Towards a Left-Libertarian Conception of Freedom
This book combines Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism with G. D. H. Cole’s democratic pluralism. The result is a regenerated social anarchism, ‘associational anarchism’. Its democratisation of production and consumption form the organisational contours of a new conception of liberty, ‘freedom as Marxian-autonomy’.
Associational 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.