Design of a Worker Cooperatives Society An Alternative Beyond Capitalism and Socialism, and the Transition Towards It

• Format: eBook
• Language: English
• Published: Brill 2023
• Subjects: a worker cooperatives society; alternative to capitalism; capitalism and state socialism; council democracy; democracy at enterprises level; democratic alternative to capitalism; democratic alternative to the capitalist; full democracy including at enterprise level; means of production; mode of production; Mondragon worker-owned cooperatives; non-capitalist alternative to state socialism; non-worker-owned versus worker-owned; ownership; right to the fruits of a worker cooperative; social systems; state institutions; thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology; thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government; thema EDItEUR::K Economics, Finance, Business and Management::KC Economics::KCP Political economy; transition from capitalism; without owning the cooperative; worker cooperatives; worker councils of state institutions
• Online Access: Open Access: DOAB: description of the publication; Open Access: DOAB, download the publication

 What would an alternative to contemporary capitalism look like? In this book, Geert Reuten sets out a detailed design of a democratic society organised in worker cooperatives, followed by an equally detailed democratic transition to it, thereby making a convincing case. In Reuten's design, Workers constitute the single economic class. However, unlike in capitalism, there is no class that owns the means of production. The legal structure of worker cooperatives is such that workers have full rights to the fruits of the cooperative without owning it, and yet the state does not own the cooperatives either. Interestingly, worker councils in the economic and state domains vote on all economically relevant matters. In Reuten's work, the free choice of occupation and of specific consumer goods is even larger than in capitalism.