Description
Book SynopsisAssociational anarchism presents a ground-breaking alternative to both liberal democracy and state socialism, derived from the ideas of Karl Marx and G. D. H. Cole. Uniting the public sphere of citizenship with the private sphere of production in a system of communal ownership, the book proposes a scheme of horizontal networks held together through libertarian politics. With no role for a centralised state, the functions of coordination and administration are fulfilled through pluralist self-governance. Political intermediation proceeds via a web of functional associations, which operate within a system of revitalised communities, while management is carried out through modes of self-regulation that embody the key anarchist values of equality, solidarity and mutual-aid.
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Part I: A new genre of social anarchism
1 Freedom as Marxian-autonomy
2 Social anarchism: classical to contemporary
3 Anarcho-constitutionalism as associational anarchism
4 Bridging the Marxist-anarchist divide
Part II: Libertarian politics: social coordination through functional decentralisation
5 Legal authority beyond state imposition
6 Free federation
7 The organisational contours of an unorthodox mixed-economy
Part III: The associational anarchist conditions of liberty in the realm of necessity
8 Self-determination, self-realisation and negative freedom
9 Freedom in the guild system
10 Freedom in the guild system and beyond
11 The civic functional bodies
Conclusion: associational anarchism and human emancipation as developed selfhood
Index
