Free association (also called
free association of producers or, as
Marx often called it, a
community of freely associated individuals) is a relationship among individuals where there is no
state,
social class or
authority, and
private property of
means of production. Once private property is abolished, individuals are no longer deprived of access to means of production enabling them to freely associate (without social constraint) to produce and reproduce their own conditions of existence and fulfill their individual and creative needs and desires. The term is used by
anarchists and
Marxists and is often considered a defining feature of a
fully developed communist society.