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“The manner in which the corporation is governed still bears the imprint of its origins in an era where the vast majority of humanity were disenfranchised economically and politically. The government of the corporation, which sets the direction of the firm, organises its purpose, and allocates its surplus, is, in Anglo-American capitalism, the exclusive domain of capital. Investors control the government of the corporation, with the company’s executive (its board) appointed by its legislature (the shareholder body). Labour is (in the vast majority of cases) entirely excluded from governance despite producing the corporation’s wealth. Perversely, power is awarded to the parties that bear little risk and make little contribution and denied to those without whom the business would cease to function and whose livelihoods are most at risk if it fails.” – Adrienne Buller & Mathew Lawrence, Owning the Future: Power and Property in an Age of Crisis

#adrienne buller #mathew lawrence

"If neoliberalism is a project of state power to defend property against popular demands for more equal reordering, the countermovement insists instead that the economy is a socially made entity that democratic power can restructure. A democratic economy is one in which the principles of democracy we are all familiar with extend beyond the political system and into our workplaces and communities, and where we re-extend common control over how the economy functions to expand human freedom.

The freedom of some cannot be based on the exploitation of others, nor exercised through unjustifiable hierarchies. It is, therefore, incompatible with the private regimes of power that capitalist property relations generate.

Instead, freedom is a shared project: individual liberty is secured through collective emancipation. Fundamental to this must be a politics committed to reimagining our systems of ownership and control.

There is no single party, tradition, or movement that can or should do this alone. We need a mass popular front that spans diverse groups.

The story that needs to be told is clear: the extraordinary potential of the many is held back by the institutions that shape our lives and communities, institutions that consolidate wealth and power while inflicting violence on communities and the natural world by prioritizing property at the expense of urgent needs. The political right defends and reproduces this configuration; to overcome it, a new bloc must contest and reimagine institutions of ownership and control to build an alternative, inclusive, and thoroughly democratic society.

Building agency and democratic control into every sphere of life can help counter the justified disillusionment with the political system and its agents that many across the political spectrum feel. To win, we urgently need to move from a moral critique of the present to standing against the forces and institutions that generate these injustices with a credible plan for dismantling them — and erecting in their place something new. It’s time we owned the future."

- Adrienne Buller and Mathew Lawrence, from "We Can Reimagine Our Systems of Ownership and Control." Jacobin, 25 September 2022.