The two theorists, following different trajectories, reached a common conclusion: that the real content of socialism is the complete control of labour by the workers themselves.
Human alienation will disappear through the withering away of commodity production and social division of labour, through the disappearance of private ownership of the means of production.
These theses written in the context of the 1970s 'autonomia operaia' in Italy intend to initiate a debate on workers’ control of the factories as a 'democratic and peaceful' road to socialism.
Britain in the 1970s was a period of crisis and polarisation. Workplace closure led to resistance by workers, which defined the relations between capital and labour for subsequent decades.