Enterprises in Yugoslavia as a Specialty of Workers' Self-Management System During Socialism (1945-1990)

Abstract

In Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (hereinafter: SFRY) many laws were approved that regulated the legal capacity of economic organizations (Dobias, 1969);1 however, no law regulated the concept of the enterprise (Stipetić, 1982). The constitution of 13.1.1953 transformed in its Art 4 “state property” to "social property". In addition, workers' self-management of enterprises (economic organizations) was proclaimed as the basis of the social and political order. The work collective managed the assets of the companies on behalf of the company, while the state was responsible for day-to-day management and the funds needed for production (Prasnikar, Svejnar, Mihaljek & Prasnikar, 1994). In this sense, the implementation of participative management systems reflects the intentions of the political leadership to decentralize and liberalize economic life (Zeffane, 1988). The company was not a commercial company, as it is known in the West, but a production cooperative that was not in a membership relationship with the workers (because then they would be equal to a public company), but in an employment relationship (Spaić, 1960). The company was self-sufficient in terms of its internal organization and management, planning its economic activity, the distribution and use of income, the signing of contracts and the formation of economic associations (Pretnar, 1961). The self-administration law, ie the right of the work collectives to the administration of the commercial enterprises, could be called civil-law or property-law authority, because the work collectives would not have possessed a real self-administration right, without such a competence. In this sense, main objective of this manuscript is the analysis of enterprises in Yugoslavia as a specialty of both systems, capitalism and socialism. Main objective of this manuscript is the Analysis of Enterprises in Yugoslavia as a specialty of workers' self-management system from 1963 -1990 Received: 16 June 2021 / Accepted: 3 August 2021 / Published: 5 September 2021