Being "free" to associate as one wishes avoids the question of one's inclinations or unexamined instincts, and those inclinations CAN have a huge impact on the success or failure of projects and broader movements, cultures, even societies.
Consensus is a good example...
One of the biggest failure modes in contemporary anarchist organizing is thinking in terms of The Organization and being disinclined or unprepared for fluid disassociation by individuals. This leads people chained in dysfunctional projects without good/smooth exit opportunities.
Consider also the all-or-nothing Communes handwavingly described by Kropotkin and implemented in Aragon. Every individual had the Right of exit, but in practical reality / structure there was pretty much no option besides joining what were often essentially Company Towns.
CNT officials *bragged* about the monopsony power that rural collectives wielded, such that while individuals *could* opt out of their village's collective, they were basically completely fucked if they did, with no options, no one else they could exchange with.
Suffice to say that merely having "the right of exit" is not structuring your entire society to center individual agency and resist the emergence of collectivist cancers.
Because The Commune or The Organization can quickly gain state like powers and tyranny:
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