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Ours to Master and to Own
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05 July 2011

From the dawning of the industrial epoch, wage earners have organized themselves into unions,
fought bitter strikes, and gone so far as to challenge the very premises of the system by creating
institutions of democratic self-management aimed at controlling production without bosses. With
specific examples drawn from every corner of the globe and every period of modern history, this
pathbreaking volume comprehensively traces this often underappreciated historical tradition.
Ripe with lessons drawn from historical and contemporary struggles for workers’ control, Ours to
Master and to Own is essential reading for those struggling to create a new world from the ashes
of the old.
Immanuel Ness is professor of political science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and edits WorkingUSA.
Dario Azzellini is a writer, documentary director, and political scientist at Johannes Kepler University in Linz.
“Ours to Master and to Own is the most substantive and comprehensive work on workers’ control and self-management today. I strongly recommend this work, which provides examples drawn from throughout the world of workers struggling for justice and power.”
—Gary Younge, columnist for the Guardian and the Nation
“The seemingly logical and just idea that workers themselves should make the decisions regarding and reap the benefits of their labor has always been a fraught concept with the potential to topple or reform whole societies… This ambitious, copiously researched, and clearly written text provides a sweeping diversity of examples, analyzed with cool detachment from the specific politics but with underlying passion for the larger concept.”
—Kari Lydersen, author of Revolt on Goose Island
“With the global capitalist order entering a period of crisis, but also with the dramatic increase in worker’s struggles especially in the global South, this collection is extremely opportune. Workers will seek greater control over market forces and workers’ councils are bound to reemerge. A must-read for labor analysts and activists alike.”
—Ronaldo Munck, Dublin City University and University of Liverpool
“Ness and Azzellini have made a major contribution in producing this insightful and exciting collection of essays on the question of workers’ control… it is timely and offers great strategic insight.”
—Bill Fletcher, Jr., coauthor of Solidarity Divided
“Excellent! A very complete, serious, and inspiring account of the movements for workers’ control and their difficulties. There is no doubt that it should become a standard point of reference for future discussions and actions.”
—John Holloway, author of Crack Capitalism
Ours to Master and to Own is the most substantive and comprehensive work on workers’ control and self-management today. I strongly recommend this work, which provides examples drawn from throughout the world of workers struggling for justice and power.”
Gary Younge, columnist for the Guardian and the Nation
The seemingly logical and just idea that workers themselves should make the decisions regarding and reap the benefits of their labor has always been a fraught concept with the potential to topple or reform whole societies This ambitious, copiously researched, and clearly written text provides a sweeping diversity of examples, analyzed with cool detachment from the specific politics but with underlying passion for the larger concept.”
Kari Lydersen, author of Revolt on Goose Island
With the global capitalist order entering a period of crisis, but also with the dramatic increase in worker’s struggles especially in the global South, this collection is extremely opportune. Workers will seek greater control over market forces and workers’ councils are bound to reemerge. A must-read for labor analysts and activists alike.”
Ronaldo Munck, Dublin City University and University of Liverpool
Ness and Azzellini have made a major contribution in producing this insightful and exciting collection of essays on the question of workers’ control it is timely and offers great strategic insight.”
Bill Fletcher, Jr., coauthor of Solidarity Divided
Excellent! A very complete, serious, and inspiring account of the movements for workers’ control and their difficulties. There is no doubt that it should become a standard point of reference for future discussions and actions.”
John Holloway, author of Crack Capitalism
Immanuel Ness: Immanuel Ness is professor of political science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the CUNY Graduate Center. His research and writing focuses on social and revolutionary movements, labor militancy, and migrant worker resistance to oppression. Ness just completed Guest Workers, Corporate Despotism and Resistance,(forthcoming University of Illinois Press) a book that examines the rise of guest workers from the global South in the US and labor opposition to employer abuses. He is also working on a number of projects on labor struggles, global migration, and the rise of syndicalism He is author of an anthology of contemporary labor: Real World Labor, with Amy Offner and Chris Sturr (Dollars & Sense). His book, titled Immigrants, Unions, and the U.S. Labor Market, published in the spring of 2005 by Temple University Press is now in its 3rd printing. Ness has been invited to speak throughout the world (Asia, Europe, North America, South America) and at numerous academic conferences, including the American Political Science Association, and frequently invited to speak on low-wage labor, immigrants, and workers centers at conferences and universities the U.S. and abroad. He is editor of the peer-review quarterly journal, Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society, a peer review quarterly journal that examines labor and work from a socialist perspective. Ness is General Editor of the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration (forthcoming, Blackwell 2012). Ness is founder of the Lower East Side Community Labor Organization, an autonomous activist organization in New York City. In 2005, his 4-volume work: Encyclopedia of American Social Movements received Outstanding Reference Source, Reference and User Services Association, American Library Association. The work is selected as best reference for 2005 from Library Journal. He is editor of International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell 2009) and co-editor with Aaron Brenner and Benjamin Day of Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History (Sharpe 2009). He received awards and acclaim for his other reference works, including Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America.
- PRELIMINARY TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Part I: Workers Councils: Historical Overview and Theoretical Debate
Workers Control and Revolution, Victor Wallis
Workers Councils in Europe–a Century of Experience, Donny Gluckstein
The Red Mole: Workers’ Councils as a Means of Revolutionary Transformation, Sheila Cohen
Workers Councils and Control: Contemporary Praxis in Latin America, Alberto Bonnet - Part II: Workers Councils and Self-administration in Revolution: Early 20th Century
Germany: From Unionism to Workers´ Councils: Revolutionary Shop Stewards 1914-1918, Ralf Hoffrogge
Bolshevik Revolution: Factory Councils and Workers' Control, Mark-David Mandel
Italy: Il Biennio Rosso Factory Councils, 1919-1920, Pietro Dipaola
Workers Control and Councils in the Spanish Revolution 1936-1939, Andrew Durgan - Part III: Workers Control under State Socialism
Yugoslavia Workers Councils—Successes and Failures, Goran Markovic
Hungary: Workers Councils of 1956, Tamas Krausz
Poland, Workers Councils 1950s/1980s, Zbigniew Marcin - Part IV: Anticolonial struggle, Democratic Revolution and Workers Control
Workers Control of Railways in Colonial Indonesia, 1945-1946, Jafar Suryomenggolo
Algeria’s autogestion: From Self-management to State Bureaucracy, Sam Southgate
Argentina, The Limits of Worker Control within the State: Mendoza- 1973, Gabriela Scodeller
Portugal: Workers Councils 1974-75, Peter Robinson
India: Post-Independence Worker Control and Self-Management, Arup Kumar Sen - Part V: Workers Control against Capitalist Restructuring in the 20th Century
US: Factory Occupations: Looking Retrospectively to the Future, Immanuel Ness
Italian ‘Hot Autumn:’ Factory Councils and Autonomous Workers Assemblies, 1970s, Patrick Cuninghame
Canada: Women and the British Columbia Workers Occupations, 1980s, Elaine Bernard
Britain/Wales ‘Tower Colliery and Workers Control in Action: A Case Study',Russell Smith; Len Arthur; Molly Scott Cato and Tom Keenoy - Part VI: Workers Control: Contemporary Era
Argentinean Expropriated Factories: Trajectories of Worker Control under the Economic Crisis, Marina Kabat
Venezuela: Reorganizing Work and Production, Dario Azzellini
Brazilian Contemporary Recovered Factories, Mauricio Sardá de Faria & Henrique T. Novaes
Introduction
Dario Azzellini & Immanuel Ness