Socialism in the Fields

Agricultural association is association par excellence, realizing the idea most completely. The most perfect society is not, indeed, that which unites men, but that which puts men's individual wills in the background in order to bring to the forefront the common interests that exist between real assets: failure to understand this simple truth has often led the theorists of cooperation into philanthropic nonsense. Rural associations become singularly important for socialists from the moment they come to understand that all social change supposes the elaboration of new associational forms and the juridical education of the people […] It is in the countryside much more than in the city that socialists ought to seek out examples to clarify the idea of association… Italy has possessed, for centuries, large associations for drainage, defense, and irrigation… It might be asked if rural northern Italy is not the promised land of modern socialism in the same way as industrial Germany.