"Stateless socialism‖" is the fourth chapter of Edward Abramowski‘s book Socialism and State. A Contribution to the Critique of Contemporary Socialism. Abramowski, a Polish political philosopher and social theorist, was also one of the founders of the cooperative movement in Poland. Written at the turn of 1903 and 1904 and published in 1904 (Polish Society of Publishers, Lviv) under the alias ―M. A. Czajkowski‖, Socialism and State is one of Abramowski‘s most important works, and is devoted to the philosophical justifications of socialist politics, the subversive character of social facts, and the doctrine of stateless socialism, the realisation of which was, according to Abramowski, the cooperative movement. In opposition to both classical Marxism and the social-democratic trend, which found in the state a tool by which the workers‘ movement would free itself from the chains of capitalism, by taking over, democratizing, and at the same time expanding state institutions, Abramowski proposes a vision of a grassroots revolution of specialised associations. Their ideology does not constitute a political doctrine, but is political practice itself, the domain of the common that allows the masses to create an autonomous subjective experience. Thus, the philosopher presents his concept of class struggle, grasped as a creative element of differentiation of forms of socialisation. This understanding also allows him to define class not as a substantial feature of a political subject, but as a kind of condition or action. He perceives the revolution as a transformation of the subject position in relation to the socio-economic conditions that define it, an ethical change that opens new possibilities for community life in the heart of the ancien regime.
The paper by Jan Wolski - a Polish theoretician and cooperative activist - constitutes the third section of the book Spółdzielczy samorząd pracy [Cooperative Labour Self-Management], which he wrote over the years of 1943-1956, but which was never published as a whole. The manuscript, from the author’s family archives, includes the information that this piece was ―written in 1943 for the Inter-union Cooperative Committee (functioning underground in Warsaw during II World War) and the Socialist Planning Commission‖. Entitled Cooperative Labour Self-Management, this section of the planned book was published in the monthly magazine Więź [Bond], issue no. 2 of 1972, and in 2011 on the website Lewicowo.pl. It contains Wolski’s deliberations regarding the functioning of cooperative labour self-management under the conditions of a social and economic transformation heading towards a classless society. Wolski believed a universal labour-based political system to be one of the essential conditions of socialism, supplanting the old organisational forms originating from the capitalist period. As such, universal labour self-management together with other forms of popular self-government, and particularly user self-government, constitutes a transmission belt between the populace’s grassroots activity and top-down political organisation. Mindful of Edward Abramowski’s teachings, Wolski considered that only having the state based on self-governing cooperative institutions consisted the true realisation of universal will, and thereby the realisation of socialist ideals.
Zasadniczym celem tego tekstu jest recenzja nowej książki L. Dowbora. Co to za gra? jest czwartą książką tego brazylijskiego ekonomisty, ukazującą się w Polsce. Recenzja napisana jest z perspektywy pedagogicznej, a uwarunkowania ekonomiczne uznane są za kluczowe dla procesów edukacyjnych w ogóle, a w szczególności dla procesów edukacyjnych zorientowanych emancypacyjnie. Recenzowana książka jest wyjątkowym przykładem Freirowskiej pedagogii możliwości w dyskursie ekonomicznym.
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The main purpose of this text is to review new book of L. Dowbor. Co to za gra? is fourth book of the brazilian economist, published in Poland. The Review is written from the perspective of educational theory and economic conditions are considered as significant for educational processes in general, and educational emancipatory processes in specific. Reviewed book is an exceptional example of Freiran pedagogy of possibility in discourse of economy.
Background and purpose: Kelso’s quest to identify the economic counterpart of political democracy and, as a corollary, his concern about the nature of the economic system’s organisation needed to support the institutions of a politically free society, contributed two important terms: economic power and democracy. Following Kelso’s reasoning, my research study aims to understand the determinants of the implementation of economic democracy, measured by the incidence of employee share ownership plans, within European Union countries. Methodology: Setting out with the theory of one of the founding fathers of employee stock ownership plans, I perform a cross-country analysis spanning five years (2008-2012) to explain the incidence level of employee ownership by independent variables operationalizing the political, legal, socio-educational and economic structures of twenty European Union countries. Using secondary data from the European Federation of Employee Share Ownership, I explain the determinants’ pertinence, while accounting for severe data limitations. Results: I report a strong correlation between employee ownership incidence and the index of economic freedom. However, the labour market’s freedom, the trustworthiness of and confidence in financial markets and the quality of secondary and tertiary education do not deliver clear-cut results. Conclusion: Further research should comprehensively scrutinise country-specific factors regarding corporate governance issues and cross-cultural controls. Employee ownership researchers should consider this field of research to understand why countries that are so-called employee ownership champions are experiencing widening income inequality.
The paper is focused on the issue of economic democracy. Building on experiences of Germany with employee participation, and, in particular, the institution of co-determination (Mitbestimmung), the author argues that more democratic voice is neces- sary in modern economy to restore balance between the needs of the society as a whole and demands of the market. In course of the paper, the author examines four stages of democratisation, that is, first, the conquest of political democracy through winning of basic freedoms, second, broadening the scope of freedoms with incorporation of such rights as union representation, collective bargaining, and set of principles constituting 'welfare capitalism', third, struggle for industrial democracy, and, finally, reaching an even more advanced state of economic democracy. Next, the author's attentions shifts to the phenomenon of the 'cancer stage of capitalism', at which the foundations of the 'post- war compromise' between capital and labour have been destroyed and markets have been getting increasingly 'disembedded'. In the end, the prospects for overturning the current trend towards building an 'economic dictatorship' are discussed with particular attention given to trade unions, and their potential role in the process.
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