Reclaiming Public Ownership Making Space for Economic Democracy

by Cumbers, Andrew

• ISBN13: 9781780320076
• ISBN10: 1780320078
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-09-15
• Publisher: UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

Summary

The last few years have seen the spectacular failure of market fundamentalism in Europe and the US, with a seemingly never-ending spate of corporate scandals and financial crises. As the environmental limits and socially destructive tendencies of the current profit-driven economic model become daily more self-evident, there is a growing demand for a fairer economic alternative, as evidenced by the mounting campaigns against global finance and the politics of austerity. 'Reclaiming Public Ownership' tackles these issues head on, going beyond traditional lefist arguments about the relative merits of free markets and central planning, to present a radical new conception of public ownership. Framed around economic democracy and public participation in economic decision-making, Cumbers argues that a reconstituted public ownership is central to the creation of a more just and sustainable society.A timely reconsideration of a longstanding but essential topic.

Author Biography

Andrew Cumbers is Reader in Geographical Political Economy at the University of Glasgow. He has written extensively on the problems of uneven development in capitalist societies, responses on the left, and the prospects for a more democratic and egalitarian politics. Recent publications include Alternatives to Market Fundamentalism in Scotland and Beyond (SLR Press), co-edited with Geoff Whittam, and Global Justice Networks: Geographies of Transnational Solidarity (Manchester University Press) with Paul Routledge.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction * PART 1: REVISTING PUBLIC OWNERSHIP * 2. A tale of two nationalisations: the post-1945 experiences in Britain and France * 3. Public ownership and its wider legacies * 4. The neo-liberal onslaught and the politics of privatisation * PART 2: THE RE-EMERGENCE OF PUBLIC OWNERSHIP * 5. The financial crisis and the re-discovery of public ownership in the neoliberal heartland * 6. Coming to terms with Hayek: markets, planning and the pursuit of economic democracy * 7. Alternative globalisations and the resurgence of the Commons * PART 3: PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND MAKING SPACE FOR ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY * 8. Rethinking and rescaling public ownership * 9. Beyond the social democratic idyll: ownership, control and democratic engagement in the Norwegian oil experience * 10. Decentred public ownership, the collective ethos and the Danish wind power revolution * 11. Conclusions