The mundane application of Council Democracy in the workspace is conducted by personnel of State and Social Enterprises within the VCS Economy. The Work-Standard is capable of facilitating three main types of economic governance styles whose applications are dependent on the Social Rank and whether the Enterprise in question is a State Enterprise or a Social Enterprise. These three types of applying Council Democracy in the workspace are known as “Codetermination,” “Workers’ Self-Management,” and “Joint-Ownership.” 

State Enterprises and large Social Enterprises tend to employ Codetermination while integrating the Council Democratic process into their production processes. When an Enterprise’s Delegate is not doing anything in any of the Councils, they are speaking on behalf of the rank-and-file Civil Servants at the uppermost chain of command. The Delegate interacts with the Administrator, the Economic Planner and Accountants, and the Inspector, keeping all of them informed on the latest happenings of the Civil Servants. They ensure that their Enterprise is at peak performance vis-à-vis the Quality of Arbeit and are responsible for the issuances of NSFIs to the Civil Servants and Investors.

Workers’ Self-Management resembles a hands-off approach compared to the likes of Codetermination and the third type, Joint-Ownership. Some Social Enterprises are capable of being operated by giving greater freedom of action and autonomy to the Civil Servants responsible for its production processes and transactional sales. For that to occur, the Delegate and the Administrator have to be the same person in charge of the Enterprise and all of its personnel. One possible to initiate Workers’ Self-Management is for the Administrator to be respected and admired by their Civil Servant subordinates to be considered as their Delegate.

While Enterprises choose their own Delegates to speak on their behalf at the Councils, there is greater flexibility outside the Councils to apply Council Democracy. Joint-Ownership was devised to let Enterprises affiliated with Guilds, Subsidiaries, Consortiums and Industrial Concerns to have their Delegates choose someone among themselves to be the intermediate between the Civil Servants and the rest of their respective Enterprises. On the other hand, Enterprises that perform poorly or are too small to have the hierarchies of larger ones could allow themselves to be brought under the control of larger and more successful Enterprises. This can coincide with the personnel of the affected Enterprise being replaced by people coming in from the other Enterprise initiating the takeover. The personnel that have found themselves removed from the affected Enterprises are allowed to join another Enterprise or be entitled to receive mandatory Work-Conscription from the Council State. Unemployment and Underemployment do not exist under the Work-Standard. 

Unfortunately, the concepts of Codetermination, Joint-Ownership, and Workers’ Self-Management are beyond the purview of the SMP Compendium. They deserve their own Treatise, allowing them to be discussed in sufficient detail within the context of the Student Economy and its interactions with Council Democracy. The purpose of this Entry was to introduce these three concepts and eventually lay the groundwork for their proper discussions in another Treatise.  

Categories: Compendium

Tags: Economics, Finance, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Socialist Finance, Third Place, Work-Standard