What is workers self-management?
Quite simply, workers’ self-management (sometimes called “workers’ control”) means that all workers affected by a decision have an equal voice in making it, on the principle of “one worker, one vote.” That is, workers “ought to be the real managers of industries.” [Peter Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 157] As noted earlier, however, we need to be careful when using the term “workers’ control,” as the concept is currently being co-opted by the ruling elite, which is to say that it is becoming popular among sociologists, industrial managers, and social-democratic union leaders, and so is taking on an entirely different meaning from the one intended by anarchists (who originated the term). In the hands of capitalists, “workers’ control” is now referred to by such terms as “participation,” “democratisation,” “co-determination,” “consensus,” “empowerment”, “Japanese-style management,” etc. As Sam Dolgoff notes, “[f]or those whose function it is solve the new problem
Quite simply, workers’ self-management (sometimes called “workers’ control”) means that all workers affected by a decision have an equal voice in making it, on the principle of “one worker, one vote.” Thus “revolution has launched us on the path of industrial democracy.” [Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 63] That is, workers “ought to be the real managers of industries.” [Peter Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 157] This is essential to ensure “a society of equals, who will not be compelled to sell their hands and their brains to those who choose to employ them . . . but who will be able to apply their knowledge and capacities to production, in an organism so constructed as to combine all the efforts for procuring the greatest possible well-being for all, while full, free scope will be left for every individual initiative.” [Kropotkin, Kropotkin: Selections from his Writings, pp. 113-4] As Chomsky put it: “Compassion, solidarity, friendship are also
Quite simply, “workers’ self-management” (sometimes called “workers’ control”) means that all workers affected by a decision have an equal voice in making it, on the principle of “one worker, one vote.” As noted earlier, however, we need to be careful when using the term “workers’ control,” as the concept is currently being co-opted by the ruling elite, which is to say that it is becoming popular among sociologists, industrial managers, and social-democratic union leaders, and so is taking on an entirely different meaning from the one intended by anarchists (who originated the term). In the hands of capitalists, “workers’ control” is now referred to by such terms as “participation,” “democratization,” “co-determination,” “consensus,” “empowerment”, “Japanese-style management,” etc. As Sam Dolgoff notes, “For those whose function it is solve the new problems of boredom and alienation in the workplace in advanced industrial capitalism, workers’ control is seen as a hopeful solution. . .
