We have to give people the freedom to choose lifestyles and material satisfactions that suit their needs, and we have to redefine need itself. We can't redefine need among ghetto people by telling them we should all give up our… — Murray Bookchin Copy Share Image
I know one thing: that you can do a lot of things but if you don't educate people into conscious anarchism it gets frittered… — Murray Bookchin Copy Share Image
I regard individuality as the most precious trait we have, because without it there is no creativity, there is no consciousness, there is no… — Murray Bookchin Copy Share Image
In the 60s there were a lot of things which were anarchistic. May-June '68 was riddled by anarchistic sentiments, dreams and ideals, but insofar as this was not strengthened organizationally and intellectually by a very effective, powerful infrastructure, then what happens is the movement becomes dissipated. — Murray Bookchin Copy Share
Capitalism has created a situation called scarcity. And that scarcity is not natural, it's socially induced. Along with that sense of scarcity, or feeling of scarcity, is a feeling of economic insecurity. Along with that is a feeling of deprivation... And unless we can demonstrate that that feeling is not justified technologically, we will not be able to speak intelligently… — Murray Bookchin Copy Share
You see something very important is happening. Personality is being eaten out, and with that the idealism that always motivated an anarchist movement -… — Murray Bookchin Copy Share Image
“[The] term 'libertarian' itself, to be sure, raises a problem, notably, the specious identification of an anti-authoritarian ideology with a straggling movement for 'pure… — Murray Bookchin Copy Share Image
Wherever people defend the rights of the individual, I stand with them above all, over and beyond any wishes relating to how an economy… — Murray Bookchin Copy Share Image
I'm convinced more than ever that capitalism, with its technological development, has not been an advance toward freedom but has been an enormous setback… — Murray Bookchin Copy Share Image
“The phrase "consumer society" complements the description of the present social order as an "industrial society." Needs are tailored by the mass media to create a public demand for utterly useless commodities, each carefully engineered to deteriorate after a predetermined period of time. The plundering of the human spirit by the marketplace is paralleled by the plundering of the earth… — Murray Bookchin Copy Share
“[W]ithout changing the most molecular relationships in society — notably, those between men and women, adults and children, whites and other ethnic groups, heterosexuals and gays (the list, in fact, is considerable) — society will be riddled by domination even in a socialistic ‘classless’ and ‘non-exploitative’ form. It would be infused by hierarchy even as it celebrated the dubious virtues… — Murray Bookchin Copy Share
The most important thing [anarchists] can do is educate themselves, develop a propaganda machinery in the form of books and periodicals, a literature, engage… — Murray Bookchin Copy Share Image