ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the future viability of worker ownership or cooperatives in the United States. It analyzes the law affecting their viability, identifies necessary legal changes in US law, and outlines the global legal and political impacts of Community Syndicalism. In Community Syndicalism, local community start-up finance and operating credit for industrial production combines with, but is separate from, linked democratic worker ownership and control of production. Community Syndicalism differs in two important aspects: first, the aim is not takeover of failing or closing plants as with Steel Valley Authority's (SVA); second, splitting community investment in and ownership of capital assets from worker ownership and democratic control of the enterprise contribute synergistically to long-term viability. Local communities or regional populations have been devastated by the decline of industrial production, whether the disappearance of enterprise that formed the economic base of those communities resulted from competitive failure or from outsourcing of some or all of the production from the affected area.
