strength
Here, I will focus on one aspect of his rich and extensive work, which is his seminal work on social ecology.
At the core of human life, there is a basic “paradox” for Kropotkin. On the one hand, human beings are an intrinsic part of nature, a product of the evolutionary process, and are completely dependent on the food, water, and food of the natural world. Air-because of their existence.
But on the other hand, human beings are “separated” from nature in a sense: the earth itself has existed for billions of years, long before the emergence of human beings, and human beings exist as a species, which combines a variety of self-consciousness at a high degree. Deep sociality, and the development of complex symbolic culture and technology.
In fact, humans are now described as a kind of “geological force” on the earth. In a sense, human beings are “separated” from nature.
The important thing about Kropotkin is that he always strives to combine these two dimensions of human social life.
Exploitative
Therefore, he combined humanism and naturalism that emphasized human initiative and human culture, and fully realized the ecological dimension of human life, that is, human beings are always “rooted in nature.” Therefore, as a social philosopher, Kropotkin is fundamentally an ecological humanist and a social ecologist.
The two books he wrote (both based on articles published in the 1890s) embody his social ecology: they are “Tomorrow’s Fields, Factories, and Workshops” (1899) and “Mutual Assistance: Elements of Evolution” (1902).
By the end of the 19th century, Kropotkin paid more and more attention to two interrelated issues or developments.
The first is the growing “deep” between the sparsely populated and wild animals of the countryside and the city, where people live in dirty and impoverished overcrowded apartments. Here, working in unhealthy, exploitative, and exploitative factories. Completely undemocratic.
Cultivated
Another concern is the development within capitalism, an industrial form of agriculture, a single cultivation system that exhausts soil fertility, in which agriculture is not only for the production of food, but also for the creation of profits.
He also worried that almost all of the land in Britain was privately owned, and large areas of land were handed over to protected areas for hunting pheasants and grouses, dedicated to the entertainment pursuits of the wealthy and powerful ruling class.
Although people like Trotsky and general liberal scholars have portrayed Kropotkin as a dreamlike intellectual, a utopian socialist, completely divorced from the social and political “reality”, but in reality Kropotkin is a very pragmatic and down-to-earth scholar.
When Marx was studying economics in the library of the British Museum—mainly government reports, Kropotkin traveled around to conduct empirical research on agricultural practices, and he and his wife Sophie had been farming all their lives. He even made the furniture himself!
culture
In his reflection book Tomorrow’s fields, factories and workshopsColin Ward described it as one of “the greatest prophetic works of the nineteenth century”, and Kropotkin advocated the following:
- All forms of industry, whether factories or workshops, must be decentralized. He called on what we now call the “greening” of urban life.
- The future of agriculture must be both diversified and intensive, including vegetable gardens, intensive field farming, irrigated grasslands, orchards, greenhouse cultivation, and vegetable gardens. Kropotkin believes that through these, high yields of various crops can be produced. He believes that if farmers can get rid of the three kinds of “vultures” (as Kropotkin described at the time)-the state, landlords and bankers, they can achieve food self-sufficiency without the need to help industrialized agriculture (in capitalism). Bottom). Kropotkin therefore opposes the collectivization of state agriculture and capitalist agriculture.
- The labor force in industry and agriculture should-and can-be reduced to a few hours a day, so that people in the community have enough time for leisure and cultural activities.
barbarous
Kropotkin acknowledged that all of this will involve a social revolution and the establishment of an ecological society based on the principles of anarchism and communism.
It is worth noting that Kropotkin’s book had an important influence on many people, including Leo Tolstoy, Ebenezer Howard (and his advocacy for the garden city), Lewis Mumford And Paul Goodman.
The book on “mutual assistance” is probably the most famous of all Kropotkin’s works and is still in print. As a popular science work, it expresses Kropotkin’s concern at the end of the 19th century about the rise of a school of thought that came to be known as “Social Darwinism.”
What initially angered Kropotkin was an article by Thomas Huxley who defended Darwin’s theory and he was widely known as “Darwin’s Bulldog.”, Published in the journal Nineteenth century In 1888.
It is named, The struggle for survival and its impact on peopleTo quote Hobbes Huxley, life in nature-including organic nature and social life of tribal people-is a “lonely, poor, dirty, barbaric and short-lived” life.
Mutual assistance
After Huxley, social Darwinists—including ruthless American entrepreneurs like Rockefeller and Carnegie—applied Darwinian theory—especially Herbert Spencer’s concept of “survival of the fittest” Human social life.
This concept is used as an ideological justification to promote capitalism and imperialism, as well as the colonial exploitation of tribal people. It also implies that humans are driven by offensive impulses and are inherently selfish, egoistic, aggressive, and possessive individualists.
Of course, Kropotkin is critical of Rousseau, and never doubts the existence of conflict, competition and egoism (subjective initiative) in the life world and human social life-reality.
But he still strongly challenged Hobbes’ (capitalist) worldview, thinking it was exaggerated and completely one-sided. Therefore, he wrote a series of articles on “mutual assistance”-cooperative activities, mutual support and care, not only in animals, but also in all human society and the long river of history.
The tendency to help each other, or what he calls “anarchy”, is also obvious in “ourselves” in Western society.
It coexists with the state and capitalist institutions, and often opposes them. Kropotkin believes that mutual assistance (or anarchy) is embodied in workers’ associations, trade unions, family life, religious charities, various clubs and cultural societies, and many other forms of voluntary associations. Kropotkin emphasized that mutual assistance is an important factor in evolution and human social life.
plunder
Mutual assistance It is not an anarchist text, nor is it a political theory work, but it does reflect Kropotkin’s views on the future of society, which he described as liberal or anarchist communism.
This means a social revolution and a political form involving the following three basic principles or principles:
- Reject the state and all forms of hierarchy and oppression, which hinder the autonomy and well-being of people as unique social beings;
- The denial of the capitalist market economy and its wage system (a form of slavery for Kropotkin) private property, the spirit of competition, and the ideology of possessive individualism;
- Finally, a vision for a future ecological society based on mutual assistance, voluntary association, participatory democracy and community-oriented social organization. Such a society will not only enhance the fullest expression of personal freedom, but also express a mutual benefit, a cooperative relationship with the natural world.
In the era when corporate capitalism was triumphant, creating conditions that caused fear, social chaos, severe economic inequality, and severe ecological crisis, Kropotkin’s vision and his political form still have contemporary significance.
Contrary to the advocates of the “Green New Deal” supported by Naomi Klein and others, Kropotkin would insist that capitalist countries, rather than solutions to the ecological crisis, are actually responsible for it.
Because, as the social ecologist Murray Bookchin said a long time ago, capitalism in symbiosis with the state plunders the earth in search of profit and is therefore the main cause of the “modern crisis.”
This author
Brian Morris is eDistinguished Professor of Anthropology Goldsmiths College andPublished several books on ecology and oneSelfishness, including Kropotkin: Politics Community (Afternoon News 2018). “In memory of a colleague, David Graber (1961-2020). “
