Abstract
This paper offers a brief account and defense of freely associated production as a political ideal. I discuss its conceptual structure, specifying what is meant by free association in terms of economic production, the sense in which it is a value for political order, and its approximate place in an historical lineage of reflection on freedom. Given that our economic arrangements are constitutively determined by law and public policy, and involve relations of governing power, the values that legal authority must subserve bear directly on the productive sphere. One of those values – arguably the highest – is relational freedom. Reigning structures of production violate its demands. Without understanding the ways in which that violation occurs, we cannot effectively address some of our most urgent social crises.
About the author
Tully Rector, postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at Utrecht University. In 2019 he received his PhD in philosophy from Freie Universität Berlin, and was an IRC fellow at the Exzellenzcluster SCRIPTS—Contestation of the Liberal Script. He works on problems at the intersection of political philosophy, social theory, and political economy. His present project is a normative theory of the multinational corporation and the system of production it controls and administers. At Utrecht he teaches courses on ethics and public policy, global justice, and other topics.
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