👉The table of contents so far is here.
Chapter 12: Planned Economy and Corporate Management
12.3. Autonomous labor management
As we saw, worker self-management or co-determination is the basis of corporate management under a planned economy. This means that labor management is carried out autonomously by the workers themselves.
Labor management in corporate activities under a market economy is essentially commanding and controlling, since it is based on the separation of labor and management and is a management policy allowing management to use workers as human resources to generate profits for the company.
To counter this, democratic countries allow workers to form labor unions. However, labor unions are merely external labor organizations and cannot directly participate in internal company decision-making. Furthermore, there are various legal and practical restrictions on union activities, limiting their ability to counter corporate labor management.
In contrast, self-management and co-determination under a planned economy are systems in which workers directly participate in corporate management through internal labor organizations, making labor management essentially autonomous. On the other hand, since the need for external organizations such as labor unions is diminishing, there is no problem with abolishing the labor union system. If "abolishing labor unions" is not the right term, it can also be understood as meaning that in communist companies, the capitalist labor union system is gradually dissolved in the form of a general employees' meeting, an internal body that acts as the company's overall supervisory body.
In regards to individual labor disputes that may still arise despite this type of autonomous labor management, one possibility is to deal with them individually, such as by establishing an internal labor arbitration committee composed of external experts.
Incidentally, labor management in a broad sense also extends to personnel management, including junior executive-level workers, but the treatment of such executive-level personnel management requires separate consideration. In principle, personnel matters are included within the scope of autonomous labor management, and at least executive personnel matters are considered to be subject to self-management or co-determination.
However, in the case of a large-scale production business organization and a production business corporation, taking into consideration the efficiency of personnel management, it may be permissible to delegate the authority of executive personnel matters below a certain level to the responsible management body in the articles of incorporation.
👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism
