Workers’ control demanded joint state-worker management beyond mere nationalization.

Evidence

Union leaders Smillie, Hodges, and Straker (the secretary of the Northumberland Miners), as well as Cole, who was asked to give a deposition, argued for a binding relation between workers’ control and nationalization (in the form of abolition of royalties and state ownership of coal seams): “Just as national ownership is inadequate without workers’ control, so workers’ control is inadequate without national ownership” (Cole, in Arnot 1919, 33). Indeed, nationalization in itself did not secure the abolition of the wage system, under which “the worker sells his labour to an employer in return for a wage, and by this sale is supposed to forgo all right over the manner in which his labour is used” (ibid.). Th e bold demand was for economic democracy: joint control, shared between miners and the state. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 402

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines economic democracy as joint control shared between workers and the state, distinct from mere nationalization which preserved the wage system.
• XREF: connects to: British miners’ unions demanded nationalization and workers’ control as inseparable — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 402; German unions demanded co-determination beyond the enterprise, at sector and macro levels — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 960; Factory councils aimed to merge economics and politics through workers’ control — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 581 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• British miners’ unions demanded nationalization and workers’ control as inseparable #corroborates (0.95) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 402
• Workers’ participation demands focused on pay and immediate job matters, not structural control. #contradicts (0.90) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2073
• Factory councils aimed to merge economics and politics through workers’ control #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 581
• Postwar workers rejected labor as a commodity and demanded democratic control of production #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 185
• Rank-and-file shop committees turned strikes into organs of workers’ control #exemplifies (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 475
• German unions demanded co-determination beyond the enterprise, at sector and macro levels #expands (0.82) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 960
• Postwar strikes were political demands for workers’ self-government, not mere wage disputes #expands (0.80)
• Workers’ self-governance sought to abolish the wage relationship and production for profit #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 186