All over the country, people—like the workers of Chicago’s New Era Windows—are building worker-owned cooperatives that root jobs in the communities that need them.
An examination of the worker cooperative as an example of a labour commons. The authors suggest that the radical potential of co-ops can be extended by connecting with other commons struggles.
"The difference between councils and trade unions is that, while the latter lose their functions in a decaying capitalism, the former become a prefiguration of the organisation of socialist society."
Some currents argue that the experience of small-scale self-management under capitalism is useful preparation. However, self-management is impossible without real socialist democracy.
Workers’ self-management is associated with times of social transformation. The state may chose to either restrict self-management or facilitate it so the conflict is institutionalised and contained.