Zed Books An Alternative Labour History: Worker Control and Workplace Democracy

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. An Alternative Labour HistoryWorker Control and Workplace DemocracyBy Dario AzzelliniZed Books LtdCopyright © 2015 Zed BooksAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-78360-155-4ContentsForeword by Jeremy Brecher, vii, Acknowledgments, ix, Notes on contributors, x, Introduction Dario Azzellini, I, 1 Council Democracy, or the End of the Political Alex Demirovic, 31, 2 Contemporary Crisis and Workers' Control Dario Azzellini, 67, 3 Workers' Assemblies: New Formations in the Organization of Labor and the Struggle against Capitalism Elise Danielle Thorburn, 100, 4 The Austrian Revolution of 1918 – 1919 and Working Class Autonomy Peter Haumer, 120, 5 Chile: Worker Self-organization and Cordones Industriales under the Allende Government (1970–1973) Franck Gaudichaud, 157, 6 "Production Control" or "Factory Soviet"? Workers' Control in Japan Kimiyasu Irie, 182, 7 The Factory Commissions in Brazil and the 1964 Coup d'État Henrique T. Novaes and Mauncio S. de Faria, 215, 8 Self-management, Workers' Control and Resistance against Crisis and Neoliberal Counter-reforms in Mexico Patrick Cuninghame, 242, 9 Collective Self-management and Social Classes: The Case of Enterprises Recovered by Their Workers in Uruguay Anabel Rieiro, 273, 10 Self-managing the Commons in Contemporary Greece Alexandros Kioupkiolis and Theodoros Karyotis, 298, Index, 329, CHAPTER 1Council Democracy, or the End of the PoliticalAlex Demirovic, translated by Joe KeadyDemocracy, as it is widely understood, is equated with parliaments, periodic elections, parties, and representation. This form of liberal democracy has repeatedly been in crisis since the 19th century, but it has consistently been able to revive itself and, if anything, expand further. Parliamentary democracy has once again been diagnosed as being gradually eroded and in crisis in recent years: the dominance of business interests in politics, the distance of parties and parliaments from the general public, the imperviousness of public opinion to the interests of the populace, the executive decisions made to benefit institutional investors, and the spread of corruption, as well as that of right-wing populism and nationalism, are all symptoms of this erosion. Critics often pin their hopes on forms of direct democracy, but contrary to what this term suggests, it offers little potential for participation or agency. Direct democracy operates within the framework of liberal democracy, which is based on finding majorities to pass bills and therefore ultimately on a dichotomous yes or no position. As a result, social relations themselves are not constituted in a directly democratic way. Rather, direct democracy adds yet another procedure arises which is supplementary to the parliament instead.The council democracy tradition represents one alternative to this. This may appear at first blush to be a museum piece, but during periods when social movements no longer oriented themselves to the parameters enforced by the ruling classes and no longer demanded these standards to be reinforced, but instead have transitioned into constitutive action, they have repeatedly updated their demands for a radical democratic alternative (see Arendt 1963). That demand has assumed various forms, including control over production, changes in the distribution of property, self-government, the cooperative management of production and distribution, anti-authoritarianism and self-determination of all social relations from the workplace to the school to the family. It can be expressed as "Work differently, live differently". The forerunners of the council democracy tradition are the English and French revolutions; the fundamental impetus comes from the Paris Commune and the council communist movement in Russia as well as in Germany, Hungary, Austria and Italy following World War I (see Ness and Azzellini, 2011). It was revived by the uprising in Hungary in 1956, by the social protest movem