pensivemoose 's review for:

Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism by Richard D. Wolff

5.0

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Having come back to read this book after learning much more about the financial crash of 2008, I found I was able to read and appreciate it much more easily. The book is not exhaustive, so one may be interested in reading more comprehensive critiques of capitalism elsewhere. However, Wolff uses the major financial crises of capitalism to delineate his issues with it quite clearly and he does well to point out that the minimal attempts made by FDR to "fix" capitalism were subsequently rolled back in the decades afterwards. Not to mention the argument that capitalism is inherently exploitative because the output of workers is placed entirely in the control of other parties (shareholders, boards of directors, etc.); a system that is clearly, in my opinion, antithetical to democratic ideals. As an alternative, Wolff spends the second half of the book explaining worker self-directed enterprises (WSDEs). A refreshing alternative wherein workers are directly in control of how the surpluses produced by their own labor are distributed. I found his description of WSDEs to be very utopian at times. The truth is, I imagine our society will have to endure quite a few more decades of growing pains before we can begin to imagine his vision becoming a reality. However, we can be sure that at one point in history there was a time when a transition from feudalism to capitalism was considered impossible. Wolff, seemingly understanding how I feel, left me with a quote in the conclusion that I will not soon forget, "[A cure for capitalism] does not mean some state of completion, some end to problems, contradictions, and further change. On the contrary, it means moving from one set of problems that have become increasingly unbearable to a new and different set that we prefer."