Barkley blames the tendency for top management to take over from worker-managers on the interference by the League of Yugo Communists, etc. That's plausible, but since the co-ops are not owned by the worker-managers alone, but by the state, isn't that kind of interference almost inevitable. Even if that interference didn't arise from government or political parties, might not it come from other sources, e.g., bankers? We do have to take seriously Louis' point that a worker-managed cooperative in a non-worker-managed global economy will be subject to all sorts of pressures that might undermine the co-op's internal democracy. Also, we have to take seriously the point that co-ops may not have the incentive to expand employment, so that unemployment persists or the use of non-member temps is encouraged (perhaps as in the quote about Mondragon). This is an old point, from Ben Ward and Evsey Domar, among others: the co-op has a tendency to be exclusive, having an almost fraternity-like attitude toward outsiders. (This might encourage sexism, racism, and more crucially for Yugo, antagonism toward other ethnic groups.) If I remember correctly, in a previous discussion of this issue, Paul Phillips quoted either Jan Vanek or Branko Horvath to indicate that _in practice_ the employment growth-limiting effects of worker co-operatives does not happen and that the co-ops do not have the incentive that Ward, Domar, et al suggest. I think that this is most likely true, though I am far from being an expert on this issue. (Is it possible that the effects of the tendency to not expand membership was hidden by the large migration of Yugo workers to N. Europe?) However, my question (which gets back to the issue of the first paragraph) is: could it be that the non-exclusionary policies of real-world Yugo co-ops be simply the result of the institutional constraints imposed on them? (Maybe the imposition of these constraints was instituted partly by encouraging top-managerial rule?) So we need to discuss more than simply the co-ops of Slovenia or Mondragon and discuss the institutional environment in which they exist. This brings us back to the key issue of how central planning (or at least central policies) and decentralized co-ops can work together to inch toward socialist ideals... boy, that's a lot of stuff on our plate. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they really do not refer to reality." -- Albert Einstein.
