Free association (Marxism and anarchism)


Free association, also known as free association of producers, is a relationship among individuals where there is no state, social class, hierarchy, or private ownership of means of production. Once private property is abolished, 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 and is often considered a defining feature of a fully developed communist society.
The concept of free association 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, namely their abilities to those owning the means of production. The existence of individuals deprived of property and livelihood allows owners to find in the market an object of consumption that thinks and acts, 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, 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 were 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. For instance, Karl Marx often called it a "community of freely associated individuals".
The abolition of private property by a free association of producers is the original goal of the communists and anarchists and 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. Advocates of anarchism and council communism promote free association as the practical basis for the fundamental transformation of society at all levels, from the everyday level to the level of world society as a whole.

Anarchism

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. The collectivist anarchists 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 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.

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. Therefore, Marx's writings gave rise to three basic trends, namely democratic socialism, Leninism and libertarian Marxism. Democratic socialists argues that the advent of free association will come gradually through reforms made by representatives elected in a democratic state while Leninists argue that it will come only after reforms that they themselves make after taking power through a coup or political revolution. For both democratic socialists and Leninists, the content of these reforms 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 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 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, who 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 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. 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 by critics to be utopian or too abstract to guide a transforming society.
Advocates asserting that free association is not a utopian ideal, but rather a necessity for the proletariat to remedy deprivation of property by the state and the wealthy. Some factions advocate postponing the adoption of free association for an indefinite period in order to make progress in adopting other aspects of socialism. Socialist and communist states under Stalinism virtually abandoned the idea of free association just as have countries governed by parties in the social democracy movement.

Literature

Since anarchists, some libertarian Marxists 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 Leninists and democratic socialists, who tend to be more concerned with the transition than the final goal. Some of the most important works include: