ABSTRACT
This paper discusses self-management, co-operatives, and other participatory forms in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and China, both before and after the start of ‘transition’ in 1989. The paper first discusses the experience with self-management and co-operatives in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) under the traditional socialist economic system and in the market socialist experiments. Most of the attention in this section is focused on the Yugoslav version of ‘self-management’ as the best known and fullest, though not the only, attempt to introduce worker participation in a socialist country. I then turn to the main subject of the paper, worker participation in the CEE economies following the revolutions of 1989-91 and the start of the transition. The analysis is in three parts. First, I argue that transition now under way in the region has seen an increase in what amounts to worker participation. The retreat by the state from the detailed direction of economic activity created a power vacuum within state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and frequently this power vacuum was filled by workers. I then discuss what we know thus far about the performance of these ‘worker-controlled’ firms. Lastly, I discuss the implications of privatization and the growth of the emerging private sector for worker participation in the medium to long run. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the emergence of a dynamic cooperative sector in the Chinese economy.
