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AskProfWolff: Worker Co-op Based Economies

A patron of Economic Update asks: "What different models would be available for different kinds of firms? I imagine the same organizational structure wouldn't work for a handful of workers as for a firm that employs thousands. Would a firm have to transition from one model to another as they grew? If we have democracy in the workplace, does that mean it would be representative democracy @work with workers voting for top-level managers? Or would it be more issue-by-issue? And in that case, who would decide how to put the issues forward?

Would things like publicly traded companies and the stock market even exist in D@W socialism? Seems unlikely if the whole point is to give control of the firm to the workers (not the financiers). I guess co-ops would still have access to funding from banks. Would you anticipate any other (new?) models of financing to spring up? If the workers control the means of production through co-ops, would unions still exist? Would you anticipate any downsides of a worker co-op's interests vs the interests of people outside of that particular firm? (Maybe nothing new outside of what exists under current Capitalism.)"


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Learn more about Prof Wolff's new book, The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself, that comes out mid-September: 
www.democracyatwork.info/books

"Richard Wolff in his new book examines frightening and anti-democratic configurations of corporate power, offering not only a blueprint for how we got here, but a plan for how we will rescue ourselves and create new models of economic and political justice.” - Chris Hedges


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