Citizens of workplace democracies

Abstract

This article draws from research with social services agencies trying to run collectively and collaboratively. It argues that applying the experience of such teams has been hindered by their characterisation in the 1970s as prefigurative future socialist forms. As a result, they have often been judged, less by their achievements, than against an idealised model of direct democracy.

Their development in the 80s suggests a different picture. Successful Collective working cannot solve, but can balance the tensions inherent in workplace democracy and in the process, offer valuable experience of the pratical problems in defining and building citizenship in other forums.