Social Ecology

Social ecology is an ecological vision for the future developed by anarchist thinker Murray Bookchin.

This theory is part of a left-wing tradition that rejects notions of hierarchy, domination, power, and place to advocate political reformism, or restructuring that will resolve basic issues of societal, gender, and environmental imbalance. Social ecology is based on the understanding that all our present ecological problems are a result of deep-seated social problems. As Bookchin states, “economic, ethnic, cultural, and gender conflicts, among many others, lie at the core of the most serious ecological dislocations we face today.” Specifically, social ecologists argue that the chief source of ecological destruction is the capitalist system and its products, such as overconsumption, consumerism, and concomitant economic growth.

Trade for profit, industrial expansion, and the association of progress with corporate self-interest are among others. Bookchin argues, therefore, that to separate ecological from social problems underplays not only the sources of the environmental crisis, but also the interplay among all of these factors. Human beings must not downplay the importance of how they deal with each other as social beings. This, social ecologists argue, is the key to addressing the environmental crisis. The social ecological vision is to see a society that is based along social ecological lines. In this context, there are a number of principles that characterize social ecology.

First, a society based on social ecology would be one in which ecological regeneration would be inseparable from social regeneration. For example, social regenerative strategies might include the formation of ecocommunities and the adoption of ecotechnologies that establish a creative intersection between humanity and human nature.

Spirituality, or what Bookchin calls regeneration of the spirit, is another principle, signifying the growth and development of a whole society. Such a society would be diverse and holistic in nature. Spirituality is defined as a natural phenomenon— one that focuses on the ability of humans to act as moral agents and actively promote the end to needless suffering, undertake ecological restoration, and foster aesthetic appreciation of all living things. Building on this spirituality will ensure the presence of liberty (in the sense of encouraging and nurturing individual and collective creativity, imagination, and personality) as a “continuum of natural evolution,” resulting in a healthy society.