Note 679 — Chapter V · : PROUDHON AND THE SOCIALISM OF 1848

“Association avoids the waste of the retail system. M. Rossi recommends it to those small householders who cannot afford to buy wholesale. But this kind of association is wrong in principle. Give the producer, by helping him to exchange his products, an opportunity of supplying them with provisions at wholesale prices, or, what comes to the same thing, organise the retail trade so as to leave only just the same advantage as in the case of the wholesale transaction, and ‘association’ will be unnecessary.” (Idée générale de la Révolution, p. 92.)