Thoughts on Occupy Wall Street and the movement of the Sixties 

Re: Occupy Wall Street, there’s certainly a new energy for social change and the most exciting thing to me is that it’s part of a worldwide movement. Maybe we’re finally seeing the beginning of the new era of activism which Greens have been anticipating for a long time now. Articles about it are all over the place (like in today’s NYT Sunday Review section: “The New Progressive Movement” by Jeffrey Sachs).

If it’s true that this will become an enduring movement, then we’re early into the new era and no one knows where it will take us. To date the “where to go” and “what to do” are vague and the movement is amorphous. The truth is that there are not really that many social change interests that apply to 99% of the population. At the larger encampments signs can be seen advocating the ideas of disparate thinkers from Naomi Klein (great!) to Paul Krugman (not so great) to Ron Paul (please). These are very, very different ideas.

So we don’t know what direction (directions) the movement will take, especially in regard to new pathbreaking ideas or new areas of inquiry/insight.

The movement of the Sixties also started out vague and just-reformist. The key document associated with the founding of SDS, The Port Huron Statement, was passionate in sentiment but tepid in terms of social change ideas. A particular phrase, though—“participatory democracy”—caught on and led to a creative ferment that spawned the development of a whole bunch of sub-movements.

Major new pathbreaking ideas are usually expressed in key books or articles that “everyone is reading” and that endure over time. Maybe I’m out of the loop, but I haven’t yet been aware of that kind of thing associated with OWS. I see mention of Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine,” Cornel West’s “Democracy Matters,” and Slavoj Zizek’s “Living in the End Times.” I’m sure there will be more to come.

Thinking about this, I undertook a project to try to list some of the books that were being read as the movements of the Sixties unfolded and then developed through the next couple of decades. These books either originated or expanded upon major new ideas associated with a variety of paths of inquiry. Let me know if you can think of others that ought to be added to the list.

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NEW LEFT
1958 C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
1962 Michael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty in the United States
1962 Port Huron Statement of SDS
1963 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
1964 Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
1965 Pierre Jalee, The Pillage of the Third World
1967 G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America?
1968 Daniel/Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing Alternative
1969 Noam Chomsky, American Power and the New Mandarins
1969 Carl Oglesby (editor), The New Left Reader
1969 Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation
1971 Terrence Cook/Patrick Morgan, Participatory Democracy
1970 Mitchell Goodman (editor), The Movement Toward a New America: The Beginnings of a Long Revolution
1974 Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System
1975 Christopher D. Stone, Where the Law Ends: The Social Control of Corporate Behavior
1980 Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States
1986 Albert/Cagan/Chomsky/Hahnel et. al., Liberating Theory
1987 George Katsiaficas, The Imagination of the New Left
1988 Martin Ryle, Ecology and Socialism
1990 Stanley Aronowitz, The Crisis in Historical Materialism

NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
1963 Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
1967 Alex Haley and Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
1969 BettyRoszak/Theodore Roszak, Masculine/Feminine: Readings in Sexual Mythology and the Liberation of Women
1971 Juliet Mitchell, Woman’s Estate
1973 Koedt/Levine/Rapone, Radical Feminism
1978 Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her
1980 Manning Marable, From the Grassroots: Essays Toward Afro-American Liberation
1987 Betsy Hartman, Reproductive Rights and Wrongs

A LAST MAJOR RESURGENT INTEREST IN MARXISM
1962 Ernest Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory
1965 Michael Harrington, The Accidental Century
1966 Paul Baran/Paul Sweezy, Monopoly Capital
1966 Harry Magdoff, The Age of Imperialism
1968 E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class
1972 Michael Harrington, Socialism
1973 James O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State
1974 Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capitalism
1975 Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism

RESURGENT INTEREST IN ANARCHISM
1962 George Woodcock, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements
1970 Daniel Guerin, Anarchism: From Theory to Practice
1972 Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism
1974 Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed
1974 Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia
1977 Pierre Clastres, Society Against the State
1990 Harold Barclay, People Without Government

ECOLOGY / ENVIRONMENTALISM / SUSTAINABILITY
1960 Vance Packard, The Waste Makers
1962 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
1969 Paul Shepard/Daniel McKinley (editors), The Subversive Science: Essays Toward an Ecology of Man
1971 Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle
1971 Eugene Odum, Fundamentals of Ecology
1971 Frances Moore Lappe, Diet for a Small Planet
1971 John McPhee, Encounters with the Archdruid
1972 Meadows/Meadows/Randers/Behrens, The Limits to Growth
1972 Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind
1977 Amory Lovins, Soft Energy Paths
1977 William Ophuls, Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity
1977 Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy: The Roots of Ecology
1980 Herman Daly (editor), Economics/Ecology/Ethics
1981 Lester Brown, Building a Sustainable Society
1981 Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species
1982 Paul Shepard, Nature and Madness
1982 William R. Catton, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis for Revolutionary Change
1984 Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia
1985 R. J. Hoage (editor), Animal Extinctions: What Everyone Should Know
1987 John Robbins, Diet for a New America
1988 Edward O. Wilson, Biodiversity
1989 Bill McKibben, The End of Nature
1990 Barry Commoner, Making Peace With the Planet
1991 Clive Ponting, A Green History of the World
1993 Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce

ECO-ACTIVISM
1975 Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang
1985 Dave Foreman, EcoDefense
1990 Rik Scarce, Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental Movement
1991 Christopher Manes, Green Rage
1993 Susan Zakin, Coyotes and Town Dogs: Earth First! and the Environmental Movement

DEEP ECOLOGY / SOCIAL ECOLOGY
1967 Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind
1969 Gary Snyder, Earth House Hold
1977 Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America
1977 Gary Snyder, The Old Ways
1978 Dolores LaChapelle, Earth Wisdom
1980 Wes Jackson, New Roots for Agriculture
1980 Michael Soule, Conservation Biology: An Evolutionary-Ecological Perspective
1982 Murray Murray, The Ecology of Freedom
1985 Bill Devall/George Sessions, Deep Ecology
1985 Neil Evernden, The Natural Alien: Humankind and the Environment
1986 Paul W. Taylor, Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics
1986 Arne Naess, The Deep Ecological Movement
1988 Bill Mollison, Permaculture
1989 Eugene Hargrove, Foundations of Environmental Ethics
1989 David Watson, How Deep Is Deep Ecology?
1989 Alan R. Drengson, Beyond Environmental Crisis: From Technocrat to Planetary Person
1990 Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild
1990 J. Baird Callicott, In Defense of the Land Ethic
1990 John Clark, Renewing the Earth: The Promise of Social Ecology
1992 Edward Goldsmith, The Way: An Ecological World-view
1992 Max Oelschlaeger, The Wilderness Condition: Essays on Environment and Civilization
1996 David Watson, Beyond Bookchin: Preface for a Future Social Ecology

PSYCHOLOGY / PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT / CHILD-REARING / EDUCATION / DE-SCHOOLING
1959 Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death: the psychoanalytical meaning of history
1959 Paul Goodman, Growing Up Absurd
1960 A. S. Neill, Summerhill
1961 Paul Goodman, Compulsory Mis-education
1964 John Holt, How Children Fail
1966 Norman O. Brown, Love’s Body
1967 Jonathan Kozol, Death at an Early Age
1968 Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being
1971 Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
1994 Gary Paul Nabhan/Stephen Trimble, The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places

DEVOLUTION / DECENTRALISM / COMMUNITARIANISM / BIOREGIONALISM
1972 Peter Van Dresser, Development on a Human Scale
1973 E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered
1974 Kenneth Rexroth, Communalism: From Its Origins to the Twentieth Century
1978 Leopold Kohr, The Overdeveloped Nations: The Diseconomies of Scale
1978 Peter Berg/Raymond Dasmann, Reinhabiting a Separate Country: A Bioregional Anthology of Northern California
1979 Karl Hess, Community Technology
1980 Mildred Loomis, Decentralism: Where It Came From; Where Is It Going?
1980 Michael Zwerin, Devolutionary Notes
1980 Kirkpatrick Sale, Human Scale
1981 John Todd/George Tukel, Reinhabiting Cities and Towns: Designing for Sustainability
1982 George Tukel, Toward a Bioregional Model
1984 Harry Boyte, Community is Possible: Repairing America’s Roots
1985 Kirkpatrick Sale, Dwellers in the Land: The Bioregional Vision
1989 Frank Bryan/John McLaughry, The Vermont Papers: Recreating Democracy on a Human Scale
1990 Andruss/Plant/Wright (editors), Home: A Bioregional Reader

GREEN POLITICS
1975 Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia
1979 Alexander Cockburn/James Ridgeway, Political Ecology: An Activist’s Reader
1979 Mark Satin, New Age Politics
1980 Andre Gorz, Ecology as Politics
1981 Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia Emerging
1984 Rudolf Bahro, From Red to Green: Interviews with New Left Review
1984 Charlene Spretnak/Fritjof Capra, Green Politics: The Global Promise
1984 Elim Papakakis, The Green Movement in Western Germany
1985 Petra Kelly, Fighting for Hope: The German Greens
1985 Jonathan Porritt, Seeing Green: The Politics of Ecology Explained
1986 Charlene Spretnak, The Spiritual Dimension of Green Politics
1986 Rudolf Bahro, Building the Green Movement
1988 Werner Hulsberg, The German Greens: A Social and Political Profile
1989 Robert C. Paehlke, Environmentalism and the Future of Progressive Politics
1989 Sara Parkin, Green Parties: An International Guide
1990 Andrew Dobson, Green Political Thought: An Introduction
1990 Howie Hawkins et. al., Toward a New Politics: A Green Statement of Principles (pamphlet)
1992 Penny Kemp, Europe’s Green Alternative: A Manifesto for a New World
1992 Robyn Eckersley, Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach
1992 Robert Goodin, Green Political Theory
1992 Brian Tokar, The Green Alternative: Creating an Ecological Future
1992 John Rensenbrink, The Greens and the Politics of Transformation
1993 Dimitrios Roussopoulos, Political Ecology: Beyond Environmentalism
1994 Daniel Coleman, Eco-Politics: Building A Green Society

COUNTERCULTURE / CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY, PROGRESS, DEVELOPMENT, OVER-DOMESTICATION
1961 John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks
1961 Alan W. Watts, Psychotherapy East and West
1962 Aldous Huxley, Island
1964 Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society
1964 David Riesman (editor), Abundance for What?
1967 Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development
1968 Jerome Rothenberg, Technicians of the Sacred
1968 Erich Fromm, The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology
1969 Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture: Technocratic Society and its Youthful Opposition
1969 E. J. Mishan, The Costs of Economic Growth
1969 Paul Goodman, The New Reformation
1970 Thomas Hanna, Bodies in Revolt
1970 Charles Reich, The Greening of America
1970 Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine: The Pentagon of Power
1970 Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
1972 Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends: Politics and Transcendence in Postindustrial Society
1972 Theodore Roszak, Sources (for Braving the Great Technological Wilderness)
1972 Douglas Liversidge, The Luddites: Machine Breakers of the Early Nineteenth Century
1972 Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics
1974 Stanley Diamond, In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization
1974 Konrad Lorenz, Civilized Man’s Eight Deadly Sins
1975 Elman Service, Origins of the State and Civilization
1976 Edward Hyams, Soil and Civilization
1976 Ivan Illich, Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health
1976 Frances Jennings, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest
1977 Ivan Illich, Towards a History of Needs
1977 Herman Daly, Steady-State Economics
1977 Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology: Technics-Out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought
1978 Theodore Roszak, Person/Planet: The Creative Disintegration of Industrial Society
1978 Akwesasne Notes, Basic Call to Consciousness: The Haudenosaunee Address to the Western World
1980 David Ehrenfeld, The Arrogance of Humanism
1980 Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution
1980 Frederick W. Turner, Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness
1980 Robert Nisbet, History of the Idea of Progress
1980 Richard Drinnon, Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building
1981 Fifth Estate critique of technology issue
1981 Duane Elgin, Voluntary Simplicity: Toward A New Way of Life
1982 Ivan Illich, Shadow Work
1982 Fredy Perlman, Against His-story! Against Leviathan!
1984 David Noble, Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation
1986 Langdon Winner, The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology
1988 Barbara Garson, The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office Into a Factory
1988 Edward Goldsmith, The Great U-Turn: De-Industrializing Society
1989 Paul Wachtel, The Poverty of Affluence: A Psychological Portrait of the American Way of Life
1989 Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development
1989 Mark Nathan Cohen, Health and the Rise of Civilization
1990 Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise
1991 Jerry Mander, In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology/Survival of the Indian Nations
1991 John Zerzann/Alice Carnes, Questioning Technology
1992 Daniel Quinn, Ishmael
1992 William Kotke, The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization/The Seed of the Future
1994 Michael E. Zimmerman, Contesting Earth’s Future: Radical Ecology and Postmodernity
1994 Chellis Glendinning, My Name Is Chellis, and I’m In Recovery From Western Civilization
1998 David Watson, Against the Megamachine: Essays on Empire and Its Enemies

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