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Associative Principles and Democratic Reform

New times for an old idea

Associationalism is not a new idea. It developed in the nineteenth century as an altemative to both liberał individualism and socialist collectivism, and as a criticism of State centralization and the growth of bureaucracy. It was intemational, and not less intellec-tually sophisticated than its opponents. It enjoyed considerable success and support. It had several distinct strands, and it was not exclusively a movement of the left. Associationalism had two characteristic features as a social doctrine. The first was the advo-cacy of a decentralized economy based on the non-capitalistic principles of cooperation and mutuality. The second was the criticism of the centralized and sovereign State, with radical feder-alist and political pluralist ideas advanced as a substitute. The associationalists believed in voluntarism and self-govemment, not collectivism and State compulsion. Some associationalists com-bjped the economic and political components of the doctrine, ®]hers gave emphasis to one or the other.

^Associationalism has several distinct sources. The English c^śyocates of industrial and social cooperation like Robert Owen j^d George Jacob Holyoake stressed cooperative, self-regulating (honornie communities. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon combined bril-5iljint advocacy of a mutualist economy, centred on artisan and co-operative production, with alternative non-profit making financial jj^gstitutions, and the creation of a decentralized State organized °©n bottom-up federal principles. The English political pluralists, |S§jW. Maitland and John Neville Figgis, derived from Otto von