human’ (Rudy & Light, 1995, p. 90). Domination:
...must be viewed as institutionalized relationships, relationships that living things literally institute or create but which are neither ruthlessly fixed by instinct on the one hand nor idiosyncratic on the other. By this, I mean that they must comprise a clearly social structure of coercive and privileged ranks that exist apart from the idiosyncratic individuals who seem to be dominant within a given community, a hierarchy that is guided by a social logic that goes beyond individual interactions or inborn patterns of behavior.
(Bookchin, 1982, p. 29)
Social ecologists maintain that environmental problems stem from modernity’s emphasis on consumerism, growth and wasteful duplication. Thus, the major problem lies in social hierarchy which exacerbate capitalism’s consumerism and wasteful duplication (Bookchin, 1991, p. 29). The opposite of domination is freedom according to Bookchin.1 In particular, he argues that environmental problems result from humanity’s need to dominate other humans which, in turn, leads to the domination and destruction of the natural environment. What is relevant and useful in Bookchin’s social ecology is the notion of humanity as Nature rendered self-conscious which connects with the argument of this book that human practical reason can be informed by powers of perception and spontaneity to explore the intricate commonalities between humanity and Nature.
His general view of human civilisation, as an ongoing dialectic between domination and freedom, and concludes that historical changes have been quantitative rather than qualitative; that is, there is simply more and more human domination over other humans which has dire ecological effects. He advocates a return to small-scale, non-hierarchical communities as the only way to moderate harm to the natural environment. The task is to localise politics so that environmental damage is minimised. Bookchin argues that an ‘ecology society [is one] structured around social ecology’s ideals of a nonfederal, directly democratic, and ecologically oriented network of communities’ (Bookchin, 1993, p. 28). In small-scale communities, each person’s role is to minimise harm to the natural environment; such communities are also democratic where citizens have the greatest possible opportunities to participate in governance. Moreover, educational systems would be designed to develop eco-awareness so that individuals are aware of their impacts on the natural environment (Harvey, 1986).
For social ecologists, humanity is not inherently ‘aggressive, dominating and competitive’ (Harvey, 1986). Society makes it so. Neither is Nature irredeemably competitive. Ecosystems reflect Nature’s ‘evolutionary co-operation’, involving ‘mutualism’ and ‘symbiosis’ (Bookchin, 1995, p. 2). Human life may be altered to resemble Nature. After all, according to Bookchin:
[T]he natural processes that operate in animal and plant evolution along the symbiotic lines of participation and differentiation reappear as social processes in human evolution, albeit with their own distinctive traits, qualities and gradations or phases of development.
(Bookchin, 1995, p. 2)
While he does not underestimate ecological competition and predation among species, Bookchin emphasises mutualism and symbiosis as the determining forces of evolution. ‘Mutualism, not predation, seems to have been the guiding principle for the evolution of [the] highly complex aerobic life forms that are common today’ (Bookchin, 1995, p. 359). In such a view, capitalism is obviously condemned.
As mentioned earlier, Bookchin’s perspective is also highly critical of Marx’s work. Marxism, however, is no solution according to Bookchin, because it also reproduces hierarchy. Social ecology is especially hostile to Marxism because its critique of capitalism fails to consider the way all human communities dominate both citizens and the natural environment. Marx, apparently, did not understand humanity’s drive for domination. Bookchin argues, that he overlooked the threat that modes of domination pose to all life on the planet. He claims that Marx exaggerated the potential of the proletariat while ignoring the fact that the consumption patterns of the proletariat perpetuate capitalism. Clearly, Bookchin presents a vision of an ecological self that is diametrically opposed to Marx’s understanding, which is constructed through social labour and alienated by capitalism.
The dominant Western ideology, when combined with a philosophy of representational realism, has maintained an environmental vision that there are no limits to growth. Or put differently, human consumption patterns can be continually satisfied by new and improved technologies. Western thinking, it is contended, assumes that the environment stands in wait for humanity and other environmental visions are too unscientific to be considered. According to this interpretation of Western thinking, modern environmental ethics and political strategies are infatuated with empirical and scientific approaches. These scientific and technical approaches maintain that the natural world can be modelled and shaped by human-based thinking; it is probably for this reason that Heidegger claimed that modernity operates with a vision of Nature as a gigantic service station - a simple provider of resources, goods and services.
Rudy and Light (1995), in particular, are advocates of critical environmental politics which relies on the Marxian heritage. They reject simple explanations of capitalism in terms of domination and attempt to explain the processes that perpetuate incessant demand and consumerism in modern societies (Rudy Sc Light, 1995, p. 90). At a practical level, critical environmental theory involves strategies to resist the increasing corporatisation of social and environmental relationships. While social ecology exposes modernity’s modes of domination, it does not explain how environmental problems result from a complex set of forces which include, but extend beyond, the fact that power influences market outcomes. Ecological problems are not caused by the anonymity of the market, but inter alia by capitalism’s tendency to commodify significant relationships. Bookchin’s ‘social ecology’ does not relate ‘social labour’ to the means by which communities organise their daily activities and modes of reproduction. Therefore, he is wrong to argue that ‘capitalism is not a social phenomenon but an economic one’. Rudy and Light argue that:
Only by terminologically reifying both society and economy can the inherently social Nature of all human (re)production, for economic reasons or not, be denied. In fact, Bookchin’s approach to capitalist economics treats it as ‘the buyer-seller relationship’ and fails to mention the centrality of production...This follows from Bookchin’s sense that ‘the grand secret from which [the market] draws its power’ is ‘the power of anonymity’. (Bookchin, 1987, p. 204). But the key to capitalism after mercantilism is, in fact, not anonymity in the marketplace, but that waged labor is the root of the production and classbased extraction of a social surplus which is treated as abstract exchange-value.
(Rudy & Light, 1995, p. 95)
Bookchin emphasises the limitations of the market but does not explain how capitalism alienates workers from their labour power. Nor does Bookchin consider the political interpretivist strategy which might respond to ecological problems in modern communities by proposing the transcendence of older tyrannical orders and hierarchical societies (Ibid). Extending Bookchin involves exploring Taylor’s interpretivist 1 search to imagine a new social order which relies not simply on economic structures, but a committed sense of reconciliation through dialogue where common purposes are articulated as a good the outcome of which is a fruit of democratic interchange.
Bookchin’s social ecology prioritises individual self-realisation, but this approach fails to explore the social processes which limit workers and citizens from reaching their full potential. Critics contend that Bookchin homogenises the category of ‘Nature’ and does not consider adequately how Nature is ‘an unparalleled field of difference’. That is, they fail to consider the effects that Nature poses dilemmas for human freedom. Considerations about the natural environment invite us to consider the meaning of the term ‘Nature’. Yet, a limitation of Bookchin’s social ecology gives undue stress to the power of regional autonomy and the systemic relationships between people and rhe natural environment. Notwithstanding its limitations, social ecology may be supplemented by an exploration into the social forces which give rise to patterns of hierarchy and domination. The utility of Marx is his totalising dialectical method which can be extended to consider and extend the supposition that history progresses through discrete stages towards the good society. Anderson (1974) extended this argument to the Asian region and shows that it is Marx’s method which is important. Bookchin, however, fails to differentiate between societies and assumes that his solutions are applicable to all communities irrespective of their stage of development, and could profit by considering Anderson’s careful analysis of the differences in social environments and the role that they play in the politics of the environment.
