👉The table of contents so far is here.
Chapter 11: Planned Economy and Corporate Forms
11.5. Corporate internal structure -part 3-
The corporate forms we have looked at in the previous article were all examples of production organizations for general production activities. This time, we will overview special corporate structures in other fields.
First, primary industries such as agriculture and fisheries, which operate under a planned economy and based on production plan Divison B, are managed by socially owned production enterprises (Agricultural Production Organization and Fishery Production Organization). However, their internal structure differs from that of ordinary production organizations.
Because primary industries are highly regional, it makes sense to adopt a decentralized, regionally-based structure. The level of this structure is a matter of policy discretion, but to achieve a higher degree of intensiveness, a fairly extensive regional subsidiary structure would likely be required.
While each of these local branches of production organizations has its own production organization structure, the central headquarters also has a management committee and a workers' representative committee composed of members elected from each branch.
Meanwhile, Consumer Business Cooperatives are responsible for consumer activities based on local consumption plans. Unlike self-managed production cooperatives, these are a type of consumer cooperative organization in which all residents of each region are automatically enrolled.
As a result, their operations are based on a members' general meeting made up of member representatives, with joint decisions made by a board of directors responsible for management and a workers' representative committee made up of union employee representatives.
Another issue is the nature of public utility organizations involved in public services such as welfare, medical care, and education. Under capitalism, such public utility organizations are often given special legal personality as non-profit entities, but in a communist economy, since profit-making businesses disappear altogether, the distinction between profit and non-profit becomes unclear.
Therefore, it may be possible to consider that such public utility organizations could also be self-managed production cooperatives, but because they are different from simple production activities, they should be organized as special public utility associations/corporations, and in order to ensure the public interest in particular, in addition to a board of directors that is responsible for day-to-day operations, a permanent board of supervisors should be established as a supervisory and advisory body made up of external experts and citizens.
