Workplace Democracy
Dear Editors
The essence of socialism is democracy within the workplace. That’s each employee having an equal say in the production and distribution of products, sourcing of raw materials, and everything else relevant to the business. Equating socialism with the former Soviet Union and countries with centrally-planned economies is just asinine and deliberately misleading. It’s the old chestnut of ‘Socialism has been tried and it has failed.’ What country ever had a majority of businesses where there was a democratic say for all the employees? It’s not about storming the Winter Palace either. The state will always prevail over those sort of tactics. Transitioning from our present economic system run by private tyrannies to one where democracy was extended into the workplace would be a real revolution. What we think of revolution is really a ‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss’ type of conjuring trick. Democracy within the workplace is what the establishment fears most and for good reason.
Louis Shawcross,
Hillsborough, Northern Ireland
Reply:
You make some goods points but the use of the word ’employee’ is misleading. Workplaces in socialism will be democratically organised, but those working there will no longer be ’employee’, i.e., will no longer be working for wages for an ’employer’. It sounds as if you might be advocating worker control of ‘businesses’ producing for sale on a market with a view to profit; which wouldn’t be socialism.
Editors.
No comments:
Post a Comment