After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century. By Tom Malleson. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014. 274 pp. ISBN 9780199330102.Through After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century, Tom Malleson puts forward as a pragmatic vision of an achievable utopia. Responding to the Occupy movements' rallying cries of inequality in wealth and power, Malleson heralds democracy's equalizing potential, and interrogates the democratic integrity of three domains-the workplace, the market system, and finance and investment systems-offering adjustments that might facilitate more democratic economies, and a more free and equal world. The author believes in the inherent value of equality of freedom, and argues forcefully that is the way to achieve it. Lamenting the non-democratic and unaccountable exercise of power that pervades within various and public domains, Malleson has written a book of radical realism (p. xxii). He envisions a tent large enough to contain the idealism of activists, but sturdy enough to satisfy the pragmatism of progressively inclined suits, in hopes of engendering a Feasible Socialism for the 21st Century (the title of the book's concluding chapter). Though his efforts seem unlikely to please everyone-perhaps most notably those in concerted alignment with neoliberalism, and those who might be quick to flatly reject any proposition that sustains so much of the basic form of society-Malleson argues compellingly for a thorough re-examination of economics through a lens. His focus on non-revolutionary change, and his insistence on building up from already existing systems and processes, lends plausibility to his ideas.Malleson, an assistant professor in the Social Justice and Peace Studies program at King's University College at Western University, has chosen economic democracy as a frame through which to critique and re-envision contemporary logic, systems, and processes. Indeed, this book is about democracy, and would perhaps have been more appropriately titled as such, as the ashes of the Occupy movement provide little more than a jumping-off point. At the heart of Malleson's economic democracy is equality of freedom, which he sees as contingent upon the distribution of decision-making power within firms, markets, and structures of investment and finance. The bulk of After Occupy is arranged in three sections. The first part of each section presents a critique of what exists in (1) Workplaces, (2) The Market System, and (3) Finance and Investment, asking how is doing, and if more is needed. The second part of each section explores current and plausible democratic alternatives in each of the three domains. Though each domain is explored in turn, Malleson notes that they exist interdependently. Achieving equality of freedom thus requires democratic interventions throughout various broadly defined areas of the economy.Capitalist workplaces-undemocratic by nature-are critiqued as hierarchies of decision-making power that, when viewed in the aggregate, place severe constraints on workers' freedom. In response to this inequity, Malleson offers a broad survey of alternative workplace arrangements, citing numerous improvements to social, political, and life that can be related to, for example, thriving worker cooperatives. Here, as elsewhere, Malleson is careful to give attention to objections and counterarguments, including historical, practical, and theoretical challenges to his arguments and ideas. …
Search from 250 M+ research papersSearch from 250 M+ research papers
Open Access
May 26, 2017
Regina Saveljeva + 1
