Azzellini, Dario (2016): “The Communal State (Venezuela): Communal Councils and Workplace Democracy”. In: DuRand, Cliff (Editor): Moving Beyond Capitalism. New York: Routledge.

The book speaks to the widespread quest for concrete alternative ways forward 'beyond capitalism' in the face of the prevailing corporatocracy and a capitalist system in crisis. It examines a number of institutions and practices now being built in the nooks and crannies of present societies and that point beyond capitalism toward a more equal, participatory, and democratic society – institutions such as cooperatives, public banks, the commons, economic democracy. This seminal collection of critical studies draws on academic and activist voices from the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and Argentina, and from a variety of theoretical-political perspectives – Marxism, anarchism, feminism, and Zapatismo.

Routledge 2016 Critical Development Studies

Table of Contents

Forward by Richard D. Wolff

Part I: Economic Democracy / The Social Economy

1. Beyond Capitalism to Sustainability: The Public Bank Solution
Ellen Brown

2. Building a Grassroots Democratic Economy: The Rising Tide of Local Self-Reliance, Workplace Democracy, and Social Justice
Len Krimerman

3. Worker’s Economy in Argentina: Self Management, Cooperatives and Recovered Enterprises in a Time of Global Crisis
Andre Ruggeri

4. Cooperative Cuba
Cliff DuRand

Part II: The Commons

5. Commoning Together
Cliff DuRand

6. Building the Commons as an Antidote to the Predatory Market Economy
Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese

7. Autogestión: Prefiguring a New Cooperativism and the ‘Labor Commons’
Marcelo Vieta

8. Divisions in the Commons: Ecuador’s FLOK Society and the Zapatistas’ Escuelita
George Caffentzis

Part III: Alternatives to a System in Crisis

9. Economic Crises, Environmental Crises: Moving beyond Capitalism
David Schweickart

10. The Left and a Green New Deal
Jerry Harris

11. Alternatives to Development in Latin America
Rebecca Hollender

Part IV: Bringing Politics Back In

12. The Limits of Localism
Gregory Diamant

13. Getting Past Capitalism: History, Vision, Hope
Cynthia Kaufman

14. Toward A Stronger, More Influential Political Left: An Appeal for Critical Self-Reflection
Michael McCabe

Part V: Socialism in the 21st Century

15. Building a 21st Century Socialism
Cliff DuRand

16. Out of the Abyss, the New World
Gustavo Esteva

17. The Communal State (Venezuela): Communal Councils and Workplace Democracy
Dario Azzellini

18. The Necessary Renovation of Socialist Hegemony in Cuba: Contradictions and Challenges
Olga Fernández Ríos

19. Cuba’s Cooperatives: Their Contribution to Cuba’s New Socialism
Camila Piñeiro Harnecker

20. The Dialectic of Constituent Power and Constituted Power
Cliff DuRand