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

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. In Reuten's convincing 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 compelling vision, the free choice of occupation and of specific consumer goods is even larger than in capitalism.

Geert Reuten taught economics at the University of Amsterdam’s School of Economics, where is currently a guest research associate, for 35 years. He has authored four academic books, edited six volumes, and published 80 academic articles (accessible at http://reuten.eu).