Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Self-directed workers as a “cure for capitalism”

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, November 12, 2012

Self-directed workers as a “cure for capitalism”

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from his blog Systemic Disorder.

This is a review of a new book Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism by Richard Wolff. The book promotes cooperative enterprises as a "cure for capitalism", and the author...

...argues that the ability of the workers of an enterprise to be involved in all its strategic decisions is the most important principal to bring about economic democracy, without which political democracy is a formal, empty shell. He introduces the term “workers’ self-directed enterprises” to encompass such enterprises.