Workers' control is participation in the management of factories and other enterprises by the people who work there.
The idea of workers' control is an old one. The Guild system could be seen as a form of workers' control. A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers It has been variously advocated by anarchists, socialists, Communists and Christian Democrats. Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based It has been combined with various socialist and mixed economy systems. A mixed economy is an Economic system that incorporates aspects of more than one economic system Workers' councils are a form of workers' control. A workers' council is a Deliberative assembly, composed of Working class members intended to institute Workers' self-management or Workers' control Council communism advocates workers' control through workers councils. Council communism is a Far-left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s Syndicalism advocates workers' control through trade unions. Syndicalism is a type of movement which aims to degrade capitalist societies through action by the Working class on the industrial front A trade union or labour union is an organization of workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas such as wages hours and working conditions forming Guild socialism advocates workers' control through a revival of the Guild system. Guild socialism is a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related Guilds. Participatory economics represents a recent variation on the idea of workers' control. Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is a proposed Economic system that uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism Workers' control can be contrasted to indirect forms of social control of the economy via the state, such as nationalisation and central planning (see state socialism) and private control of the means of production as found in capitalism. Nationalization, also spelled nationalisation, is the act of taking an industry or assets into the Public ownership of a national government A planned economy or directed economy is an Economic system in which the Government or Workers' councils manages the Economy. State Socialism is a term introduced to describe the type of government in countries ruled by communist parties such as the former USSR, which are generally known as Communist
In the early Soviet Union, worker's control was accomplished via factory committees. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Factory committees ( zavodskoy komitet, zavkom, заводской комитет завком fabrichny komitet, fabkom, фабричный
A form of workers' participation was applied in West Germany after World War II. West Germany ( Inf German: Westdeutschland or West-Deutschland) was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany ( World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia practiced direct social ownership of businesses and the economy as a whole during the 1960's. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ( Serbo-Croatian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Slovene, Macedonian: The country's economy prospered formidably during that time period. Unemployment was low and the education level of the work force steadily increased.
Britain in the 1970s considered a version of it: the Bullock Report of 1977 had a definite schema, but there was considerable opposition, much of it from the Hard Left. The Bullock Report was a report proposing for a form of worker participation or workers control, named for Alan Bullock. ' Hard left' is a name often given to an internal tendency within the British Labour Party. The Institute for Workers' Control was part of the left-wing opposition. The Institute for Workers' Control was founded in 1968 by Tony Topham and Ken Coates, the latter then a leader of the International Marxist Group and subsequently Arthur Scargill was strongly opposed to the idea of giving coal workers control of the coal industry. Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938 led the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM from 1981 to 2000
See also
- Anarcho-syndicalism
- Co-operatives
- Commune (socialism)
- Direct democracy
- Inclusive Democracy
- Industrial democracy
- Paris Commune of 1871
- Participatory democracy
- Participatory economics
- Worker cooperative
- Worker self-management
- Workplace democracy
External links
- Trotsky on workers control
- Socialist Party USA - an example of a socialist party that advocates Workers' control and social ownership of the economy over both state-controlled socialism and capitalism.
- IWW - proponents of workers control
Further reading
- Maurice Brinton, "The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control". Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of Anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. Traditionally the revolutionary left sees the commune as a populist replacement for the elitist parliament Direct Democracy is a movement within the British Conservative Party dedicated to localism and Constitutional reform as a means of reviving public The theoretical project of Inclusive Democracy ( ID; as distinguished from the political project which is part of the democratic and autonomy traditions emerged from the work Industrial democracy is an arrangement which involves workers making decisions sharing responsibility and Authority in the workplace The Paris Commune (La Commune de Paris was a Government that briefly ruled Paris from 18 March (more formally from 26 March) to 28 May Participatory democracy is a process emphasizing the broad Participation (decision making of constituents in the direction and operation of political systems Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is a proposed Economic system that uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism A worker coperative is a Cooperative owned and democratically controlled by its employees Worker self-management (or autogestion) is a form of workplace decision-making in which the workers themselves agree on choices (for issues like customer care general production Workplace democracy is the application of Democracy in all its forms (including Voting systems Debates Democratic structuring, Due process Maurice Brinton was the pen name under which Christopher Agamemnon Pallis ( 2 December 1923, Bombay - 10 March 2005, Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1978
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