ABSTRACT
It has long been obvious to followers of the labour movement that the institution of workers' participation on a permanent basis would not be achieved by industrial action alone. The state in most countries of Western Europe adopted the first policy, while the second was followed in Ireland and the UK and the third in Scandinavia and Switzerland. The divisions within the ranks of German labour, which were exacerbated by the demarcation between union and council functions, were to prove disastrous for the movement. The background and the day-to-day operation of workers' participation in industry organized around works councils and allied machinery thus inevitably bear the stamp of the latent power and values of the main parties concerned. In contrast with co-determination, self-management is not founded on the premise of the potential unity of different class interests but upon the prior abolition of economic classes by means of the expropriation of individual capital holdings.
