Does anyone else notice how mutualism is defined nowadays by some of its advocates? They tell us that mutualism should not be defined narrowly as some kind of market socialism. That it is really like anarchism without adjectives; it’s an approach to anarchism that doesn’t preclude markets, that it leaves all options open. Sometimes it is any non-communist anarchism.
They argue that when anarchist communism developed, that is when mutualism became associated with market socialism. But this just begs the question? If there are forms of mutualism that doesn’t have markets, where are those proposals? If it’s just an approach that leaves all options available, then what does that approach entail?
Does anyone have any criticism of this redefinition of mutualism? This way of defining mutualism just seems like a way to avoid the criticisms levied at it when it is thought of as a kind of stateless market socialism.