Anarchist Studies |
This paper will critically contrast two approaches in ethical and political thought that have taken into account the concept of Sustainable Development (SD). In particular, it will examine the major ethical implications of SD, intra- and inter-generational equity and biodiversity, through left and right-wing traditions in anarchist thought. While both these traditions are compatible with notions of self-determination and self-generated order, they employ very different assumptions about ethics, nature and human nature. The interpretation of SD within a right-wing tradition in anarchism and ethics stresses the primacy of individual freedom and individual rights within the spontaneous social order generated by the economic market place, while a left-wing interpretation gives stress to human freedom within the spontaneous social order created by the sociality of the species and by the self-generated organisation present in ecological systems. It will be argued that only a notion of ecologically sustainable community development based on left-anarchist thought offers the hope of a genuinely ecological and equitable society.
The collapse of the socialist states and the ongoing crisis of Western capitalism Ð both brought on by pervasive grassroots opposition Ð demands a reconsideration of the issue of the transcendence of contemporary society by anarchists and Marxists of all stripes. Such a reconsideration should include a reexamination of the thinking of earlier revolutionaries as well as of their experiences within past social upheavals.
With respect to the issue of transcendence, there are traditions of Anarcho-Communism and Marxism whose similar approaches to the question of the recreation of society warrant renewed attention and comparative consideration. These include the analyses of Peter Kropotkin of how a new society could be seen to be emerging out of the materiality of capitalism and those of 'autonomist' Marxists who have argued that the future can be found within the present processes of working class 'self-valorization' Ð the diversity of autonomous efforts to craft new ways of being and new forms of social relations. This paper examines these two approaches and compares and contrasts their ways of handling the issue of building alternatives to capitalism. It ends with a call for the application of these approaches in the present crisis
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