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In brief, libertarian municipalism seeks to revive the democratic possibilities latent in existing local governments and transform them into direct democracies. It aims to decentralize these political communities so that they are humanly scaled and tailored to their natural environments, restoring the practices and qualities of citizenship, so that men and women can collectively take responsibility for managing their own communities, according to an ethics of sharing and cooperation, rather than depend on elites.
Written in short, to-the-point chapters, this book presents an introductory overview of the ideas as Bookchin developed them. In addition to laying out the basic components of libertarian municipalism's political ideas, it sketches the historical and philosophical context in which Bookchin grounds them and provides substantial material on the practical questions of creating and organizing a libertarian municipalist movement. Happily, Bookchin himself has been supportive of this project and has generously provided the lengthy interview that makes up the last third of this book.
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Politics versus Statecraft
- The Historical City
- Municipal Democracy: Ancient and Medieval
- Municipal Democracy: Colonial and Revolutionary
- The State and Urbanization
- The Municipality
- Building a Movement
- Elections
- The Formation of Citizenship
- Localism and Interdependence
- Confederalism
- A Municipalized Economy
- Dual Power
- A Rational Society
- Today's Agenda
- Interview with Murray Bookchin
- Appendix: 1989 Electoral Program of the Burlington Greens
- For Further Reading
About the author
Janet Biehl lectures on radical history at the Institute for Social Ecology, Vermont. She is the author of Finding Our Way, Black Rose Books, and co-editor of the newsletter, Green Perspectives, published by the Social Ecology Project in Vermont.
Murray Bookchin is one of North America's most important writers on environmental issues and has been active in the ecology movement for more than thirty years. Professor Emeritus at the School of Environmental Studies, Ramapo College and Director Emeritus of the Institute of Social Ecology, he has authored more than a dozen books on urbanism, ecology, technology and philosophy.