Figures privilégiées de la révolution russe, les soviets ont occulté les coopératives dans le grand bouleversement de 1917. Pourtant, c’est vers elles que le nouveau pouvoir soviétique se tourne pour construire un nouveau système de distribution. Moshé Lewin dans Le dernier combat de Lénine ¹ souligne que Lénine, à la veille de sa disparition, sentant l’hydre bureaucratique se développer,  « pense que la coopération est la bonne méthode pour guider la classe paysanne vers des structures socialistes. Il y croit si fermement que la coopération occupe maintenant dans ses projets la place laissée vacante par l’abandon sans façon du capitalisme d’État qu’il a fait après son échec pratique ».

Le mouvement coopératif russe né à la fin du XIXe siècle enrôlait essentiellement la petite-bourgeoise à l’esprit réformiste (anti-autocratique) et s’inspirait de l’expérience de celui de l’Europe de l’Ouest, notamment anglais. La réforme paysanne de 1862 (abolition du servage) et surtout l’établissement des  zemstvos  (assemblée provinciale élues au suffrage censitaire) encouragent un mouvement qui se composait de coopératives de production (artel) et de consommation. Entre 1865 et 1870, on compte 75 coopératives de consommation. En 1898, l’Union moscovite des associations de consommateurs est fondée et deviendra le centre national des 1198 coopératives de consommation nées 1881 et 1905. Le mouvement se développe essentiellement sous le contrôle du gouvernement. Les patrons sont souvent à l’instigation des coopératives de consommateurs. Après la révolution de 1905, le nombre de coopératives est multiplié par 15 et celui de ses membres par 25 et elles se rapprochent du mouvement ouvrier. En 1906, des coopératives ouvrières indépendantes sont ouvertes à Petrograd. Parmi elles, la principale coopérative de consommateur Trudovoi soiuz (Union ouvrière) fut créée par des syndicalistes contre l’avis de la section locale du parti social-démocrate. Mais en raison de son succès, les socialistes pétersbourgeois changèrent d’avis, même s’ils restèrent divisés sur cette question. En 1908, un syndicaliste déclarait « Si nous nous demandons dans quel domaine avons-nous des organisations plus ou moins de masse, nous devrions répondre : dans le domaine des coopératives » ². À l’échelle du pays, la direction du mouvement coopératif tombe entre les mains des mencheviques. Ses dirigeants défendent la neutralité politique et disent vouloir obtenir un progrès social au moyen d’une lutte économique pacifique et modérée. Le parti bolchevique, de son côté, intervient activement dans les coopératives ouvrières à partir de 1910. Il considère les coopératives de consommateurs comme des organes de lutte  économique. Plusieurs de ses dirigeants (V. P. Nogin, N. L. Meshcheriakov) travaillent dans des coopératives. Lors des congrès pan-russes des coopératives de Moscou (1908, 800 délégués) et de Kiev (1913, 1400 délégués), même si des tendances démocratiques s’affirment, un fort courant apolitique  domine encore et fait preuve de méfiance vis-à-vis des coopératives ouvrières. En 1915, il y a 35200 coopératives en Russie (dont une majorité sous forme de sociétés de crédit). Signalons également, l’existence d’un fort mouvement coopératif en Ukraine qui mériterait une étude à lui seul.

À la veille de la révolution d’Octobre, elles sont 63 000 avec 24 millions de membres. Les coopératives de consommateurs, essentiellement rurales, sont alors majoritaires. 82,50 %  de la population paysanne (97 millions d’habitants) ont recours peu ou prou à leurs services. Le mouvement coopératif est devenu une force économique majeure. De leur côté, les coopératives ouvrières indépendantes fondent en 1917 leur propre fédération toujours dominée par les mencheviques. En 1917, J. V. Bubnoff ³, considérait que « la Russie avait pris la première place en nombre de coopératives loin devant même la Grande-Bretagne. Les villages fournissaient le plus grand nombre de coopératives même si dans les villes, elles étaient également présentes comme à Moscou où ‘La coopération’ comptait 65 000  membres ».  Selon Bubnoff on trouvait également des « coopératives parmi les différents peuples habitant la Russie, les Arméniens, les Géorgiens, les Tatars, les  Kirghizes etc. »

Après la révolution de février 1917, les coopératives s’engagent sur la scène politique. Leurs dirigeants soutiennent le gouvernement provisoire qui décide d’une loi libérale sur la coopération le 20 mars 1917. Le congrès pan-russe des coopératives approuve officiellement la politique du gouvernement Kerenski qui en retour lui assure un volant de commandes de marchandises.

Six mois après la révolution d’octobre, le 12 avril 1918, le conseil des commissaires au peuple publie un décret sur l’organisation des coopératives qui se voient assigner la tâche d’assurer la distribution. Face à la  dramatique désorganisation du système d’approvisionnement, les bolcheviques s’engagent alors dans une politique de compromis avec le secteur coopératif. Lénine, on le verra plus bas, explicitera son sens politique. Malgré les ravages économiques du conflit impérialiste et de la guerre civile, le secteur coopératif reste fort. En 1918-1919, ce sont, par exemple, 400 millions de tonnes de céréales, 51 millions de beurre qui passent par le système coopératif.  À cette époque, il fournissait également l’Armée rouge en chaussures et en tissus. Suite au décret de 1918, les couches bourgeoises sont expulsées des organes de direction  des coopératives agricoles. Le basculement du système coopératif du côté du pouvoir soviétique est  consolidé lors du troisième congrès des coopératives ouvrières de décembre 1918 où Lénine prend la parole.

La fédération des coopératives de consommation organisait alors 75 % de la population.  Dans le domaine agricole, des secteurs coopératifs spécialisés sont créés : lodoovoshch (fruit et légumes), Soiuzkartofel’ (pommes de terre), Pen’kosoiuz (chanvre)… Cependant cet effort de spécialisation par branche de production était lent car de nombreuses coopératives souhaitaient conserver plusieurs types de productions. Le 20 mars 1920, dans la période de « communisme de guerre », un décret décide d’étatiser les coopératives. L’État prend en main directement l’organisation de la production agricole et des échanges entre la ville et la campagne. L’adhésion aux coopératives de consommation est obligatoire et celles-ci deviennent des appendices du commissariat à l’alimentation. Cependant ces évolutions provoquèrent de nombreuses discussions au sein du parti bolchevique y compris au sein de sa direction. La même année, lorsque les forces impérialistes décident de lever le blocus économique qui asphyxiait la Russie soviétique, elles tentent d’imposer que les nouveaux échanges, portant sur les matières premières et des denrées, soient uniquement organisés  avec les coopératives russes. Une manœuvre pour tenter de briser le monopole du commerce extérieur. Les  représentants de l’organisation centrale des coopératives russes Centrosoyous (Union Centrale) se rendent néanmoins à Londres pour mener des négociations commerciales.

Lors du 10e congrès du parti communiste russe (bolchevique), Lénine, dans le cadre de l’introduction de la NEP, défend une plus grande liberté d’action pour les coopératives. Le 7 avril 1921, un nouveau décret, signé de sa main, libère le système coopératif  de la tutelle du commissariat à l’alimentation et autorise la création d’association de consommateurs sur une base volontaire. Ses  articles 5 et 6 précisent que « les sociétés coopératives auront le droit d’acheter le surplus des produits agricoles aux exploitations rurales ainsi que les produits de la petite industrie aux artisans. Elles pourront aussi en faire des échanges, les céder ou les vendre » et que « les sociétés coopératives ont le droit d’organiser des entreprises pour l’exploitation et la transformation des produits ; elles pourront aussi créer des jardins potagers, des laiteries et autres entreprises de ce genre, se charger de la fourniture, de l’emmagasinage des denrées et de leur répartition au compte de coopératives privées, d’administrations et de simples individus ».  Durant les premières années de la NEP, les coopératives de consommateurs connurent un nouveau développement, protégeant les paysans contre le capital commercial. Dans les années 1920, plus de la moitié des magasins de détail des villages étaient des magasins coopératifs, faisant pièce aux commerçants privés et aux spéculateurs.

Le tournant coopératif de Lénine

Comme nous l’indique Moshe Lewin, Lénine devient de plus en plus attentif à la question des coopératives entre 1917 et 1924. Nous pouvons l’observer dans deux de ses textes les plus importants sur cette question où, au risque de l’anachronisme, nous pouvons considérer qu’il recherche une stratégie autogestionnaire de l’exercice du pouvoir soviétique.

Le 28 avril 1918, Lénine publie dans La Pravda Les tâches immédiates du pouvoir des Soviets où il examine « la situation internationale de la république des Soviets de Russie et les tâches essentielles de la révolution socialiste ». Il observe d’emblée que « le capitalisme nous a légué des organisations de masse qui peuvent faciliter le passage au recensement et au contrôle massifs de la répartition des produits : ce sont les coopératives de consommation. » En effet note-il  « elles sont moins développées en Russie que dans les pays avancés, mais elles comptent tout de même plus de dix millions de membres ». Le décret 1918 constitue à ses yeux un compromis car les coopératives « ont non seulement pris part à la discussion du projet de décret, mais ont en fait exercé un droit de décision, puisque les passages du décret auxquels ces institutions s’étaient résolument opposées ont été rejetés » car celui-ci « consiste, au fond, en ce que le pouvoir soviétique a renoncé au principe de l’adhésion gratuite aux coopératives ». Il ajoute que « la proposition du pouvoir des Soviets tendant à exclure complètement la bourgeoisie des conseils d’administration des coopératives a été, elle aussi, très atténuée, et l’interdiction de faire partie des conseils d’administration n’a été étendue qu’aux propriétaires d’entreprises commerciales et industrielles ayant un caractère capitaliste privé ». Il conclut enfin qu’« en signant cet accord avec les coopératives bourgeoises, le pouvoir des Soviets a concrètement défini ses objectifs tactiques et ses méthodes d’actions particulières pour l’étape actuelle du développement, à savoir : tout en dirigeant les éléments bourgeois, tout en les utilisant, tout en leur faisant certaines concessions partielles, nous créons les conditions d’un mouvement progressif qui sera plus lent que nous ne l’avions prévu initialement, mais en même temps plus durable, avec une base et des lignes de communication plus solidement assurées, et des positions acquises mieux consolidées ». Sur un plan pratique il fixe des objectifs car « maintenant les Soviets peuvent (et doivent) évaluer leur succès dans l’édification socialiste, notamment, en se servant d’une unité de mesure extrêmement claire, simple et pratique : en considérant le nombre exact des communautés (communes ou villages, quartiers, etc.) où le développement des coopératives tend à englober la population tout entière et dans quelles proportions ».

Cinq ans plus tard, en mai 1923, Lénine revient sur cette question dans De la coopération. La première phrase de sa contribution est nette : « Il me semble que nous ne prêtons pas une attention suffisante à la coopération », car « la coopération acquiert chez nous une importance tout à fait exceptionnelle ». S’il caractérise le mouvement coopératif précédent de « vielle chimère », il indique cependant que «  lorsque la population est groupée au maximum dans les coopératives, le socialisme se réalise de lui-même » c’est dire pour lui «  l’importance énorme, illimitée, que la coopération acquiert pour nous aujourd’hui en Russie ». Sa préoccupation est tournée ver le monde paysan alors majoritaire : « Imaginer toutes sortes de projets d’associations ouvrières pour construire le socialisme, est une chose ; autre chose est d’apprendre à construire ce socialisme pratiquement, de façon que tout petit paysan puisse participer à cette œuvre ». Il s’inscrit dans le nouveau cadre de la NEP. Il considère que face aux « trop de places au principe de l’industrie et du commerce libres » accordés «  nous avons oublié la coopération, que nous la sous-estimons aujourd’hui, que nous avons déjà commencé à oublier la portée gigantesque de la coopération… ». Aussi préconise-t-il une politique privilégiée (notamment par des avantages financiers) pour les coopératives, car « le régime social que nous devons soutenir par-dessus tout, c’est le régime coopératif ». Il faut favoriser les échanges coopératifs « auxquels participent réellement les masses véritables de la population ».

Dans les coopératives, Lénine entend construire le « marchand civilisé » qui allie l’enthousiasme révolutionnaire et « l’habileté d’un marchand intelligent et instruit » et à terme qui « nous permettraient d’aider efficacement les coopératives, de former des coopérateurs civilisés » car « le régime de coopérateurs civilisés, quand les moyens de production appartiennent à la société et que le prolétariat comme classe a triomphé de la bourgeoisie, c’est le régime socialiste ». La coopérative est selon lui « un troisième type d’entreprises qui, au point de vue du principe, ne formaient pas auparavant une catégorie à part, à savoir : les coopératives ». Mais une distinction reste à prendre en compte : « Dans notre régime actuel, les coopératives se distinguent des entreprises capitalistes privées, comme entreprises collectives, mais elles ne se distinguent pas des entreprises socialistes, si la terre où elles sont établies et les moyens de production appartiennent à l’État, c’est-à-dire à la classe ouvrière». Dans ce cadre « la coopération coïncide entièrement avec le socialisme ». Enfin Lénine souligne qu’ « aujourd’hui, le centre de gravité se déplace : il porte sur le travail pacifique d’organisation culturelle ». Les objectifs sont de « refondre notre appareil administratif qui ne vaut absolument rien et que nous avons hérité entièrement du passé ; en cinq années de lutte, nous n’avons pas eu le temps de le modifier sérieusement, et nous ne pouvions le faire. Notre seconde tâche est d’engager une action culturelle pour la paysannerie ». En effet « ce travail parmi les paysans a pour objectif économique la coopération. Si nous pouvions les grouper tous dans des coopératives, nous nous tiendrions des deux pieds sur le terrain socialiste » mais «cette organisation généralisée dans les coopératives est impossible sans une véritable révolution culturelle » avec le handicap que « la révolution politique et sociale chez nous a précédé la révolution culturelle qui maintenant s’impose à nous » car « pour pouvoir devenir des hommes cultivés, il faut que les moyens matériels de la production aient acquis un certain développement, il faut posséder une certaine base matérielle ».

En Russie, cette politique d’ouverture vers la question coopérative ne portera pas ses fruits. Selon l’historien américain E.H. Carr « les statistiques établies au début de 1924 montraient que 83,4 % du commerce de détail était dans le secteur privé, laissant 10% du secteur aux coopératives et seulement 6,6 % aux organes de l’État et aux institutions ». Il ajoute : « en premier lieu, la NEP avait ramené à la surface la masse des commerçants privés … [qui]  ont poussé les institutions du commerce d’État et les coopératives dans une large mesure hors du secteur »4 ⁴.  En 1917, les bolcheviques, qui découvrent l’importance stratégique des coopératives après la prise du pouvoir, ont cherché une voie pour construire un secteur de distribution et surtout de production agricole qui ouvre la voie à la socialisation des moyens de production et de répartition. Mais ni les circonstances historiques, ni leur expérience politique dans ce domaine ne leur ont permis d’aboutir.

À suivre : L’Internationale communiste et les coopératives.

Estimados amigos e camaradas, peço desculpas por estar ausente deste momento importante para a história e para o presente dos movimentos sociais latino-americanos. Parabenizo diretamente o Centro de Memória Operária e Popular e indiretamente a iniciativa da Flaskô, fábrica de cultura desmercantilizada e fábrica de unificação das lutas dos movimentos sociais que nos surpreende positivamente a cada mês. Gostaria de começar pela seguinte pergunta: por que o socialismo autogestionário é necessário e urgente?

Para mim, neste século XXI a ordem do capital só irá produzir barbárie. A destruição do Estado de Bem-Estar Social na Europa e a continuidade do Estado do Mal-Estar Social no resto do mundo são consequências de uma sociedade irracional. Para dar alguns exemplos, o Papa não tem cara de papa, Berlusconi promove festinhas Bunga-Bunga e tem explícita relação com a máfia, Sarkozy expulsa ciganos e promove reformas na previdência à revelia das manifestações dos trabalhadores. Na Espanha, Portugal e Grécia, 40% dos jovens estão desempregados e o Estado possui dívidas impagáveis. Na Inglaterra das últimas semanas, os jovens protestaram contra a irracionalidade do capital e foram pedagogicamente punidos. A mídia do capital e o Governo Inglês insistem em classificá-los como “vândalos sem causa”, obviamente desconsiderando as razões sociais da revolta. Dívida pública estratosférica, neo-fascismo, desemprego, subemprego, retorno da fome e da miséria na Europa são as palavras recorrentes numa região que conseguiu criar um capitalismo com rédeas e parcialmente desmercantilizado, mas ainda assim dentro da órbita do capital no período 1945-1973.

O capitalismo sob hegemonia financeira, a turbo-mercantilização e o retorno da acumulação primitiva só podem sobreviver através do aumento da repressão, da criminalização dos movimentos sociais, dos assassinatos de lideranças, tal como os que ocorreram recentemente na Amazônia. Numa ponta o Estado promove a “pelourização” dos movimentos sociais e na outra uma imensa drenagem de fundos públicos para socorrer as crises mundiais.

Para citar um exemplo latino-americano, a sociedade argentina reagiu ao processo de financeirização da sua economia no ano de 2001, financeirização esta que ganhou força a partir do duro golpe de 1976, que jogou as forças populares argentinas no chão. No ano de 2001, eles lutaram e disseram “Basta! Fora todos!”. Era um sinal de cansaço das reformas neoliberais e da neocolonização da sociedade argentina. No entanto, a revolta popular de 2001 rapidamente se transformou numa proposta neo-desenvolvimentista sob o manto da família Kirchner. Hoje temos uma Argentina dominada por corporações multinacionais, elites regionais, bancos e o setor exportador de carne e couro, todos eles promovendo direta ou indiretamente a super-exploração do trabalho, seja com carteira assinada ou através do subemprego.

No Brasil, a integração de parcelas dos trabalhadores à sociedade de consumo de mercadorias descartáveis e a geração de emprego precário somente aprofundam a alienação dos trabalhadores. Se FHC foi uma ave de rapina que liquidou o patrimônio público e destruiu a nação, o PAC-to de dominação da dupla Lula-Dilma é mais sofisticado, pois gera emprego e neutraliza as lutas dos movimentos sociais. FHC representava os interesses de curto prazo de um capital voraz, Lula e Dilma representam o capital que aprendeu com os erros dos anos 1990 e retoma estratégias de dominação de longo prazo, dando parcela mínina da renda aos miseráveis. Para o professor Paulo Lima Filho, Lula e Dilma estão criando a “pequena burguesia dos miseráveis”.

As respostas irracionais do capital a esta crise mundial – que não pode ser confundida com catástrofe – nos colocam mais uma vez o desafio de construção do socialismo autogestionário. A história já nos mostrou que a autogestão é possível. Marx nos mostrou em diversos dos seus escritos que é possível construir uma sociedade sem classes sociais, sem patrões, que supere o sistema salarial e o Estado. Inúmeros exemplos na América Latina do século XX nos permitem dizer que o trabalho desalienante na produção de casas é possível e necessário. Da mesma forma o lazer desmercantilizado, o transporte decente e não permeado pela acumulação de capital. Em outras palavras, a atividade de trabalho pode ter sentido social, pode haver graus crescentes de controle da produção e reprodução da vida material. Da mesma forma, a superação da hierarquia na fábrica e a urgente necessidade de coordenação global da produção pelos produtores livremente associados são temas desafiadores para este novo milênio.

A falência do “socialismo real” também gera aprendizado. Mesmo com inúmeros avanços no início, a experiência degenerou. Para Mészáros, a URSS criou uma “sociedade pós-capitalista e não pós capital”. Os trabalhadores contestaram os meios de produção, mas um corpo separado dos trabalhadores controlava as decisões estratégicas da sociedade: como produzir, o que produzir, para quem produzir, reproduzindo o capital sob nova roupagem.

Acredito que a autogestão é necessária enquanto proposta totalizante. Para mim, o problema dos trabalhadores latino-americanos não está circunscrito ao trabalho em sentido stricto. As soluções fragmentadas, segmentadas, departamentalizadas, dispersas e difusas não servirão mais neste século XXI.

Procuro diferenciar as lutas pontuais que ocorrem aqui e acolá das lutas anti-capital, também chamadas pelo nome de lutas anti-sistêmicas. Darcy Ribeiro certa vez afirmou que o Brasil é um país em permanente guerra civil. A cada dia explodem lutas pontuais que nem sequer sabemos que estão acontecendo, muitas vezes silenciadas pela mídia do capital.

Acredito que as lutas anti-sistêmicas, ao contrário das lutas pontuais, contestam os pilares do capital e em alguma medida vivenciam, de forma embrionária, o que seria uma sociedade para além do capital.

Para dar alguns exemplos, as lutas das Mulheres Camponesas no Rio Grande do Sul contestam a hierarquia familiar na medida em que as mulheres “não querem lavar o cuecão dos maridos” e restabelecer o patriarcalismo no assentamento. No entanto, as pesquisas da professora Maria Orlanda Pinassi têm mostrado que as lutas das trabalhadoras passam pela questão “feminista” mas transcendem esta questão, passam pelo viés “ambiental” (alimentos envenenados, transgênicos, patentes, etc), mas transcendem esta questão, passam pelo tema classe, mas também o transcendem.

Em algumas fábricas recuperadas, houve uma superação da divisão do trabalho capitalista na medida em que o conhecimento, que ficava retido nas mãos de alguns, passou a ser socializado. A dependência em relação aos “engenheiros-capatazes” e ao tipo de trabalho – um trabalho complexo – realizado por eles foi modificada em alguma medida. Aqui também é importante lembrar que na Revolução dos Cravos (Portugal), os engenheiros ajudaram a superar a organização taylorista do trabalho em função de uma filosofia de vida. Se lutassem por salários, certamente não ficariam nas fábricas tomadas pelos trabalhadores.

Nos casos mais avançados, se esboça a superação do sistema salarial, através do princípio “de cada um segundo as suas possibilidades, a cada um segundo as suas necessidades”. Em outros casos, há uma maior aproximação “salarial” (retiradas) e a criação de fundos, seja para apoiar as lutas de outros trabalhadores, seja para permitir a alguns trabalhadores o acesso a universidade, seja para melhorar os rendimentos de fim de ano, etc.

Não deixa de ser importante destacar o caso de uma fábrica recuperada argentina onde eles criaram um fundo para melhorar o “salário” (retirada) dos trabalhadores que tinham maiores gastos com filhos. Isso nos lembra o princípio da “igualdade substantiva” desenvolvido por Mészáros a partir dos escritos de Marx e Babeuf. Para articular seu argumento, Mészáros recorreu ao seguinte parágrafo do socialista francês Babeuf. Vejamos:

A igualdade deve ser medida pela capacidade do trabalhador e pela carência do consumidor, não pela intensidade do trabalho nem pela quantidade de coisas consumidas. Um homem dotado de certo grau de força, quando levanta um peso de dez libras, trabalha tanto quanto outro homem com cinco vezes a sua força que levanta cinquenta libras. Aquele que, para saciar uma sede abrasadora, bebe um caneco de água, não desfruta mais do que seu camarada que, menos sedento, bebe apenas um copo. O objetivo do comunismo em questão é igualdade de trabalhos e prazeres, não de coisas consumíveis e tarefas dos trabalhadores (Babeuf, apud Mészáros, I. O desafio e o fardo do tempo histórico. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2007).

Acreditamos que este princípio também ajuda a orientar as lutas dos movimentos das trabalhadoras “feministas” mais avançados e de outros movimentos sociais que tentam implementar o princípio da igualdade substantiva. Sobre isso, lembro-me de um caso relatado pelos amigos do Coletivo Usina (um grupo de arquitetos e cientistas sociais que prestam assessoria aos movimentos sociais). Eles disseram que num mutirão chegou-se a pensar em dividir o trabalho “igualitariamente” entre todos os membros. Logo perceberam que tinham pessoas idosas, infartados, e trabalhadores/as com outros problemas que não poderiam exercer o “mesmo” trabalho pesado que outros puderam. Disso decorre o princípio de Babeuf: “um homem dotado de certo grau de força, quando levanta um peso de dez libras, trabalha tanto quanto outro homem com cinco vezes a sua força que levanta cinquenta libras”.

Ainda nos casos mais avançados de fábricas recuperadas, os trabalhadores cooperados fazem de tudo para não terem um estatuto diferenciado em relação aos terceirizados, ou seja, lutam para que todos sejam cooperados. É importante destacar este fato porque há uma parcela razoável de fábricas recuperadas que está contratando terceirizados, para nós um sintoma da degeneração das mesmas.

Parcelas dos alunos/monitores que estão nas Incubadoras de Cooperativas estão recusando o trabalho alienado e promovem conscientemente uma atividade teórico-prática anti-capital. Julio Mella, um marxista cubano, se perguntava: “A quem devemos servir: aos exploradores ou aos explorados?”

As lutas da Zanón e da Flaskô vivenciam o classismo, o anti-peleguismo nos sindicatos e as possibilidades de expansão do classismo na Argentina dilacerada e no Brasil do PAC-to de dominação. No caso da Zanón, eles têm como princípios inúmeros pilares anti-capital: rodízio e revogabilidade de cargos, unificação e internacionalização das lutas dos trabalhadores, as relações de gênero na fábrica, uma nova relação com os intelectuais e professores, a necessidade de desmercantilização da produção e superação da organização do trabalho taylorista-toyotista. Trata-se, enfim, de uma afronta ao trabalho alienado, nos limites estreitos do atual contexto de avanço da barbárie e com inúmeras contradições.

De uma forma mais tímida, pois aqui estamos num terreno mais complicado, alguns movimentos sociais contestam o sistema produtor de mercadorias e criam soluções para a desmercantilização.

As escolas do MST nos mostram que o povo quer uma educação para além do capital, que supere a miséria intelectual promovida pelas políticas educacionais de dominação brasileiras. As escolas itinerantes, os Centros de Agroecologia, a Escola Josué de Castro e a Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes nos desafiam diariamente a pensar pedagogias que insiram as escolas nas lutas dos trabalhadores, que preparem para o trabalho coletivo e não separem a concepção da execução, que teorizem e ajudem a implementar a produção de alimentos saudáveis e desmercantilizados, além da criação de hábitos autogestionários e da compreensão da realidade social dentro da sua totalidade (complexos temáticos do grupo de Moisey Pistrak).

As lutas da Flaskô – fábrica de cultura desmercantilizada, as lutas pelos babaçuais livres, as lutas de algumas fábricas recuperadas na América Latina pelo controle do processo de trabalho e instalação de assembleias no chão de fábrica e a contestação da propriedade dos meios de produção pelo MST também tocam em questões vitais para os movimentos sociais anti-capital do século XXI.

Sobre a última questão, Mauro Iasi afirmou recentemente que os capitalistas deveriam “devolver aos trabalhadores os meios de produção para que suas vidas sejam poupadas”. A “expropriação dos expropriadores” (Marx) ou “O retorno do caracol à sua concha” (título do meu livro lançado recentemente pela Editora Expressão Popular) é uma tarefa urgente, mas atenção: pode deixar a alienação do trabalho inabalada.

Para mim, há uma grande urgência da unificação das lutas anti-capital. Elas deverão combinar e articular suas necessidades mais imediatas com as necessidades de superação do modo de produção do capital, que transcenda completamente a órbita do capital. Para isso, a conjugação de tolerância entre os trabalhadores de diferentes ramos/setores e a crítica sincera, é vital. É isto que está sendo colocado em alguma medida pelas fábricas Zanón e Flaskô.

Julio Mella, um jovem marxista cubano que ajudou a lutar pela revolução universitária no seu país, certa vez disse: “Triunfar ou servir de trincheira aos demais. Até depois de nossa morte somos úteis. Nada de nossa obra se perde”. Mella, mesmo tendo sido brutalmente assassinado, foi e nos é “útil” neste século XXI. Ele está vivo. Nos ajuda a renovar a pesquisa e a atuação no campo do socialismo autogestionário, a retomar o debate clássico para fazer avançar a teoria e a prática revolucionária. Para mim o socialismo autogestionário é possível, necessário e urgente neste novo milênio.

Anton Pannekoek's life span coincided with what was almost the whole history of the modern labour movement; he experienced its rise as a movement of social protest, its trans formation into a movement of social reform, and its eclipse as an independent class movement in the contemporary world. But Pannekoek also experienced its revolutionary potentialities in the spontaneous upheavals which, from time to time, interrupted the even flow of social evolution. He entered the labour movement a Marxist and he died a Marxist, still convined that if there is a future, it will be a socialist future.

As have many prominent Dutch socialists, Pannekoek came from the middle class and his interest in socialism, as he once remarked, was due to a scientific bent strong enough to embrace both society and nature. To him, Marxism was the extension of science to social problems, and the humanisation of society. His great interest in social science was entirely compatible with his interest in natural science; he became not only one of the leading theoreticians of the radical labour movement but also an astronomer and mathematician of world renown.

This unifying attitude regarding natural and social science and philosophy determined the character of most of Panne koek's work. One of his earliest publications, Marxism and Darwinism, elucidates the relationship between the two theories; one of his last, Anthropogenesis, deals with the origin of man. "The scientific importance of Marxism as well as of Darwinism," he wrote, "consists in their following out the theory of evolution, the one upon the domain of the organic world, the other upon the domain of society." What was so important in Darwin's work was the recognition that "under certain circumstances some animal-kinds will necessarily develop into other animal-kinds." There was a "mechanism," a "natural law," which explained the evolut ionary process. That Darwin identified this "natural law" with a struggle for existence analogous to capitalist compet ition did not affect his theory, nor did capitalist competition become therewith a "natural law."

It was Marx who formulated the propelling force for social development. "Historical materialism" referred to society; and though the world consists of both nature and society-as expressed in the need for man to eat in order to live-the laws of social development are not "laws of nature". And, of course, all "laws," whether of nature or society, are not absolute. But they are reliable enough, as verified by exper ience, to be considered "absolute" for purposes of human practise. At any rate, they deny sheer arbitrariness and free choice and relate to observed rules and regularities which allow for expectations that form the rationale for human activities.

With Marx Pannekoek held that it is "the production of the material necessities of life which forms the main structure of society and determines the political relations and social struggles." It is by way of class struggle that decisive social changes have been brought about and these changes have led from a less to a more productive level of social production. Socialism, too, implies the further development of the social forces of production, which are now hampered by the prevailing class relations. And this can only be done by a labouring population able to base its expectations on the emergence of a classless society. In known history, stages of human and social existence are recognisable through changing tools and forms of production that alter the productivity of social labour. The "origin" of this process is lost in pre-history, but it is reasonable to assume that it is to be found in man's struggle for existence in a natural setting which enabled and forced him to develop a capacity for work and social organisation. Since Friedrich Engels wrote The Role of Labour in the Transformation of Ape into Man, a whole literature has been built around the question of tools and human evolution.

In Anthropogenesis, Pannekoek returned to problems raised in his early Marxism and Darwinism. Just as there are "mechanisms" that account for social development and natural evolution, so there must be a "mechanism" that expels the rise of man in the animal world. Society, mutual aid, and even the use of "tools" are characteristic of other species besides man; what is specific to man is language, reason, and the making of tools. It is the last, the making of tools, which in all probability accounts for the simultaneous development of language and thought. Because the use of tools interposes itself between an organism and the outer world, between stimulus and action, it compels action, and hence thinking, to make a detour, from sense impressions by way of the tool, to the object.

Speech would be impossible without human thinking. The human mind has the capacity for abstract thought, of thinking in concepts. While mental life for both man and animal starts from sensations, which combine into images, the human mind differentiates between perceptions and actions by way of thought, just as the tool intervenes between man and that which he seeks to attain. The break between perceptions and actions, and the retention of past perceptions, allows for consciousness and thought, which establishes the inter connections of perceptions and formulates theories applicable to practical actions. Natural science is a living proof of the close connection that exists between tools and thinking. Because the tool is a seperate and dead object which can be replaced when damaged, can be changed for a better one and differentiated into a multiplicity of forms for various uses, it assured man's extraodinary and rapid development; its use, in turn, assured the development of his brain. Labour, then, is the making and the "essence" of man, however much the worker may be despised and alienated. Work and the making of tools lifted man out of the animal world to the plane of social actions in order to cope with life's necessities.

The change from animal to man must have been a very long process. But the change from primitive to modern man is relatively short. What distinguishes primitive from modern man is not a different brain capacity but a difference in the uses of this capacity. Where social production stagnates, society stagnates; where the productivity of labour develops slowly, social change is also tardy. In modern society social production developed rapidly, creating new and destroying old class relationships. Not the natural struggle for existence but the social struggle for one or another concept of social organisation has determined social development.

From its very beginning, socialism has been both theory and practise. It is thus not restricted to those who are thought to benefit by the transformation from capitalism to socialism. Being concerned with the classless society and the ending of social strife, and by attracting intelligent men from all layers of society, socialism demonstrated its possible realisation in advance. Already as a young student of the natural sciences, specialising in astronomy, Pannekoek entered the Sociaal Demokratische Arbeiterspartij (S.D.A.P) and found himself, at once, in its left wing, on the side of Herman Gorter and Henriette Roland-Holst.

This party had been preceeded by the Sociaal-Demokrat ische Bond (S.D.P) which under the influence of Dometa Nieuwenhuis dissociated itself from the Second International. Anti-militarism was its foremost concern and Nieuwenhuis advocated the use of the General Strike for the prevention of war. He could not get a majority for his proposals and he detected, quite early, the trend towards class collaboration within the International. He opposed the exclusion of the Anarchists from the International and his experiences as a member of Parliament led him to reject parliamentarism as a weapon of social emancipation. The "anarchist-syndicalist" tendencies, represented by Nieuwenhuis, split the organisation, and the new socialist party, more akin to the" model" German Social-Democracy, came into being. However, the radical ideology of the old party entered the traditions of the Dutch socialist movement.

This traditional radicalism found expression in the new party's monthly, De Nieuwe Tijd, particularly in the contrib utions of Gorter and Pannekoek who fought the growing opportunism of the party leaders. In 1909 the left wing group around Gorter was expelled and established a new organisation, the Sozial-Demokratische Partij. Pannekoek had meanwhile gone to Germany. He lectured in the party schools of the German Sozial-Demokratische Partei, wrote for its theoretical publications and for various other papers, especially the Bremer Burgerzeitung. He associated himself with Gorter's new organisation which, years later, under the leadership of van Revesteyn, Wijnkoop, and Ceton became the Moscow oriented Communist Partij.

Though in the tradition of the "libertarian socialism" of Nieuwenhuis, Pannekoek's opposition to reformism and social-democratic "revisionism" was a Marxist opposition to the "official Marxism" in both its "orthodox" and "revisionist" forms. In its "orthodox" form, Marxism served as an ideology that covered up a non-Marxian theory and practise. But Pannekoek's defence of Marxism Was not that of the doctrinaire; more than anyone else he recognised that Marxism is not a dogma but a method of thinking about social issues in the actual process of social transformation. Not only were certain aspects of Marxist theory superceded by the development of Marxism itself, but some of its theses, brought forth under definite conditions, would lose their validity when conditions changed.

The First World War brought Pannekoek back to Holland. Prior to the war, together with Radek, Paul Frohlich and Johann Knief, he had been active in Bremen. The Bremen group of left-radicals, the International Communists, later amalgamated with the Spartakus Bund, thus laying the foun dation for the Communist Party of Germany. Anti-war groups in Germany found their leaders in Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Mehring; anti-war sentiment in Holland centred around Herman Gorter, Anton Pannekoek, and Henrietta Roland-Holst. In Zimmerwald and Kienthal these groups joined Lenin and his followers in condemning the imperialist war and advocating proletarian actions for either peace or revolution. The Russian Revolution of 1917, hailed as a possible beginning of a world-revolutionary movement, was supported by both Dutch and German radicals despite previous basic differences between them and the Leninists.

While still in prison, Rosa Luxemburg expressed misgivings about the authoritarian tendencies of bolshevism. She feared for the socialist content of the Russian Revolution unless it should find a rectifying support in a proletarian revolution in the West. Her position of critical support towards the bolshevik regime was shared by Gorter and Pannekoek. They worked nevertheless in the new Communist Party and towards the establishment of a new International. In their views, however, this International was to be new not only in name but also in outlook, and with regard to both the socialist goal and the way to reach it. The social-democratic concept of socialism is state socialism, to be won by way of democratic-parliamentary procedures. Universal suffrage and trade unionism were the instruments to accomplish a peaceful transition from capital ism to socialism. Lenin and the bolsheviks did not believe in a peaceful transformation and advocated the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. But their concept of socialism was still that of social-democracy, and instrumentalities to this end still included parliamentarism and trade unionism.

However, Czarism was not overthrown by democratic processes and trade union activities. The Organisation of the Revolution was that of spontaneously-evolving soviets, of workers' and soldiers' councils, which soon gave way, however, to the bolshevik dictatorship. Just as Lenin was ready to make use of the soviet movement, so was he ready to utilise any other form of activity, including parlia mentarism and trade unionism, to gain his end-dictatorial power for his party camouflaged as the "dictatorship of the proletariat," Having reached his goal in Russia, he tried to consolidate his regime witn the help of revolutionary move ments in Western Europe and, should this fail, by trying to gain sufficient influence in the Western labour movement to secure at least its indirect support. Because of the immediate needs of the bolshevik regime, as well as the political ideas of its leaders, the Communist International was not the begin ning of a new labour movement but merely an attempt to gain control of the old movement and use it to secure the bolshevik regime in Russia.

The social patriotism of the Western labour organisations and their policy of class collaboration during the war convin ced the revolutionary workers of Western Europe that these organisations could not be used for revolutionary purposes. They had become institutions bound to the capitalist system and had to be destroyed together with capitalism. However unavoidable and necessary for the early development of socialism and the struggle for immediate needs, parliament arism and trade unionism were no longer instruments of class struggle. When they did enter the basic social conflict, it was on the side of capital. For Pannekoek this was not a question of bad leadership, to be solved by a better one, but of changed social conditions wherein parliamentarism and trade unionism played no longer an emancipatory role. The capital ist crisis in the wake of the war posed the question of revolution and the old labour movement could not be turned into a revolutionary force since socialism has no room for trade unions or formal bourgeois democracy.

Wherever, during the war, workers fought for immediate demands they had to do so against the trade unions, as in the mass-strikes in Holland, Germany, Austria and Scotland. They organised their activities by way of shop committees, shop stewards or workers' councils, independently of existing trade unions. In every truly revolutionary situation, in Russia in 1905 and again in 1917, as well as in the Germany and Austria of 1918, workers' and soldiers' councils (soviets) arose spontaneously and attempted to organise economic and political life by extending the council system on a national scale. The rule of workers' councils is the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the councils are elected at the point of production, thus leaving unrepresented all social layers not associated with production. In itself, this may not lead to socialism, and, in fact, the German workers' councils voted themselves out of existence by supporting the National Assembly. Yet, proletarian self-determination requires a social organisation which leaves the decision-making power over production and distribution in the hands of the workers.

In this council movement, Pannekoek recognised the beginnings of a new revolutionary labour movement which, at the same time, was the beginning of a socialist reorganis ation of society. This movement could arise and maintain itself only in opposition to the old labour movement. Its principles attracted the most niilitant sector of the rebellious proletariat, much to the chagrin of Lenin who could not conceive of a movement not under the control of a party, or the state, and who was busy emasculating the soviets in Russia. But neither could he agree to an international communist movement not under the absolute control of his own party. At first by way of intrigue, and then openly, after 1920, the bolsheviks tried to get the communist movement away from its anti-parliamentary and anti-trade union course, under the pretext that it was necessary not to lose contact with the masses which still adhered to the old organisations. Lenin's "Left-Wing" Communism : An Infantile Disorder was directed first of all against Gorter and Pannekoek, the spokesmen of the communist council movement.

The Heidelberg Convention in 1919 split the German Communist Party into a Leninist minority and a majority adhering to the the principles of anti-parliamentarism and anti-trade unionism on which the party had originally been based. But there was now a new dividing question, namely, that of party or class dictatorship. The non-Leninist communists adopted the name, Communist Workers Party of Germany (K.A.P.D), and a similar organisation was later founded in Holland. Party communists opposed council communists and Pannekoek sided with the latter. The council communists attended the Second Congress of the Third International in the capacity of sympathisers. The conditions of admission to the International-complete subordination of the various national organisations to the will of the Russian Party-divorced the new council move ment from the Communist International altogether.

The activities of the Communist International against the "ultra left" were the first direct Russian interventions in the life of communist organisations in other countries. The patt ern of control never changed and subordinated, eventually, the whole world communist movement to the specific needs of Russia and the bolshevik state. Although the Russian dominated movement, as Pannekoek and Gorter had predicted, never "captured" the Western trade unions, nor dominated the old socialist organisations by divorcing their followers from their leaders, they did destroy the independence and radical character of the emerging new communist labour movement. With the enormous prestige of a successful political revolution on their side, and with the failure of the German revolution, they could not fail to win a large majori ty in the communist movement to the principles of Leninism. The ideas and the movement of council communism declined steadily and practically disappeared altogether in the fascist reign of terror and the Second World War.

While Lenin's fight against the "ultra left" was the first indication of the "counter revolutionary" tendencies of bolshevism, Pannekoek's and Gorter's struggle against the Leninist corruption of the new labour movement was the beginning of anti-bolshevism from a proletarian point of view. And this, of course, is the only consistent anti-bolshevism there is. Bourgeois "anti-bolshevism" is the current ideology of imperialist capital competition, which waxes and wanes according to changing national power relations. The Weimar Republic, for instance, fought bolshevism on the one hand and on the other made secret deals with the Red Army and open business deals with bolshevism in order to bolster its own political and economic position within the world competitive process. There was the Hitler-Stalin pact and the invasion of Russia. The Western allies of yesterday are the cold-war enemies of today, to mention only the most obvi ous of "inconsistencies" which, in fact, are the "politics" of capitalism, determined as they are, by nothing but the profit and power principles.

Anti-bolshevism must presuppose anti-capitalism since bolshevik state capitalism is merely another type of capital ism. This was not as obvious, of course, in 1920 as it is now. It required experience with Russian bolshevism to learn how socialism cannot be realised. The transfer of control of the means of production from private owners to the state and the centralistic and antagonistic determination of production and distribution still leaves intact capital labour relations as a relation between exploiters and exploited, rulers and ruled. In its development, it merely leads to a more modern form of capitalism where capital is directly-and not indirectly, as it was previously-the collective property of a politically main tained ruling class. It is in this direction that all capitalist systems move, thus reducing capitalist "anti-bolshevism" to a mere imperialist struggle for world control

In retrospect it is easy to see that the differences between Pannekosk and Lenin could not be resolved by way of argument. In 1920, however, it was still possible to hope that the Western working class would take an independent course not towards a modified capitalism but towards its abolition. Answering Lenin's "Left-wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, Gorter still tried to convince the bolsheviks of the " errors" of their ways, by pointing to the differences in socio economic conditions between Russia and the West, and to the fact that the "tactics" which brought bolshevism to power in Russia could not possibly apply to a proletarian revolution in the West. The further development of bolshevism revealed, that the "bourgeois" elements in Leninism were due not to a "faulty theory," but had their source in the character of the Russian Revolution itself, which had been conceived and was carried out as a state capitalist revolution sustained by a pseudo-Marxian ideology.

In numerous articles in anti-bolshevik communist journals, and until the end of his life, Pannekoek elucidated upon the character of bolshevism and the Russian Revolution. Just as he did in his earlier criticism of Social Democracy, so here, too, he did not accuse the bolsheviks of a "betrayal" of working-class principles. He pointed out that the Russian Revolution, though an important episode in the development of the working-class movement, aspired only to a system of production which could be Called state socialism, or state capitalism, which are one and the same thing. It did not betray its own goal any more than trade unions "betray" trade unionism. Just as there cannot be any other type of trade unionism than the existing one, so one cannot expect state capitalism to be something other than itself.

The Russian Revolution, however, had been fought under the banner of Marxism, and the bolshevik state is almost generally considered a Marxist regime. Marxism, and soon Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism, remained the ideology of Russian state capitalism. To show what the "Marxism" of Leninism really implied, Pannekoek undertook a critical examination of its philosophical basis, published under the title Lenin as Philosopher, in 1938.

Lenin's philosophical ideas appeared in his work Materialism and Empiriocriticism, in Russian in 1908 and in German and English translations in 1927. Around 1904 certain Russian socialists, Bogdanov in particular, had taken an interest in modem Western natural philosophy, especially in the ideas of Ernst Mach, and tried to combine these with Marxism. They gained some influence within the Russian socialist party and Lenin set out to destroy this influence by attacking its apparent philosophical source.

Though not in a philosophical sense, Marx had called his system of thought materialism. It referred to the material base of all social existence and change and grew out of his rejection of both the philosophical materialism of Feuerbach and the philosophical idealism of Hegel. For bourgeois materialism, nature was objectively given reality and man was determined by natural laws. This direct confrontation of individual man and external nature, and the inability to see society and social labour as an indivisible aspect of the whole of reality, distinguished middle-class materialism from Historical Materialism.

Early bourgeois materialism, or natural philosophy, had held that through sense experience and the intellectual activity derived therefrom, it would be possible to gain absolute, valid knowledge of physical reality-thought to be made up of matter. In an attempt to carry the materialist representation of the objective world to the process of know ledge itself, Mach and the positivists denied the objective reality of matter, since physical concepts must be construct ed from sense experience and thus retain their subjectivity. This disturbed Lenin greatly, because for him, knowledge was only what reflects objective truth, truth, that is, about matter, In Mach's influence in socialist circles, he saw a corruption of Marxian materialism. The subjective element in Mach's theory of knowledge became, in Lenin's mind, an idealist aberration and a deliberate attempt to revive religious obscurantism.

It was true, of course, that the critical progress of science found idealistic interpreters who would give comfort to the religionists. Some Marxists began to defend the materialism of the once revolutionary bourgeoisie against the new idealism-and the new science as weu-of the established capitalist class. To Lenin this seemed particularly important as the Russian revolutionary movement, still on the verge of the bourgeois revolution, waged its ideological struggle to a large extent with the scientific and philosophical arguments of the early Western bourgeoisie.

By confronting Lenin's attack on "Empiriocriticism" with its real scientific content, Pannekoek not only revealed Lenin's biased and distorted exposition of the ideas of Mach and Avenarius, but also his inability to criticise their work from a Marxian point of view. Lenin attacked Mach not from the point of view of historical materialism, but from that of an earlier and scientifically less developed bourgeois materialism. In this use of middle-class materialism in defence of "Marxism" Pannekoek saw an additional indication of the half-bourgeois, half-proletarian character of bolshevism and of the Russian Revolution itself. It went together with the state capitalist concept of "socialism", with the authoritarian attitudes towards spontaneity and Organisation, with the out-dated and unrealisable principle of national self-determination, and with Lenin's conviction that only the middle-class intelligentsia is able to develop a revolutionary consciousness and is thus destined to lead the masses. The combination of bourgeois materialism and revolutionary Marxism which characterised Lenin's philosophy reappeared with the victorious bolshevism as the combination of neo-capitalist practice and socialist ideology.

However the Russian Revolution was a progressive event of enormous significance comparable to the French Revolution. It also revealed that a capitalist system of production is not restricted to the private property relations which dominated its laissez-faire period. With the subsiding feeble wave of revolutionary activities in the wake of the First World War, capitalism re-established itself, despite the prevailing crisis conditions, by way of increasing state interventions in its economy. In the weaker capitalist nations this took the form of fascism and led to the intensification of imperialist policies which, finally, led to the Second World War. Even more than the First, the Second World War showed clearly that the existing labour movement was no longer a class movement but part and parcel of contemporary capitalism.

In Occupied Holland, during the Second World War, Pannekoek began his work on Workers' Councils, which he completed in 1947. It was a summing-up of his life experience with the theory and practise of the international labour movement and the development and transformation of capitalism in various nations and as a whole. This history of capitalism, and of the struggle against capitalism, ends with the triumph of a revived, though changed, capitalism after the Second World War, and with the utter subjugation of working-class interests to the competitive needs of the two rival capitalist systems preparing for a new world war. While in the West, the still existing labour organisations aspire, at best, to no more than the replacement of monopoly by state-capitalism, the so-called communist world movement hopes for a world revolution after the model of the Russian Revolution. In either case, socialism is confounded with public ownership where the state is master of production and workers are still subjected to a ruling class.

The collapse of the capitalism of old was also the collapse of the old labour movement. What this movement considered to be socialism turns out to be a harsher form of capitalism. But unlike the the ruling class, which adapts itself quickly to changed conditions, the working class, by still adhering to traditional ideas and activities, finds itself in a powerless and apparently hopeless situation. And as economic changes only gradually change ideas, it may still take considerable time before a new labour movement-fitted to the new conditions-will arise. For labour's task is still the same, that is, the abolition of the capitalist mode of production and the realisation of socialism. And this can be brought about only when the workers organise themselves and society in such a way as to assure a planned social production and distribution determined by the producers themselves. When such a labour movement arises, it will recognise its origins in the ideas of council communism and in those of one of its most consistent proponents-Anton Pannekoek.

If you happen to be looking for your morning coffee near Golden Gate Park and the bright red storefront of the Arizmendi Bakery attracts your attention, congratulations. You have found what the readers of The San Francisco Bay Guardian, a local alt-weekly, deem the city’s best bakery. But it has another, less obvious, distinction. Of the $3.50 you hand over for a latte (plus $2.75 for the signature sourdough croissant), not one penny ends up in the hands of a faraway investor. Nothing goes to anyone who might be tempted to sell out to a larger bakery chain or shutter the business if its quarterly sales lag.

Instead, your money will go more or less directly to its 20-odd bakers, who each make $24 an hour — more than double the national median wage for bakers. On top of that, they get health insurance, paid vacation and a share of the profits. “It’s not luxury, but I can sort of afford living in San Francisco,” says Edhi Rotandi, a baker at Arizmendi. He works four days a week and spends the other days with his 2-year-old son.

Arizmendi and its five sister bakeries in the Bay Area are worker-owned cooperatives, an age-old business model that has lately attracted renewed interest as a possible antidote to some of our most persistent economic ills. Most co-ops in the U.S. are smaller than Arizmendi, with around a dozen employees, but the largest, Cooperative Home Care Associates in the Bronx, has about 2,000. That’s hardly the organizational structure’s upper limit. In fact, Arizmendi was named for a Spanish priest and labor organizer in Basque country, José María Arizmendiarrieta. He founded what eventually became the Mondragon Corporation, now one of the region’s biggest employers, with more than 60,000 members and 14 billion euro in revenue. And it’s still a co-op.

In a worker co-op, the workers own the business and decide what to do with the profits (as opposed to consumer co-ops, which are typically stores owned by members who shop at a discount). Historically, worker co-ops have held the most appeal when things seem most perilous for laborers. The present is no exception. And yet, despite their ability to empower workers, co-ops remain largely relegated to boutique status in the United States.

Returns to investors are ever-increasing compared with the returns to labor. For most economists, there’s little question that the former is squeezing the latter.

The blockbuster economics book of the season, Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” argues that the great equalizing decades following World War II, which brought on the rise of the middle class in the United States, were but a historical anomaly. Armed with centuries of data, Piketty says the rich are going to continue to gobble up a greater share of income, and our current system will do nothing to reverse that trend.

The oft-proposed remedy for this state of affairs is redistribution — namely, taxing the rich to benefit the poor. Piketty, in fact, proposes a global tax, one that can’t be avoided by private jet. Others want to raise the minimum wage. In contrast to those Band-Aids, worker co-ops require no politically unpalatable dictates. And by placing workers’ needs ahead of profits, they address the root cause of economic disparity. “If you don’t want inequality,” says Richard Wolff, the author of “Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism,” “don’t distribute income unequally in the first place.”

Of course, a workplace doesn’t have to be managed by committee in order to channel more of the capital share to labor. Workers can just be given stock. Thousands of companies, including blue-chip firms like Procter & Gamble, already use stock as part of compensation, with the employee share of the company ranging from the single digits to 100 percent. But even this can be just another management strategy to harness the increased productivity that, studies have shown, accompany employee ownership and profit-sharing.

Support for full-fledged co-ops has inched into the mainstream as communities have grown weary of waiting for private investors to create good jobs — or sick of watching them take jobs away. In Cleveland in 2009, hospitals and a university gave seed money to a new group of businesses, the Evergreen Cooperatives, and now contract with them for laundry, energy retrofits and fresh produce. Last month, a government commission in Wales announced that “conventional approaches to economic development” were insufficient; it needed cooperatives. That same month, the New York City Council held a hearing called “Worker Cooperatives — Is This a Model That Can Lift Families Out of Poverty?”

It is a good question. Research findings about employee-owned businesses are rarely negative — they are either just as good as regular businesses, or they are more productive, less susceptible to failure, more attentive to quality and less likely to lay off workers in a downturn (though they may be slower to hire when times are good). Take, for example, the employee-owned British retailer John Lewis, which has recently threatened to outpace its publicly traded corporate rival, Marks & Spencer.

One perennial criticism of worker co-ops is that they can’t afford the high-flying talent that would help them innovate. But not every company needs to innovate. Many just need to mop floors, sling burgers or clean linens. And it is usually those companies whose workers struggle most. “We’re not trying to create an Amazon that pays Jeff Bezos to do what he does,” says Melissa Hoover, the executive director of the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives. “We’re trying to remove Jeff Bezos from the equation and have everyone else make a little more money.”

Another persistent critique is that workers don’t have enough experience to make good management decisions. Some co-ops solve this problem just as other businesses do, by buying expertise they don’t already have. In 2008, the owners of a Chicago window factory decided to close it with little notice, and the workers staged a six-day sit-in that made them celebrities overnight. Another owner took over but closed the factory again. The workers bought the equipment and moved it to a new factory, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars with sweat equity. The new company, called New Era Windows, opened last year. Though the workers are still paying themselves minimum wage, they elected to hire a high-priced, experienced salesman to drum up business.

New Era was lucky to find financing, borrowing $600,000 from a nonprofit called the Working World, which started lending to co-ops in Latin America and has branched out to the U.S. The biggest challenge co-ops face is lack of capital, which is why they are often labor-intensive businesses with low start-up costs. Banks can be hesitant to lend to co-ops, perhaps because they aren’t familiar with the model. Meanwhile, credit unions — another form of cooperative — face stringent regulations on business lending.

The founder of the Working World, Brendan Martin, would like not only to fund cooperatives, but to reorder the priorities of investors altogether. Martin says that both times the window factory was shuttered, it was not for lack of business. It just didn’t meet the needs of the owners. The Working World, instead of seeking quick returns, accepts no loan repayment until the borrower is on its feet. “We create the real economy, which is slower but it has less risk,” Martin told me recently, between meetings with the New Era workers in Chicago. Then he proposed something truly radical: “Imagine if Wall Street investors were only able to make money by creating incredibly successful American businesses?” Maybe then we wouldn’t need co-ops.