Road not taken? Inventing, modernizing, and renegotiating the concept of association in 19th-century Socialism

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the intellectual lineage of the concept of association in 19th century European socialism. We trace the crucial debates and subsequent rearticulations of the concept, beginning with Charles Fourier’s reflections and further innovations spawned by his followers, finally discussing Edward Abramowski’s attempts to adjust this concept to the Polish context and create a full blown ideology by using it. Our study reveals certain overarching tendencies in the evolution of the concept of association. First, while its initial formulations were based on criticism of the prevailing free competition and the chaotic character of early capitalism, in the later period the concept came in handy in challenging both state apparatuses and socialists wanting to transform society. Second, later reformulations of the concept allowed us to discern that it was no longer solely an intellectual device coming in handy in thinking about the nucleus of the new society, but rather an umbrella-term for a coherent ideological system and mass social movement.