Workers' control

This term covers a variety of schemes which have sought to give workers full democratic control over the organizations in which they are employed. It suggests something more than rights of consultation and participation, and points to a more fundamental achievement by workers (in their particular industry or occupational sphere) of the real power to take key decisions. It has permeated much of the socialist tradition of thought, including some strands of revolutionary Marxism, and syndicalism. Workers' control within a capitalist society—in the sense of significant measures of trade union and ‘shop-floor’ influence over managerial decision-making, known in German as Mitbestimmung—must be distinguished from complete self-management of industry by workers under conditions of socialized rather than private ownership of capital (as exemplified by the Yugoslav system of workers' councils in the 1950s and 1960s).

— Keith Taylor

The slogan "workers' control," popular among radical Russian workers during the 1917 Revolution and the early years of Bolshevik rule, designated a program that was supposed to lead directly to socialism. The program called for the proletariat to seize and operate the capitalists' factories and to plan and manage production and distribution throughout Russian industry. The concept had its roots in nineteenth-century European socialism and especially in the syndicalist movement, which espoused economic units organized and run by workers.

Immediately after the February 1917 Revolution, demands for workers' control began to spread among activist workers in large enterprises. The slogan attracted growing support in the summer and fall of 1917 as economic conditions worsened, real wages fell, and some factories closed, while workers were locked out of other plants. Several Bolshevik leaders espoused workers' control as early as April 1917, and Lenin, recognizing the slogan's broad appeal, adopted it as part of the Bolshevik platform in June, encouraging its use in Bolshevik propaganda.

In August, September, and October 1917, workers seized some factories, and more were taken over after the Bolsheviks came to power. But faced with shortages of basic supplies, chaotic markets, labor absenteeism, and inadequate technical and managerial know-how, proletarian owners had little success in getting factories back into production. Lenin soon soured on the practice of workers' control, and beginning in early 1918 he started centralizing economic decision-making. He also called for unitary or one-man management (edinonachalie) in industries and individual enterprises as well as use of bourgeois specialists - former engineers, technicians, and managers - to help operate the factories and reenergize the economy. Although workers' control was largely dropped, a faction within the Bolshevik party known as the Workers' Opposition campaigned unsuccessfully during 1919 and 1920 for trade unions to have a greater role in running the Soviet economy.

Bibliography

Smith, Stephen A. (1983). Red Petrograd: Revolution in the Factories, 1917 - 1918. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wade, Rex. (2000). The Russian Revolution, 1917. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

—JOHN M. THOMPSON

Workers' control is a term meaning participation in the management of factories and other commercial enterprises by the people who work there. It has been variously advocated by anarchists, socialists, Communists and Christian Democrats, and has been combined with various socialist and mixed economy systems.

Workers' councils are a form of workers' control. Council communism, such as in the early Soviet Union advocates workers' control through workers councils and factory committees. Syndicalism advocates workers' control through trade unions. Guild socialism advocates workers' control through a revival of the Guild system. Participatory economics represents a recent variation on the idea of workers' control.

Workers' control can be contrasted to 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.

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 Edvard Kardelj

References

Bibliography

• Maurice Brinton, "The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control". Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1978

Notes

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009)

External links

• Trotsky on workers control
• IWW - proponents of workers control

v • d • e Cooperatives and Mutual organizations Types of cooperatives By governance Consumers' cooperative Cooperative federation · Cooperative wholesale society Worker cooperative Employee ownership · Workers' self-management · Workers' control · Workplace democracy · Unionized cooperative · Business and employment co-operative Purchasing cooperative Retailers' cooperative Social cooperative · Agent-owned company By purpose Cooperative banking Credit union · Mutual savings bank Housing cooperative Building cooperative · Student housing cooperative · Housing society · (Egalitarian) · Intentional community Agricultural cooperative Collective farming · Winemaking cooperative · Wheat pool Utility cooperative Community wind energy Mutual education Free school  · Homeschool cooperative  · Democratic education  · Learning by teaching Mutual insurance Health insurance cooperative Food cooperative  · Recycling cooperative Identity The Rochdale Principles · ICA Statement on the Cooperative Identity Political and economic theories Cooperative federalism · Distributism · Owenism · Mutualism · Neo-Capitalism · Socialism · Social enterprise · Socially responsible investing · Co-operative economics · Solidarity economy Key theorists Robert Owen · William King · The Rochdale Pioneers · G. D. H. Cole · Charles Gide · Beatrice Webb · Friedrich Raiffeisen · David Griffiths History and geography Ukraine · United Kingdom Organizations List of cooperatives · List of cooperative federations · List of worker cooperatives  · International Co-operative Alliance · Co-operativesUK · Co-operative Party

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)