Self-management and workers' control: a critical historical analysis

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the historical relationship of recovered factories with the first self-management initiatives of workers, since the beginning of industrial capitalism. We point out the historical evolution of the first experiences of workers' control, from those that took place within revolutionary movements, such as the Russian revolution and the Spanish civil war, to the contemporary recovered factories, highlighting their contradictions and achievements. The genuine nature of these experiences is driven by the reaction to the conditions of subordination imposed on wage labor by the logic of capital, which have worsened over the centuries. The struggle for workers' autonomy without being able to challenge the capital is one of the main obstacles for such experiences to contribute to the emancipation of work. We conclude that the most recent self-management experiences reproduce old theoretical, political and organizational problems. Without a process of critical and self-critical reorientation of the fight against capital, they do not constitute new ways to overcome it.