Free association, also known as free association of producers, is a relationship among individuals where there is no state,

social class A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...

hierarchy A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...

, or

private ownership Private property is a legal designation for the ownership of property by non-governmental Legal personality, legal entities. Private property is distinguishable from public property and Personal property, personal property, which is owned by a s ...

of means of production. Once private property is abolished (distinctly not

personal property property is property that is movable. In common law systems, personal property may also be called chattels or personalty. In civil law systems, personal property is often called movable property or movables—any property that can be moved fr ...

), individuals are no longer deprived of access to means of production, thus enabling them to freely associate without social constraint to produce and reproduce their own conditions of existence and fulfill their individual and creative needs and desires. The term is used by anarchists and

Marxists Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectic ...

and is often considered a defining feature of a fully developed communist society.

Anarchism

Anarchists argue that the free association must rise immediately in the struggle of the proletariat for a new society and against the ruling class. They promote a social revolution to immediately abolish the state, private property and classes. They identify the state as the main guarantor of private property through the repressive apparatus such as the police or courts, hence the abolition of the state is their main target. Regarding free association, there is a difference between collectivist anarchists and

anarcho-communists Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist communism, (or, colloquially, ''ancom'' or ''ancomm'') is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that advocates communism. It calls for the abolition of private property but retains res ...

. The collectivist anarchists (such as Mikhail Bakunin) argued that free association is to function as the maxim "From each according to his ability, to each according to his deeds". In contraposition, the anarcho-communists (such as

Peter Kropotkin Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (; russian: link=no, Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин ; 9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist, socialist, revolutionary, historian, scientist, philosopher, and activis ...

, Carlo Cafiero and

Errico Malatesta Errico Malatesta (4 December 1853 – 22 July 1932) was an Italian anarchist propagandist and revolutionary socialist. He edited several radical newspapers and spent much of his life exiled and imprisoned, having been jailed and expelled from ...

) argue that free association should operate as the maxim "to each according to his needs". Anarcho-communists argue that remuneration according to work performed require that the individuals involved were subjected to a body above them to compare the various works in order to pay them and that this body would necessarily be a state or ruling class and could even bring back wage slavery, the very thing against which anarchists are fighting. They also argue that if any work is done, it is necessary and important that there is no quantitative aspect to comparate between them and that everything that is produced involves something essential to the contribution of all past and contemporary generations as a whole. There are no fair criteria to compare one work with another and measure it to give all individuals their share. For the anarcho-communists, free association is possible only through the abolition of money and the market, along with the abolition of the state. The anarchist concept of free association is often considered by critics to be utopian or too abstract to guide a transforming society.

Marxism

The Marxian socialists and communists generally differ from anarchists in claiming that there must be an intermediate stage between the capitalist society and free association. However, there are major differences between the various Marxists trends. The Marxist position about this transition period ranged from "the expansion of the means of production owned by the state" to the clear statement that the state machinery can not be assumed by the workers, but destroyed. Libertarian Marxists (such as Anton Pannekoek, Otto Rühle, Herman Gorter) generally claim that the state can not be directed towards the free association because it can only act within the frame of capitalist society itself, leading towards state capitalism (i.e. capitalism in which private property is owned and managed by the state) which would seek to remain indefinitely and never lead to free association. Most libertarian Marxists claim that free association can only be achieved through the

direct action Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...

of workers themselves, who should create workers' councils which operate under

direct democracy Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate decides on policy initiatives without legislator, elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently establishe ...

to take the means of production and abolish the state in a social revolution. However,

Luxemburgists Rosa Luxemburg (; ; pl, Róża Luksemburg or ; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, Marxist philosopher and anti-war activist. Successively, she was a member of the Proletariat par ...

are not opposed in principle to short-term participation within the state and expansion of public-ownership as long as the institution itself exists.

Socialism

Socialists consider a free association the defining feature of developed socialism. A free association would displace the state apparatus in socialism as the role of this association would be to direct the processes of production and the administration of things. This is in contrast to the state in non-socialist and capitalist society, which is the government over people via coercive action. The free association represents a coordinating entity for economic activity that is concerned with administrative decision-making and the flow of goods and services to satisfy demand.

Literature

Since anarchists, some libertarian Marxists (such as the Situationists) and other libertarian socialists consider free association as an immediate task for introduction and maintenance of stateless socialism, most theorists have gone into great detail about how it will operate. This is unlike most Bolsheviks, who tend to be more concerned with the transition than the final goal. Some of the most important works include: * ''The Humanisphere: Anarchist Utopia'' (''L'Humanisphère: Utopie anarchique'', 1857) by the

libertarian communist Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist communism, (or, colloquially, ''ancom'' or ''ancomm'') is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that advocates communism. It calls for the abolition of private property but retains resp ...

Joseph Déjacque. * '' The Conquest of Bread'' (1892) by anarcho-communist

. * '' New Babylon'' (1963) by Situationist Constant Nieuwenhuys. * ''A World Without Money: Communism'' (1975–1976) by the French group Friends of 4 Millions of Young Workers. * ''Bolo'bolo'' (1983) by

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

P.M. * ''The Thin Red Line: Non-market Socialism in the Twentieth Century'' (1987) by John Crump which offers an account of the ideas of several trends which considered important the free association.Crump, John (1987)
''The Thin Red Line: Non-Market Socialism in the Twentieth Century''
. Retrieved 12 July 2013.

Quotations

References