Free association

“ The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before. ”

“ The members of an association must be unfettered as to its nature and object and methods (always provided that they are legitimate) , 272 must be free to take up or resign their membership. "Sacred to us is the individual; sacred is society. We do not mean to destroy the former for the latter and found a collective tyranny; nor do we mean to admit the rights of the individual independently of society, and consign ourselves to perpetual anarchy. We want to balance the operations of liberty and association in a noble harmony." ”

“ By itself, it is a mirage for the masses of mankind. "What is liberty of trade for the man without capital or credit? What are free opportunities of education for him who has no time for study?" Only Association can make liberty a reality for the masses, or allow new elements of progress to assert themselves, or save the waste that comes of 271 isolated or conflicting labours. Nay more, association gives the sense of brotherhood, the spiritual strength, that comes from sharing others' work, from merging individual action in a bigger cause. "Association multiplies your strength a hundred fold ”

“ In all places individualists of our tendency wish to establish — now and at all times — a human milieu founded on the individual act and in which, without any control, intervention, intrusion of the State, all individuals can, whether isolated or associated, govern their affairs among themselves, by means of free agreements, voidable on notice, no matter what the activity, whether the association be the work of a personage or of a collectivity. ”

“ To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate [575] arbitrarily the first principle of association, "the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it." ”

“ This might do very well if the state were, like the temperance society or debating club, a simple voluntary association, which men are free to join or not as they please, and which they are bound to obey no farther and no longer than suits their convenience. ”

“ Unions composed of a voluntary membership, like all other voluntary groups, should be free in this country to fight in the public forum to advance their own causes, to promote their choice of candidates and parties and to work for the doctrines or the laws they favor. But to the extent that Government steps in to force people to help espouse the particular causes of a group, that group-whether composed of railroad workers or lawyers-loses its status as a voluntary group. ”

“ It is questionable whether once the League had come into operation, any nation could afford to withdraw; but no power should be veiled in it to coerce a nation to remain in the League against its will. The basis of free and voluntary association is the only guarantee of genuine and fruitful solidarity. ”

“ Thus they learn to surrender their own will to that of all the rest, and to make their own exertions subordinate to the common impulse—things which it is not less necessary to know in civil than in political associations. Political associations may therefore be considered as large free schools, where all the members of the community go to learn the general theory of association. ”

“ Most Socialists are opposed to coercion, and when they openly proclaim their adherence to the principal of voluntary association they will remove the only barrier between them and those who wear the name of Individualists.
Our ideal of the co-operative commonwealth is one free from the blighting effects of authority; one wherein each is a sovereign of his own person, and where the association is that of free individuals. in short, we contend for a co-operative commonwealth organized by mutual consent, and maintained by mutual consent. ”

“ In order, then, that an association may be carried on with unity of purpose and harmony of action, its organization and government should be firm and wise. All such societies, being free to exist, have the further right to adopt such rules and organization as may best conduce to the attainment of their respective objects. ”

“ Free associations will be formed for industrial and other purposes, and these associations will with a like freedom enter into federal and other relations with each other. The process of social reconstruction is, in short, the free federation of free associations. ”

“ In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. ”

“ One may look upon a free people as a great association whose members secure mutually their properties by supporting proportionally the charges of this guaranty. The confederation of several peoples would give to them advantages analogous to those which each individual enjoys in the society. ”

“ We consider that, based upon the privilege of each individual to act on his own behalf, by the very basis of society, the privilege to join all of one's energy to that of one's co-citizens, in all projects aiming for defence or mutual interest, and consequently the right of association, is a right as sacred and as unalienable as that of individual liberty itself. ”

“ I have already shown that men who live in ages of equality continually require to form associations in order to procure the things they covet; and, on the other hand, I have shown how great political freedom improves and diffuses the art of association. ”

“ If a certain moment in the existence of a nation be selected, it is easy to prove that political associations perturb the State, and paralyze productive industry; but take the whole life of a people, and it may perhaps be easy to demonstrate that freedom of association in political matters is favorable to the prosperity and even to the tranquillity of the community. ”

“ As Progress is the great intellectual discovery of the modern world, so Association is its new-found instrument. Thus association must be dear to the state as individual liberty; and provided that any particular association is peaceful and public, and respects elementary liberties, and has no immoral end in view, the state must allow it perfect freedom. ”

“ We speak no less for the whole associative movement in this country than for ourselves when we beseech our friends who are looking upon our operations not to judge of our principles or our purposes by any immediate results which they may have witnessed. The question is often asked of us whether our present mode of life answers our expectations—whether Association is found to be valuable in practice as it seems to be correct in theory, and the like. But all such inquiries betray an ignorance of the actual condition of the enterprise. ”

“ But association, simply, is not enough; nothing materially great can be accomplished without union and coöperation. It is only when aggregations of families intermingle with other aggregations, each contributing its quota of original knowledge to the other; when the individual gives up some portion of his individual will and property for the better protection of other rights and property; when he intrusts society with the vindication of his rights; when he depends upon the banded arm of the nation, and not alone upon his own arm for redress of grievances, that progress is truly made. ”

“ So that a philosophy of insurance or mutual guarantee of security, which shall be deduced from the general theory of real (in re) societies, will contain the formula of universal association, in which no member of the Academy believes. And when, uniting subject and object in the same point of view, the Academy demands, by the side of a theory of association of interests, a theory of voluntary association, it reveals to us the most perfect form of society, and thereby affirms all that is most at variance with its convictions. Liberty, equality, solidarity, association! ”

“ It disguises it cleverly from others, and even from itself, under the seductive names of fraternity, solidarity, organisation, association. And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we only ask it for justice, it supposes that we reject fraternity, solidarity, organisation, and association; and they brand us with the name of individualists. ”

“ Societies are formed to resist enemies which are exclusively of a moral nature, and to diminish the vice of intemperance: in the United States associations are established to promote public order, commerce, industry, morality, and religion; for there is no end which the human will, seconded by the collective exertions of individuals, despairs of attaining.
I shall hereafter have occasion to show the effects of association upon the course of society, and I must confine myself for the present to the political world. ”

“ Although my present strong convictions are in, favor of cooperative Association rather than of communities of property, I look with an indescribable interest on every attempt to redeem society from its corruptions, and establish the intercourse of men on a basis of love instead of competition. ”

“ It may be literally true, that the chief formation of a long-drawn social life is not the relation of authority and subordination between parts of the group, not the gradation of its members into classes, not the systems of sustaining, transporting or regulating organs, but certain ideals and standards, certain likes and dislikes, certain admirations and abhorrences become common to its members. Here then, I venture to suggest, is the ultimate test of association. The abiding of men in the same neighborhood without conflict is mere aggregation. ”

“ Every association has the right of incorporation in accordance with the civil law. No association may be denied this right on the ground that it pursues a political, social-political, or religious object. ”

“ In the same section he goes on to say that “every association, every organised group, may and does have rights and obligations which are not the rights and obligations of any or all of its members taken distributively but only of the association acting as an organised unity.... As a unity the association may become a ‘juristic person,’ a ‘corporation,’ and from the legal standpoint the character of unity so conceived is very important.... ”

“ When they are allowed to meet freely for all purposes, they ultimately look upon public association as the universal, or in a manner the sole, means which men can employ to accomplish the different purposes they may have in view. Every new want instantly revives the notion. The art of association then becomes, as I have said before, the mother of action, studied and applied by all. ”

“ Association, therefore, if it retains one-love exclusiveness, contains the seeds of dissolution; and those seeds will be hastened to their harvest by the warmth of associate life. An Association of States with custom-house lines around each, is sure to be quarrelsome. ”

“ There are occasions, doubtless, when it is fitting that the law should intervene to prevent association; as when men join together for purposes which are evidently bad, unlawful, or dangerous to the State. In such cases public authority may justly forbid the formation of associations, and may dissolve them if they already exist. But every precaution should be taken not to violate the rights of individuals and not to impose unreasonable regulations under pretence of public benefit. ”

“ No assembly of citizens can style itself a popular society.
362. No private society occupying itself with political questions can correspond with another, or affiliate with it, or hold public sittings composed of the members of the society and of associates distinguished from one another, or impose conditions of admission and eligibility, or arrogate to itself rights of exclusion, or cause its members to wear any external sign of their association. ”

“ History has taught us nothing if not that men can continue to associate only by the laws of association. The golden rule is the first and last of these, but the first and last of the golden rule is that it can be operated only through laws, habits, forms, and institutions. ”

“ But on the other hand, when a man joins a Trade Union or a religious society it is because the new association bears some sort of vital and immediate relation to his life. The most authentic interests of life are those which move men to join together voluntarily for their defence and promotion; and for the purpose of social development, the associations that grow in this fashion are at least of no less importance to the common run of men than the state. ”

“ It is, above all, with reference to the improvement and elevation of the working classes that complete freedom in the conditions of partnership is indispensable. Combinations such as the associations of workpeople, described in a former chapter, are the most powerful means of effecting the social emancipation of the labourers through their own moral qualities. Nor is the liberty of association important solely for its examples of success, but fully as much so for the sake of attempts which would not succeed ”

“ Is association, as I describe it here, in itself less association, because every one enters and leaves it freely, chooses his place in it, judges and bargains for himself on his own responsibility, and brings with him the spring and warrant of personal interest? That it may deserve this name, is it necessary that a pretended reformer should come and impose upon us his plan and his will, and as it were, to concentrate mankind in himself? ”