probablyasocialecologist:
“To pretend that an authentic Left can always offer a practical solution to every problem in society is chimerical. Offering “lesser evils” as a solution to every evil that this society generates will lead to the worst of all possible evils–the dissolution of the Left into a liberal morass of endless compromises and humiliations. Amid all its fights in support of concrete issues, an authentic Left advances the message that the present society must be demolished and replaced by one that is rational. Such was the case with socialists like Eugene V. Debs and anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman in the Left That Was. Put bluntly: What this society usually does should not deter Leftists from probing the logic of events from a rational standpoint or from calling for what society should do. Any attempt to adapt the rational “should” to the irrational “is” vacates that space on the political spectrum that should be occupied by a Left premised on reason, freedom, and ecological humanism. The need to steadfastly maintain the principal commitments that minimally define a Left may not always be popular, but the alternative to the monstrous irrationalities that permeate present-day society must always be kept open, fostered, and developed if we are ever to achieve a free society.”
— Murray Bookchin, The Left That Was: A Personal Reflection
(via fyeahmurraybookchin)