We present a formulation of a legitimate alternative to capitalism that allows for the spontaneous self-actualization of all through each other without any centralized control, planning, private-property or state intervention!
This requires more than mere abstract agreement or forced cooperation - it demands real contribution to each other's self-actualization (contributions towards needs, values, goals, social and/or material dependencies etc.).
In this free association, the share of each individual in the surplus-distribution of others is equal to their share of the other's total mutual-recognition of contribution towards their own self-actualization (self-actualization of the other)!
Surplus flows according to mutual-recognition of real contributions, relations activate only through genuine desire and participation, and these properties persist even as relations compose into complex social structures.
Simple math will reveal how in free association: false recognition/relations naturally decay while true recognition/relations strengthens - that recognition and social-relations organized on the basis of this free association necessarily tend towards social-material-truth.
You can interact with an interface implementing this logic here (still in active development).
Imagine a potluck where pies you bake that you don't need (surplus) helps a neighbor spend less time cooking, freeing their time to fix their oven — the same oven that later bakes bread for your community garden party. That’s mutual-fulfillment: Your surplus doesn’t vanish—it flows to those who directly/indirectly align with your needs/desires/values/goals etc. (and vice-versa), creating a ripple effect of mutual-support that comes back to you in unexpected ways while strengthening the network. You're participating in a network where every contribution amplifies the collective capacity for everyone's growth.
This approach represents a fundamental shift from traditional charity or market-based systems. Instead of asking "What can I get in return?" or "Who deserves my help?", the question becomes "How can my surplus best contribute to a network that supports everyone's self-actualization?" As this network grows, it creates a new kind of economy - one based on recognition, reciprocity, and the understanding that our individual fulfillment is inextricably linked to the fulfillment of others.
Let:
- One's Recognition = one's acknowledgment of contributions towards one's own self-actualization (contributions towards one's needs, values, goals, social and/or material dependencies etc.)
- One's Total-Recognition = 100%
For any participants A and B:
- A can (re)-attribute to B a share of A's total-recognition
- B can (re)-attribute to A a share of B's total-recognition
Being Questioned: Recognition as Bandwidth
Recognition as Bandwidth:
- Let:
- Total-Receptivity = Total-Recognition = 100%
- Default: OtherShareOfTotalReceptivity = shareOfGeneralFulfillment
- (each side can have un-reciprocal receptivity)
- Receptivity-Overrides for special cases should be possible.
For example I would set my Receptivity-Limit = 1k Charecters/day and your share of my 1k charecters/day is equal to your share of my total-recognition (shareOfGeneralFulfillment).
Each recognizer can set their their Receptivity-Limit on the fly!
So if you are 50% of my total-recognition, you would be allowed to send me 500 characters/day.
If I am 10% of your total-recognition, I would be allowed to send you 100 characters/day.
We could override this default for special cases.
This allows us to take control of our own attention. And in a sense allows people to sets limits on the working-day (or at least to set limits on the amount of attention that they are willing to give to others via free-association interfaces).
Question: should default bandwidth-for-other be shareOfGeneralFulfillment or share-of-mutual-fulfillment-distribution?
Relations as Communication Channels:
- Relations are Communication Channels between Role-Players: Similar to chats or topics between two role-players.
Let:
- Mutual-Recognition(A, B) = min(B-share-of-A's-total-recognition, A-share-of-B's-total-recognition) = Mutual-Contributions towards eachother's self-actualization
For example: If you are 50% of my total-recognition, and I am 10% of your total-recognition, our mutual-recognition is 10%, the minimum of the both.
Taking the minimum of both shares ensures reciprocity in proportion
Mutual-recognition is the peer-2-peer social-validation of eachother's efforts as well as the social-validation of use-values/utility."
Interestingly we don't have to keep a ledger of objects whose definitions are centrally defined, there is no universal definition of object-hood (of what constitutes objects), but a distributed recognition of the social-utility of contributions!
In free-association, one does not value apples (objects) but a contributor's provision of apples (subject-verb-object).
More on Subject-Verb-Object
In free-association, one does not value apples (objects) but a contributor's provision of apples (subject-verb-object).
In stark contrast, in commodity production, one values objects (apples) but not the labor that produced them (the subject-verb-object relation).
Alienated societies, expropriate the product (object) from the producer (subject-verb) and alienate the producer from the product.
In capitalism, the capitalist claims to own the surplus-product produced by the subject-verb, and can sell it as a commodity, which leads to commodity fetishism.
By exchanging the objects between eachother, (already alienated from their respective subject-verbs) the commodity fetish takes full hold: and definite social relations between men themselves, take on - for them - the fantastic form of a social relation between things.
"In order, therefore, to find an analogy, we must take flight into the misty realm of religion. There the products of the human brain appear as autonomous figures endowed with a life of their own, which enter into relations, both with each other and with the human race. So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men's hands. I call this the fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour as soon as they are produced as commodities, and is, therefore, inseparable from the production of commodities." - Marx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_alienation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(Marxism) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishism
Let:
- Association = a set of relations where:
- Each Relation consists of (Provider-Role, User-Role)
- Each Role has a Holder who can:
- Express Desire (Will to Play)
- Express Playing (Active-Participation)
- Relations become Active only when:
- Both Role-Holders express Desire
- Both Role-Holders express Playing
- Holders can stop expressing Desire and Playing at any time
- Relations can be composed into larger structures while maintaining these properties
Let:
- Surplus = Roles one holds but does not desire
- Surplus can be distributed directly/transitively via Mutual-Recognition Distributions: The share of each individual in the surplus-distribution of others is equal to their share of the other's total mutual-recognition of contributions towards their own self-actualization (self-actualization of the other)!
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"
The distribution of surplus-roles through networks of mutual-contribution is a form of distributed-peer-discovery/offering/matching! Finding collaborators who directly/transitively contribute to your self-actualization!
What one is actually distributing surplus to is one's direct/transitive mutual-self-actualization
Let:
- Total Recognition = 100%
- Total Recognition = True Recognition + False Recognition
- Real Contributors = Those that actually perform the operations necessary to transform social-material reality in concrete-particular ways.
For any participant:
- ∴ ↑False Recognition = ↓True Recognition
- ∴ ↓Mutual-Recognition with Real Contributors
- ∴ ↓Surplus-Associations from Real Contributors
- ∴ ↓Access to Real Social-Material Coordination via Surplus-Associations from Real Contributors
- ∴ ↓Real Social-Material Basis for Self-Actualization
- ∴ social-material-truth is realized through Free Association
Click for Example
Consider someone receiving money from a wealthy person:
True Recognition Scenario:
- You need $1000 for rent
- A wealthy person provides you $1000
- You recognize their contribution to your need for money (say 20% of your total recognition)
- This is true recognition because they actually contributed to that specific need
False Recognition Scenario:
- You hope to get more money by flattering them
- You claim they've contributed to:
- Environmental protection (20% recognition)
- Community wellbeing (20% recognition)
- Cultural development (20% recognition)
- But these were actually achieved by other contributors
Mathematical Impact:
- Your total recognition must sum to 100%
- By giving 60% false recognition to the wealthy person
- Plus 20% true recognition for money
- Only 20% remains for all real contributors
- Therefore:
- Real environmental contributors can get max 20% recognition
- Their mutual recognition with you decreases
- Their surplus (help) flows less to you
- Your actual needs get less fulfilled
Key Insight: If you wanted more money legitimately, you could:
- Honestly adjust your need distribution (e.g. "Money is 40% of my needs")
- Give appropriate recognition for money received
- Maintain recognition for other real contributors
This preserves your ability to receive genuine help for all needs while being truthful about what was really contributed.
The mathematics naturally punishes false recognition by reducing your access to real contributions. You can't get more total value by inflating recognition - you only decrease your connection to real contributors.
For any Association between A and B:
- Mutual-Desire(A↔B) = Desire(A→B) ∧ Desire(B→A)
- Mutual-Playing(A↔B) = Mutual-Desire(A↔B) ∧ Playing(A→B) ∧ Playing(B→A)
Free Association requires:
- Mutual-Recognition > 0
- Mutual-Desire (both parties genuinely desire the relation)
- Mutual-Playing (both parties actively participate)
- Access to Social-Material Coordination Necessary for Mutual-Playing
For any participant:
- ↓Real Contributions → ↓Real Mutual-Recognition
- ↓Real Mutual-Recognition → ↓Real Mutual-Desire
- ↓Real Mutual-Desire → ↓Real Mutual-Playing
- ↓Real Mutual-Playing → ↓Free Association
- ↓Free Association → ↓Real Social-Material Coordination via Associations with Real Contributors
On Transitive Self-Actualization and Transitive Self-Actualization:
Transitive self-actualization refers to the ripple effect of contributions as they spread beyond a single hub of interaction. Rather than an isolated A → B relationship, we see A helping B in a way that not only meets B’s needs but empowers B to help C, D, and so on. This means that one’s actions to help a neighbor do not stop once that neighbor’s need is fulfilled; instead, the neighbor’s newly enhanced capacity to help others becomes part of the original contributor’s indirect contribution as well. In a free-association framework, these “transitive” contributors seed a chain reaction of material and social support that expands the web of mutual-fulfillment.
When Node A helps Node B, and Node B in turn supports Node C, Node A ends up benefiting from an environment where Node C is stronger or better able to meet Node A’s needs in the future—even though A and C may never interact directly. In terms of self-actualization, fulfilling a single node often unlocks opportunities for fulfilling an entire network, because every node’s fulfillment contributes to the overall capacity for support. Thus, transitive contributors demonstrate that individual well-being is always embedded in collective well-being.
How this differs from equity
Equity structures also operate on the basis of proportions of 100%, the sharehoders hold a share in the company.
Imagine we are each involved in organizations that issue their own shares and distribute dividends (surplus) to their shareholders.
Mutual-Stakeholding: Imagine several such organization swapping shares with each other, now dividends are flowing bidirectionally through the network.
We are risking-together and benefiting-together.
In Mutual-Stakeholding, we have entered a non-zero-sum economic relationship, in which we each gain by increasing the well-being of all others.
All of these desirable properties of Mutual-Stakeholding are inherited in Free-Association, but with a crucial difference.
In equity you own a share of me.
You may deploy any duplicitous means to gain my recognition of your contribution towards my self-fulfillment, you could lie to me with no end! And so long as you have secured your shares: you own me.
In other words, in Mutual-Stakeholding the Past dominates the Present. I can not remove my recognition of the past that is no longer true, because you own it.
On the contrary in Free-Association: The Present dominates the Past. I am able to, at a whim, modify my recognition of the Past in the light of new information in the Present.
In Free-Assocation I can re-attribute shares of my total-recognition - also proportions of 100% - and this is only possible because in Free-Association we each own 100% of ourselves!
We are free! You don't own me, and I don't own you! We owe each other nothing!
Recall that Mutual-Recognition is Hegel's resolution of the master-slave dialectic.
For more on this see resources/love.md
On Capital Relations (and Coercive Relations in General) within Free Association:
Let:
- Capitalist-Simulated-Production = Production appearing to come from capitalist but actually produced by contributors!
- Commodity Fetish = The masking of social-material relations of contribution behind the veil of the product as commodity (market-relations) - the objective social-forgetting of the social-origin of things
- Second-Order-False-Recognition = False recognition given to obtain capital for buying labor-power
For any participant C attempting capital accumulation via Second-Order-False-Recognition:
- ↑Second-Order-False-Recognition of Capital → ↑ Possibility of Mutual-Recognition with Capital Provider
- ↑Capital → ↑Ability to Buy Labor-Power
- ↑Bought Labor-Power → ↑Capitalist-Simulated-Production
- ↑Capitalist-Simulated-Production → ↑Real Products
- ↑Real Products → ↑Potential for Real Recognition from Others
However, for Real Contributors (A, B) whose labor-power has been bought by C:
-
As A, B begin organizing on basis of Free Association:
- ↑Recognition of mutual dependencies in contribution
- ↑Recognition of potential direct association (A↔B)
- ↑Pressure on C participate in contribution and make real-contributions
- ↑Contradiction between:
- C's need to maintain capitalist claim to ownership of surplus and means of contribution
- C's need to have contributions recognized by freely associating contributors
-
This contradiction intensifies as:
- ↑Labor-Power Purchased → ↑Potential for that Labor-Power to organize on the basis of Free Association
- ↑Formation of Direct Contributor Associations
- ↑Visibility of real contribution dependencies
- ↓Effectiveness of commodity fetish in masking relations
Therefore:
- ↑Organization of bought labor-power via Free Association
- → ↑Internal pressure to reveal real internal contribution relations
- → ↓Internal recognition of Capitalist's claim surplus-contribution/distribution
- → ↑Recognition of direct contributor dependencies
- ∴ Capital relations become increasingly unstable as bought labor-power organizes via Free Association
In other words: The commodity fetish cannot persist when the labor-power being purchased begins organizing on the basis of Free Association, as this creates pressure to reveal real contribution relations. The commodity fetish, which normally masks social relations of contribution, cannot be maintained within Free Association because Free Association requires demonstration of real contribution, creating a contradiction that must resolve either through the loss of recognition of Capitalist-Simulated-Production or its dissolution into Free Association.
On Free Association and State Power:
Let:
- State-Power = The organized force appearing separate from and above contributors
- State-Mediated Governance = Coordination via state apparatus rather than direct free association
- State-Simulated-Coordination = Coordination appearing to come from state but actually from contributor self-organization
- State Fetish = The masking of real social-coordination behind the veil of state authority - the objective social-forgetting of the self-organizing capacity of contributors
- Property Relations = Legal framework enforcing exclusive control over means of contribution
- Bourgoise Legal Fetish = The masking of class relations behind formal equality before the law
For any state apparatus S attempting to maintain property relations:
-
Initial state:
- State power maintains property relations
- Property relations restrict common utilization despite dissolution of particular capitalist organization
- Coordination appears as coming from above
- Social relations appear as legal relations
-
However, as free association expands:
- ↑Scale of free association
- ↑Number of contributors organizing via free association
- ↑Practical common utilization despite formal property relations
- ↑Contradiction between:
- Legal property framework
- Actual contribution relations
-
This contradiction intensifies as:
- ↑Gap between formal ownership and real utilization
- ↑Material power of associated contributors
- ↑Self-Coordination of Contributors → ↓Need for State-Mediated-Governance
- ↑Difficulty of enforcing private-property relations
Therefore:
- ↑Organization via Free Association
- → ↑Visibility of real coordination capabilities
- → ↓Recognition of state's claim to necessary coordination role
- → ↑Recognition of contributor self-organization capacity
- ∴ State power becomes increasingly superfluous as contributors organize via Free Association
In other words: The state fetish cannot persist when contributors organize via Free Association, as this demonstrates their real capacity for self-coordination. State power, which normally appears as necessary external force, reveals itself as superfluous when Free Association shows contributors' capacity to coordinate their own social-material contribution.
Therefore:
- ∴ State power isn't abolished but withers away as its functions are increasingly rendered unnecessary in Free Association
- ∴ The social-coordination of things replaces the government of persons
- ∴ Free Association realizes both social and material self-governance of contributors
Therefore
- ∴ (↑Dissolution of capitalist organization into Free Association ∧ ↓Effectiveness of state power in maintaining private-property relations) → ↓Force of the limits imposed by organizational-forms-based-on-class-division on the utilization of means of contribution in common by Freely Associating Contributors
- ∴ ↑Means of contribution in common → ↑Access to Materials Necessary for Playing Associations
- ∴ ↑Truly Free Association (both socially and materially)
Being Explored: What if States Freely-Associated?
Thus far we have principally spoken of free-association between individuals, but what about between organizations, communities, states etc.?
In the case of states, if they mutually recognized eachother's contributions towards their own self actualization, and surplus flowed bi-directionally, there would be no more need for imports/exports or international-trade.
Internally each state would have a mechanism for collective setting of the proportions of the branches of self-actualization of their community. For example: Each citizen has an equal share of proportion-setting-power.
We can also imagine a mechanism by which, citizens could delegate a portion of their proportion-setting-power to another agent, within a particular category. So for example delegating 10% of your proportion-setting-power in the category of "environmental protection" to the an ecologist.
Such a scenario would have a number of benefits and would make the question of the socialization of land and means of production, easier to answer, but raises other questions.
"The first act by virtue of which the state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a state. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not "abolished". It dies out." (Engels)
Some of this is being explored in the resources/leafs.md file.
Within the constitutions of various states, there are clauses that allow for the conversion of private property to state ownership. Their names vary, but terms like "nationalization" or "expropriation" are used when done on a larger scale (like industries) or "eminent domain" when done for specific properties (like land for highways).
These clauses generally allow governments to take private property for public use, though usually with the requirement to provide "just compensation" to the original owners. The specific terms and scope vary by country:
In the US, it's the "Takings Clause" of the Fifth Amendment In India, it's covered under Article 31 of the Constitution In the UK, it's called "compulsory purchase" In many Latin American countries, it's known as "expropiación"
However it should be noted that socialization of land and means of production in the hands of existing states (often times bourgoise, deformed-workers-states or degenerated-workers-states) comes with a lot of legal and historical baggage, and is not a simple process.
Bourgoise State: the capitalist class has not been overthrown, the economy is largely private and market-driven, and there is no internal democracy or workers' control of industry. Deformed Workers State: the capitalist class has been overthrown, the economy is largely state-owned and planned, but there is no internal democracy or workers' control of industry. In a deformed workers' state, the working class has never held political power like it did in Russia shortly after the Russian Revolution. These states are considered deformed because their political and economic structures have been imposed from the top (or from outside), and because revolutionary working class organizations are crushed. Degenerate Workers State: the capitalist class has been overthrown, the economy is largely state-owned and planned, there was internal democracy or workers' control of industry, but the working class lost political power, and democratic control of the state has given way to a state controled by a beauracratic clique.
Moreover, the question of how to distribute the means of production and land, if they are to be socialized, is a complex one. So is the question of how to distribute the surplus-production of the means of production and land, if they are to be socialized. And more fundamentaly, what will decide of each of these - the governance of each State - is a complex question.
Rather than reforming existing states, dual-power should be established in each country, and should be established on the basis of the widest democracy.
Definitions:
- Direct Mutual Contribution: A ↔ B (A and B directly contribute to each other)
- Transitive Mutual Contribution: A ↔ B ↔ C (A and B transitively contribute to each other via B)
Let us imagine, for a change, a directly/transitively mutualistic truly free association of free individuals, spontaneously coordinating their social-material contribution with the means of contribution in common, without any centralized control or planning. Without the need for private-property or the state.
With shared esteem & love,
- Ruzgar Imski & Free Association Playnet.lol
"Let us suppose that we had carried out production as human beings. Each of us would have in two ways affirmed himself and the other person.
-
- In my production I would have objectified my individuality, its specific character, and therefore enjoyed not only an individual manifestation of my life during the activity, but also when looking at the object I would have the individual pleasure of knowing my personality to be objective, visible to the senses and hence a power beyond all doubt.
-
- In your enjoyment or use of my product I would have the direct enjoyment both of being conscious of having satisfied a human need by my work, that is, of having objectified man's essential nature, and of having thus created an object corresponding to the need of another man's essential nature.
-
- I would have been for you the mediator between you and the species, and therefore would become recognised and felt by you yourself as a completion of your own essential nature and as a necessary part of yourself, and consequently would know myself to be confirmed both in your thought and your love.
-
- In the individual expression of my life I would have directly created your expression of your life, and therefore in my individual activity I would have directly confirmed and realised my true nature, my human nature, my communal nature.
Our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our essential nature.
This relationship would moreover be reciprocal; what occurs on my side has also to occur on yours." (Marx)
"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime desire; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" (Marx)
When individuals freely contribute to each other's self-actualization, when surplus flows according to mutual-recognition of real contributions towards eachother's self-actualization, when relations activate only through mutual desire and participation - then we have finally a form in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all!
"Communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore as the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being – a return accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution." (Marx)
"Only at this stage does self-activity coincide with material life, which corresponds to the development of individuals into complete individuals and the casting-off of all natural limitations." (Marx)
- Ruzgar: A p2p interface (a single html file) is being created for peers to express their mutual-recognition of contributions towards their own self-actualization (contributions towards one's needs, values, goals, social and/or material dependencies etc.) and to distribute associations (mutual-relations) according to their mutual-recognition-distributions. Implementing all the logic presented in this proof.
It is being developed open-source at interplaynetary-github.
A To-Do list is being kept at todo.md.
A basic interface for free association is almost complete but we are seeking support in user-interface-development as well as support in the form of housing, food etc.
Support Financially: opencollective.com/playnet