Peter Staudenmaier: What is Capitalism?
From long-time ISE faculty member, Peter Staudenmeier, written for the Lexicon pamphlet series sponsored by the Institute for Anarchist Studies. This was originally posted in March 2014 and revised in August 2015: In ancient myths of paradise, people lived in boundless plenty without work or want. The fruits of the earth were freely available to […]
Vermont’s Town Meetings: A Living Tradition
By Brian Tokar Presented at the first annual conference of the Transnational Institute of Social Ecology, Myrtos, Greece, March 2013. Those familiar with the origins of Murray Bookchin’s political strategy of libertarian municipalism are aware of the central role of Vermont’s rural town meeting tradition in the development of Bookchin’s unique approach to localist politics. […]
“Loisaida” reading this Friday
ISE co-founder Dan Chodorkoff will be reading from his new novel Loisaida this Friday, May 20th at Shiretown Books, 9 Central Ave, Woodstock, Vermont, starting at 7PM. Woodstock is on US Route 4 between White River Junction and Rutland, Vermont. All are welcome.
Brian Tokar on “Alternative Radio” this week
During the week of May 9th, David Barsamian’s weekly Alternative Radio program is featuring Brian Tokar’s recent talk on climate justice, recorded at Naropa University in Boulder, CO this past March. If your local public or community radio station doesn’t broadcast A.R., now’s a good time to let them know that this is an outstanding […]
Harbinger Vol. 2 No. 1 — Editorial
By Daniel Chodorkoff
Welcome to the first edition of our second volume of Harbinger, A Journal of Social Ecology. Harbinger is the latest in a long line of publications offered by the Institute for Social Ecology (ISE). With the second edition of Harbinger, we are resurrecting a journal that we published in the 80s. We intend to explore the theory and practice needed to help to create an ecological society, and to cultivate a generous intellectual outlook that can inform the principle of hope. . .
Harbinger Vol. 2 No. 1 — Prefigurative Politics in the Pro-Democracy Movement
Amoshaun Toft As we were unwillingly ushering in a new presidential administration on January 20th of this year, thousands of people gathered in Washington DC to voice their opposition to the corruption, racism and corporate influence that play such a role in our national government. They held banners, chanted slogans and through the tear gas […]
Harbinger Vol. 2 No. 1 — Radicalizing the Debate
Brian Tokar Over the past year, news of the hazards of genetically engineered foods has finally broken into the U.S. mainstream media. The contamination of taco shells and other products with a variety of engineered corn not approved for human consumption, the gathering of 4000 people last March to demonstrate against the biotechnology industry convention […]
The Communist Manifesto: Insights and Problems
This article by Murray Bookchin originally appeared in New Politics, vol. 6, no. 4 (new series), whole no. 24, Winter 1998 It is politically restorative to look with a fresh eye at The Manifesto of the Communist Party (to use its original title), written before Marxism was overlaid by reformist, postmodernist, spiritual, and psychological commentaries. […]
[Introduction] Ecofacism: Lessons From the German Experience
The Modern Crisis
By Murray Bookchin This article originally appeared in Green Perspectives No. 2 February 1986. In my article, “Toward a Libertarian Municipalism2,” I advanced the view that any counterculture to the prevailing culture must be developed together with counterinstitutions to the prevailing institutions—a decentralized, confederal, popular power that will acquire the control over social and political […]
