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The idea that the people have a right to shape political decisions through democratic means is widely accepted. The same cannot be said of the decisions that impact on our everyday economic life in the workplace and beyond.
Andrew Cumbers shows why this is wrong, and why, in the context of the rising tide of populism and the perceived crisis of liberal democracy, economic democracy's time has come. Four decades of market deregulation, financialisation, economic crisis and austerity has meant a loss of economic control and security for the majority of the world's population. The solution must involve allowing people to 'take back control' of their economic lives. Cumbers goes beyond older traditions of economic democracy to develop an ambitious new framework that includes a traditional concern with workplace rights and collective bargaining, but shifts the focus to include consideration of individual economic rights and processes of public engagement and deliberation beyond the workplace.
This topical and original book will be essential reading for anyone interested in radical solutions for our economic and political crises.
List of contents
Introduction The economic roots of the democratic crisis
The retreat from democratic scrutiny in economic policy
Making the case for economic democracy in the twenty-first century
Notes
1 A Brief History of Economic Democracy as Industrial Democracy Introduction
Struggles for economic democracy in the nineteenth century
The growth of a social democratic labour politics in the twentieth century
The Meidner Plan and the high tide of twentieth-century social democracy
The convenient fiction of Thatcher's property-owning democracy
'Stale, male and pale': the exclusions of twentieth-century industrial democracy
Conclusion
Notes
2 The Three Pillars of Economic Democracy Individual economic rights and self-government
Democratic, collective and diverse public ownership
Creating a deliberative and participatory economic democracy
Conclusion
Notes
3 Putting Economic Democracy into Practice Institutions for implementing individual self-governance and economic freedom
Emergent tendencies in democratic collective ownership
Practising participatory economic decision making
Conclusion
Notes
Conclusion
Constructing the democratic economy
A summary of the main arguments and their policy implications
Mobilizing for economic democracy
Notes
References
About the author
Andrew Cumbers is Professor in Regional Political Economy at the University of Glasgow
Summary
The idea that the people have a right to shape political decisions through democratic means is widely accepted. The same cannot be said of the decisions that impact on our everyday economic life in the workplace and beyond.
Andrew Cumbers shows why this is wrong, and why, in the context of the rising tide of populism and the perceived crisis of liberal democracy, economic democracy's time has come. Four decades of market deregulation, financialisation, economic crisis and austerity has meant a loss of economic control and security for the majority of the world's population. The solution must involve allowing people to 'take back control' of their economic lives. Cumbers goes beyond older traditions of economic democracy to develop an ambitious new framework that includes a traditional concern with workplace rights and collective bargaining, but shifts the focus to include consideration of individual economic rights and processes of public engagement and deliberation beyond the workplace.
This topical and original book will be essential reading for anyone interested in radical solutions for our economic and political crises.
Report
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter One: A Brief History of Economic Democracy as Industrial Democracy
Chapter Two: The Three Pillars of Economic Democracy
Chapter Three: Putting Economic Democracy into Practice
Conclusion
Notes
References
