Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Take back the factory: worker control in the current crisis

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

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Take back the factory: worker control in the current crisis

Click here to access article by Dario Azzellini from Reflections on a Revolution.

In this edited excerpt from Dario Azzellini’s new book, An Alternative Labour History: Worker Control and Workplace Democracy, the author looks at worker enterprises that attempt to provide a real alternative to capitalist organized companies. He provides a survey of such experiments in several countries and looks at their features and the problems they experience while functioning within a capitalist system.