Free association (also called "free association
of producers" or, as Marx often called it,
a "community of freely associated individuals")
is a relationship among individuals where
there is no state, social class, authority,
or private ownership of means of production.
Once private property is abolished, individuals
are no longer deprived of access to means
of production 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
and is often considered a defining feature
of a fully developed communist society.
The concept of free association, however,
becomes more clear around the concept of the
proletariat.
The proletarian is someone who has no property
nor any means of production and, therefore,
to survive, sells the only thing that they
have, their abilities (the labour power),
to those owning the means of production.
The existence of individuals deprived of property,
deprived of livelihood, allows owners (or
capitalists) to find in the market an object
of consumption that thinks and acts (human
abilities), which they use in order to accumulate
increasing capital in exchange for the wage
that maintains the survival of the proletarians.
The relationship between proletarians and
owners of the means of production is thereby
a forced association in which the proletarian
is only free to sell his labor power, in order
to survive.
By selling his productive capacity in exchange
for the wage which ensures survival, the proletarian
puts his practical activity under the will
of the buyer (the owner), becoming alienated
from his/her own actions and products, in
a relationship of domination and exploitation.
Free association would be the form of society
created if private property was abolished
in order to allow individuals to freely dispose
of the means of production, which would bring
about an end to class society, i.e. there
would be no more owners neither proletarians,
nor state, but only freely associated individuals.
The abolition of private property by a free
association of producers is the original goal
of the communists and anarchists: it is identified
with anarchy and Communism itself.
However, the evolution of various trends have
led some to virtually abandon the goal or
to put it in the background in face of other
tasks, while others believe free association
should guide all challenges to the status
quo.
== 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.
So 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: the police, courts), hence the
abolition of the state is their main target.
Regarding free association, there is a difference
between collectivist anarchists and anarchist
communists: the collectivist anarchists (Mikhail
Bakunin for example) 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, Carlo Cafiero and Errico
Malatesta) argue that free association should
operate as the maxim "to each according to
his needs".
Anarchist 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, could
even bring back wage slavery, that is the
very thing against which anarchists are fighting.
They also argue that if any work is done,
it is necessary and important, 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.
Therefore, there are no fair criteria to compare
a work with another and measure it to give
all individuals their share.
For the anarcho-communists, therefore, free
association is possible only through the abolition
of money and the market, along with the abolition
of the state.
== 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.
But 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.
Therefore, Marx's writings gave rise to three
basic trends: democratic socialism, Leninism,
and Libertarian Marxism.
Democratic socialism (e.g., Eduard Bernstein
and Karl Kautsky) argues that the advent of
free association will come gradually through
reforms made by representatives elected in
a democratic state.
Leninists (such as Lenin and Trotsky) argue
that it will come only after reforms that
they themselves make after taking power through
a coup or political revolution.
The content of these reforms, for both democratic
socialism and Leninism, would be the transfer
of private property into the hands of the
state, which would keep the rest of society
deprived of access to means of production,
as in capitalism, but it would be used to
fight the bourgeoisie and direct the society
towards free association in the future.
Libertarian Marxists (e.g., Anton Pannekoek,
Otto Rühle, Herman Gorter and Rosa Luxemburg)
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 of workers themselves, which
should create workers' councils (which operate
under direct democracy) to take the means
of production and abolish the state in a social
revolution.
However, Luxemburgists 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; 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.
Socialists consider this a defining element
of mature socialism; however many socialists
are of the opinion that such an arrangement
will follow a transitional phase of economic
and social development, such as market socialism.
== Critical views ==
The anarchist and communist concept of free
association is often considered utopian or
too abstract to guide a transforming society.
However, it is valued by present trends such
as the free software movement, and considered
as a basic principle in the relationship between
developers of free software.
Others reply to this critique by asserting
that free association is not a utopia, but
an emancipatory exigence which necessarily
comes from the very material condition which
is the proletariat (i.e., deprivation of property
and a constant social struggle against the
submission and deprivation that it causes,
and that puts them against the state and capital).
However, the trends that advocate a transition
(especially social democracy and Marxism–Leninism)
postpone it for a more or less remote future,
pushing free association so increasingly in
the background, in exchange for the task of
establishing a transitional phase.
And as the proletariat can have no interest
in their own emancipation when it is postponed
for the indefinite future, the search for
a "transition" is necessarily a task that
is not assumed by the proletariat themselves
but by an intelligentsia or political professionals.
This culminated in Stalinism (for example,
the "socialist states" of Cuba, USSR, China)
and the present social democratic parties,
in which the concept of free association was
virtually abandoned.
In contrast, the present trends derived from
anarchism and council communism understand
the free association as the practical basis
for the fundamental transformation of society
at all levels, from the everyday level (search
of a libertarian interpersonal relationship,
critique of the family, consumerism, criticism
of conformist and obedient behavior) to the
level of world society as a whole (the fight
against the state and against the ruling class
in all countries, the destruction of national
borders, support for self-organized struggle
of the oppressed, attacks on property, support
to wildcat strikes and to workers and unemployed
autonomous struggles).
== Literature ==
Since anarchists, some Libertarian Marxists
(mainly the Situationists) and other libertarian
socialists consider free association as an
immediate task for introduction and maintenance
of stateless socialism, most theorists of
these ideologies have gone into great detail
about how it will operate, unlike most Leninists
and democratic socialists who tend to be more
concerned with the "transition" than the final
goal.
Some of most important works:
The Humanisphere - Anarchist Utopia (L'Humanisphère
- Utopie anarchique, 1857), by the libertarian
communist Joseph Déjacque.
Complete text in French:
The Conquest of Bread (1892), by Peter Kropotkin.
Complete text:.
New Babylon (1959–74), by Constant Nieuwenhuys.
Complete text:.
A World Without Money: Communism (1975–76),
by the French group Friends of 4 Millions
of Young Workers . Complete text, in French.
Bolo'bolo (1983), the PM Complete text in
French: and Portuguese.
The thin red line: non-market socialism in
the twentieth century (1987), by John Crump,
offers an account of the ideas of several
trends which considered important the free
association.
Text in English:
== Quotations ==
"It follows from all we have been saying up
till now that the communal relationship into
which the individuals of a class entered,
and which was determined by their common interests
over against a third party, was always a community
to which these individuals belonged only as
average individuals, only insofar as they
lived within the conditions of existence of
their class — a relationship in which they
participated not as individuals but as members
of a class.
With the community of revolutionary proletarians,
on the other hand, who take their conditions
of existence [...] under their control, it
is just the reverse; it is as individuals
that the individuals participate in it.
[...]
Communism differs from all previous movements
in that it overturns the basis of all earlier
relations of production and intercourse, and
for the first time consciously treats all
natural premises as the creatures of hitherto
existing men, strips them of their natural
character and subjugates them to the power
of the united individuals.
Its organization is, therefore, essentially
economic, the material production of the conditions
of this unity; it turns existing conditions
into conditions of unity.
The reality, which communism is creating,
is precisely the true basis for rendering
it impossible that anything should exist independently
of individuals, insofar as reality is only
a product of the preceding intercourse of
individuals themselves."
Marx (German Ideology) s:The German Ideology/Section
12
== See also ==
Cooperative
Economic freedom
Freedom of association
Self-governance
Workers' self-management
Workplace democracy
