Economic democracy

Abstract

Economic democracy is often thought of in collective terms as the realm of collective bargaining or about giving workers collective ownership of the means of production. Framing economic democracy links to a political agenda around the commons or “commoning” rather than the clarion call of earlier generations to provide (largely industrial and male) workers with the fruits of their labour. Addressing the current ecological, political, and economic crises that confront us involves reclaiming space and place from capitalist appropriation and forging new collective organisations, institutions, and identities that can transform economic practices. The resurgence of an agenda around the global commons is critical to this task, with its insistence on carving out new spaces that can reclaim resources, work, and social being for collective and socially useful purposes in environmentally sustainable ways.