One thing that fascinates me about political theorist Murray Bookchin’s writing is how prescient it is. His essay, “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought,” was written in 1965, six years before Earth Day, and almost a half-century before now. Yet its content is as relevant as ever, if not more so, given society’s increasing interest in all things “green.” Bookchin even references future ramifications of climate change, long before many had even considered it.

I don’t agree with everything Bookchin has written. To start, he believes that due to technological prowess, we are entering a “post-scarcity” era of humanity—the idea is reflected in the title of the book this essay appears in, Post-Scarcity Anarchism. Still, “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought” convincingly describes how important the rethinking of human organization (i.e. politics) is, given the urgency of our environmental crises. And, similar to an earlier philosopher Peter Kropotkin, Bookchin looks to the teachings of natural systems to illuminate better approaches to our social relations. Without reworking these economic, political, and cultural standards, sustainability will continue to vex us, no matter how many local farms and solar arrays we build.

We begin, as always, with the problem:

“Man has produced imbalances not only in nature, but, more fundamentally, in his relations with his fellow man and in the very structure of his society. The imbalances man has produced in the natural world are caused by the imbalances he has produced in the social world. A century ago it would have been possible to regard air pollution and water contamination as the result of the self-seeking activities of industrial barons and bureaucrats. Today, this moral explanation would be a gross oversimplification. It is doubtless true that most bourgeois enterprises are still guided by a public-be-damned attitude…but a more serious problem than the attitude of the owners is the size of the firms themselves–their enormous proportions, their location in a particular region, their density…their requirements for raw materials…and their role in the national division of labor.”

I would add that, given Capital’s imperative to grow endlessly, maximize profits, and “race to the bottom” (for the cheapest wages, the most easily exploitable resources), the owners of industry can almost be expected to make these damaging choices. But, regardless of the reason, it’s clear (and has been for quite some time) that this status quo just can’t go on.

People have been pointing out the environmental problems of industry since industry’s beginnings. Yet, approaching the problem through conventional politics hasn’t gotten very far. We haven’t been able to legislate our way out of climate change, nor have we even mitigated some of the more solvable effects of industrialized society, like water pollution from agriculture. Most people hold onto the idea that it is merely the regulatory agencies, or the particular political party in power, that are to be held accountable for this, but perhaps the state itself cannot save us?

People (in the U.S. in particular but the world over as well) have lost control over government, which means a loss of control over the economy and its negative effects. In our “democracy” of corporately-funded elections, ubiquitous lobbyists, an impotent when not sycophantic mainstream media, and an (understandably and increasingly) cynical, jaded electorate, can we expect to regain control of the government, as it currently is structured? Perhaps the healthy function of government, like that of industry, is corrupted by aspects inherent to its top-heavy design. The ecological appropriateness of industry should be decided by the communities impacted by that industry, not by the industries themselves or a weak, distant, unaccountable government.