Yuga (our nickname for her) was the happiest time of my life. Destroyed by the idiocy of nationalism. When Americans ask me "didn't you come here to escape socialism?", I always tell them, no I came here to escape the misery caused by those who opposed socialism!!! Btw, I'm from a mixed marriage, mom is from Serbia, dad is from Bosnia. I'm a product of the kind of unity promoted by Titos government. Encouraging the people to only see themselves as Yugoslav.
It would have been tough during the war as you have split loyalties and especially as Serbian atrocities against Muslims became obvious to all in the world. There were two experiments in Yugoslavia. First was "brotherhood and unity" and the second was 'Workers Self Management'. In the beginning, both were rather successful but by the end, one collapsed and the other produced a bloody war not seen since WW2. There is peace now in the Balkans. Why? Two main protagonists, Serbia and Croatia, are separated with big buffer zones. War may come again if Republika Srpska decides to secede to create a Greater Serbia. That would be unacceptable for Croatia and Bosnian Muslims.
@@anthonysarich7013 It definitely was tough, my dad volunteered in Armija BiH in 91. My mom took us to Serbia in summer of 92 where they were constantly discriminating against me and my brother, even by some on my moms side of the family. In 93 we received news that my dad was killed in action. By November 94 my mom brought us to Las Vegas Nevada. Then in 97 my dad's sister who lived in Austria found my dad still alive in Bosnia. They thought he died because it didn't look like he was gonna make it after being shot in the chest by a sniper. So my aunt notified us here, and my dad then came to the US by 98. In 2005, he got sick from really bad PTSD, and lived another 11 years through that hell. He died on my birthday in 2016 from a heart attack. That war destroyed my childhood, no child should have to live through that.
@@anthonysarich7013 Ethnicity, and nationality are such a stupid concept. South Slavic people killing each other over petty differences that mean nothing material to our lives. Unearned pride. Racism is even dumber.
Hi from Slovenia which was part of Yugoslavia. I talked a lot with my grampa how companies were run in the 60s and 70s. Workers did decide a lot of stuff, like what to do with the profits and what the wages would be. A few times a year representatives from different companies would meet and decide where to invest a portion of the profits. Building roads, hospitals, parks, apartments, playgrounds etc. The problem was if the ruling communist party didn't like the decisions, they could and would overrule them. So it was more like the workers "owning" 49% of the companies. The party would also appoint many of the top management. So it was worker co-managed not self-managed. That being said it was far better than capitalism. Profits were shared far more equaly. For example big companies would invest into holiday homes, which the workers could then rent for a small fee. There was also a private/capitalist sector which was limited to 10 employees. So the capitalists had to offer compareable wages and working conditions.
this is very interesting. minus the rule of the communist party having sway over the co ops, a lot of yugoslavia sounds like my ideal system. did they tell you anymore about how it worked or day to day life ?
@@eff700 There is still significant migration from Eastern to Western Europe despite all the nations being capitalist. Western Europe has long been wealthier, going back to at least the industrial revolution, so that is a likely driver. I'm not saying you're wrong, but there are other factors which influence migration beyond the particulars of the economic system.
@@eff700 People migrating from the global south to the west come from capitalist systems.This is due to a difference in wealth and more economic wealth.This is a poor metric to use when discrediting socialism.
Finally! My parents are from Yugoslavia and flew to Sweden when the genocide started in Bosnia in the 90's. Been waiting for this moment for awhile now. Let's go Wolff!
Hey loud chattering uncle ! Yugoslavia does not exist anymore. Also self-management is anarcho-syndicalism which is widely practiced in parts of Spain, especially Basque country (example MonDragon) What bogus regressive content this is, pathetic and inconsequential blahblbalblag!
Your premises and wells of information are substandard, but not to digress. During its worst year, Yugoslavia was the world's 24th economy (was ahead of Austria, South Africa, Indonesia, Argentina, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Romania, and Norway), a globally competing exporter of metallurgy, machinery, and equipment, petroleum, chemicals, textiles, wood processing, food processing, pulp and paper, motor vehicles, building materials, and had established an infrastructure-building, and weapon's exporting monopoly across the whole body of the Non-Aligned Movement, with a pioneering digital electronic and robotic industry. Before the war, Yugoslavia was the EEC's second-largest trade partner in the Mediterranean area, just after Algeria, with 90% of industrial imports from Yugoslavia to the EEC not subject to any duty. The only problem was the way the monetary policy was managed, especially during the oil crises in the 70s and 80s. But this could have easily been fixed with a pegged currency. But when Ante Markovic did that in 1990, it was too late - as he had “nationalists” working against him such as Milosevic, sabotaging the central bank by taking out loans and giving them to their constituents as gifts for votes, while at the same time printing money in insane quantities - causing another series of hyperinflation. Not to mention all services such as free healthcare, education, and so on were cut. All this is under the subversions of the IMF. Further on, in the 1970s, Yugoslavia transitioned from being a developing economy to a developed economy, thus the drop in growth parameters. The assertions made regarding unemployment are even more substandard than the former. What needs to be understood is that one family needed only one full-time provider, whereas the rest did not have to work. There's also the matter of a substantial number of people living off of benefits paid by the state, Yugoslavia had exemplary welfare that was, admittedly, taken advantage of, and the percentage of those who could not find work was but a portion of the total number of the unemployed. What destroyed Yugoslavia and its economy was not its Socialism or its "massive debt", which, in 1991, comprised only 15% or so of Yugoslavia's GDP and is lower several times than the debts of nearly all of its INDIVIDUAL successor states, but the aforementioned subversions of the IMF, the wars, and the shifty privatizations that have spiraled a formerly developed economy into a subset of underdeveloped economies that are being neo-colonized by the West and the East as we speak. Yugoslavia was an example of the successes of Socialism and the failures of Capitalism. In summary, Titoism doesn't have a lot to do with the economy, but ideology and foreign policies - it had inspired and heavily influenced Xiaoping's foreign policy and Gaddafi's Third International Theory, furthered sovereignty, Non-Alignment, and Anti-Imperialism in the whole body of the Third World, ideas rather opposed to both the West and the East during the Cold War, the unipolar, USA-dominated world, and the professor, apparently.
cooperatives are an amazing alternative to the traditional hierarchical capitalist mode of business organization. they offer a more democratic alternative where workers tend to be much happier and receive higher pay
Online platform workers in Serbia have mobilized to form something similar to a union, and they had rally to demand legal status and a fair tax rate. After the rally, the authoritarian governemnt immediately asked for meeting with the union leadership to negotiate. This has shown that the real power in society that can enact meaningful change is the working class.
@J J This applies today to the US and most of Europe.It still doesn't disprove the economic growth.Though I bet if they'd have accepted more criticism they would've still existed.
@J J That is true but it wasn't nearly as bad as in USSR or Nazi Germany where if someone overheard you criticising the govenment they could report you and you would end up in concentration camps. You weren't allowed to organize protests or criticise the government on TV or other media but no one would report you if you said the government sucks. And also 4.8% growth is deffinetly worth not being able to criticise the government. It was very easy to get a job, if you had a job you get an apartment for free or very cheap, I think you even got a car for free or very cheap, you got paid vacation, you were free to leave the country if you wanted. There really wasn't much to criticise. The reason it all fell apart was because after Tito died no one saw the idea of Yugoslavia where all south slavs are equal, they either wanted greater Serbia, greater Croatia or they wanted to leave Yugoslavia.
Not only was that growth due to the fact its new economy was replacing a terrible communist economy that was in ruins, but also depended on foreign aid. Turns out having a terrible economy then receiving a ton of foreign aid is great for high growth rates, but terrible for building a self-sustaining economy that can last generations
Yugoslavia should make clear that macroeconomics matter. You know what the dividing line between the regions in Yugoslavia was? It was trade. Part of Yugoslavia was very competitive and exported stuff successfully while other parts of the country never got a chance. There need to be mechanisms to work this out in the future.
I was born and lived in Yugoslavia and I agree with your conclusion. But you must accept reasons why it was that way. Slovenia an Croatia were much more developed in compare with other party of country. They were in former Austro-Hungarian empire while other parts were under Turks occupation . Slovenia and Croatia have had much better education, more educated workers. more skillful artisans. they had tourism (very important!) Slovenia in Winter and Croatia in summer while other parts of country struggle with scarcity of almost everything and was predominantly rural or raw materials providers, wood, coal, ore(with few exceptions of bigger cities like Belgrade, kragujevac, Niš, Skopje, Sarajevo etc)
@@sedeslav Exactly. This suggests that socialism requires a couple of mechanisms to deal with such a situation. We need a mechanism to transfer technology and we need a mechanism to either transfer wealth from the more advanced regions to the less advanced regions or have the wages reflect the productivity of the local community or a combination of those things.
Yugoslavia should never have been formed. It was totally artificial construct. Therefore, it was not Croatia’s job to subsidise poorer regions of neighbouring republics. It’s Croatia’s job to look after it’s poor regions and poor citizens.
I’m so proud that Croatia is an independent state. It’s political achievements since independence have been amazing. However, economy struggles. Worker self-management did not work. War plus Neo-Liberalism made things worse. Solution? Heaven knows.
Maybe worker democracy is a solution. Learn from Tito’s mistakes. For example, it’s not a good idea to murder people abroad just because they have different opinions. As long as Croatia is independent, has borders and an army to defend it, I’m agnostic about which economic system finally decide to choose.
Ah finaly,....Yugoslavian Constitution declared "Factories to the wokers" law in 1950. So every company of any field of economy and institutions were managed by directors (politicaly loyal to the Communist Party) and worker cauncil made from elected persons employed as workers in manufacturing process and some other (administrative) professions. That model was very efficient in many casses (not of all, there was many as well negative examples). Yugoslavia productions were not only tiny "Yugo" car. But also extremely advanced and in real life confirmed military airplanes (including light supersonic fighter "Novi Avion" 1,88 Mach, ready for serial production in 1990), LSA airplanes, engineering projects ( Kuwait capital was completely built by Yugoslav "Energoprojekt" company),...Especially some factories in Slovenia ("Iskra", "Elan" (who sponsored and equipped Sweden World ski champion Ingemar Stenmark) , or "Gorenje" who owned German Consumer Enectronic Co "Korting",...Or "Podravka" well known food product exporter in Croatia, and some factories in Northern Serbian Province of Vojvodina,.... In 1986, Prime Minister Ante Marković through new federal law, materialised the Workers Co-Ops by giving the stocks to the employees of their companies. So workers have been stock owners of the companies they are employed. But, whole project collapsed by collapsing the federal state as victim of Secret State Security Service, playing on card of extreme nationalistic setaratism rather than Proletarian Internationalism,....
I just want to ad, private enterprise has been legal in Yugoslavia from 1950 . But with some limitations. In seventies and eighties small and middle size private companies ( limitations was in the law regulations over the size and number of employees, ...) have been usual. Mostly as family business, but various other forms. From 1986 so called "Prime Minister Ante Marković law on enterprises" liberalized all kind of ownership as legal and equal. At the time many private radio stations obtained a broadcasting licenses, some private companies started to produce ultralight airplanes ( today so globaly popular and advanced manufacturer "Pipistrel" at the time started producion hanglider trikes,...). There was various kind of Private and Co-Op partnerships. Employee legal rights have been same in private and Co-Op companies. Except participation in decission making . But Yugoslav experiment have been destroyed from paramilitar structures of the state,....
@@jazzforever4631 Also, most peasants owned their own land. The land was nationalized only from large landowners. Small peasants were organized into cooperatives, which bought their products and helped them with mechanization and the application of modern methods in agriculture.
@@ненад-1 Exactly. Thank you Nenad, ...Resultes have been great. In the agricultural oriented regions of Yugoslavia, there was Agricultural Corporations ("Poljoprivredni kombinati") processing quality fruit, vegetables or meat into the first class food products. Some of this products have been sold to US Army or as catering for American international airlines (i guess Pan Am). Just to mention some had their own AG Aircraft fleet, or a share in AG Aircraft fleet stationed in Air Clubs. If we keep in mind that most of Yugosllav economy and infrastructure have been completely destroyed in both World wars, this results have been amazing.
AHAHAHA dude you realize that workers becoming stock owners of companies was a PRIVATIZATION policy? Do you even understand how ridiculous you sound right now? And yeah sure, there were many companies in Yugoslavia and some of them were alright, but I hate to break it to you but most of the economy was funded by IMF loans which eventually lead to a debt crisis. One of the crucial parts you forgot to mention is the unemployment problems. 35% of the population was unemployed or worked in a capitalist country. 17% of the working population worked in western capitalist countries. Another part you forgot to mention, probably because of how embarrassing it is, is that Yugoslavia developed all those fancy military machines with cooperation with western companies and basing its designs on earlier western designs... You also completely forgot about the huge cronyism in worker cooperatives. Workers in cooperatives gave all the jobs to their kids instead of finding somebody actually capable of working at that job which lead to people who are actually good at something not being employed. "Odlučeno je da će se nakon završetka idejnog projekta i programa realizacije, napraviti izbor između dvije potencijalne tvrtke. Te tvrtke Jugoslavija bi koristila kao svoje razvojne partnere. U tadašnjem Vazduhoplovno tehničkom institutu u Beogradu oformljen je zajednički ured s britanskim BAE-om, a u Parizu s francuskim Marcel Dassault MD. U oba ureda je tokom šest mjeseci razrađen veći broj idejnih rješenja, s različitim varijantama. Paralelno s pregovorima o tehnološkoj potpori i radu na izradi idejnog projekta, s tvrtkama su vođeni razgovori o proizvodnji i prijenosu tehnologije za motor,[3] naoružanje i avionsku opremu. Vezano uz razvoj Novog aviona sa Francuskom, Jugoslaviju je posjetio Jean Fleury, načelnik stožera francuskih zračnih snaga, koji je prilikom posjeta zemlji isprobao jugoslavenski školsko jurišni zrakoplov Soko G-4 Super Galeb.[4]" hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_avion If you actually talk to people who lived in Yugoslavia they will tell you about all sorts of horror stories about how inefficient companies were and what garbage they produced. Yugoslavia itself was something between communism, market-socialism with some minor elements of capitalism.
I've commented on this before in other vids where Prof. Wolff has addressed this subject, but because it's always good to recap, but also due to the fact that his commentary was a bit too broad-brushed and general, I'll provide a brief overview of Yugoslav socialism with a little more insight. Essentially, Yugoslavia (chiefly from the years 1951 - 1979) can be broadly characterized as a hybrid quasi-market/planned economy where semi-autonomous, worker-controlled enterprises collaborated with partial central planning from both the federal government along with input from the Republics. Overall, it can serve as an example of socialist economic development and workers' control that was actually positive and somewhat democratic. There were certain deficiencies of course. Specifically, the role the local governments played in the appointment of enterprise directors, as well as the allocation of capital and the division of profits. Despite sincere efforts at decentralization on the part of the governing Communist Party, these were elements the government enacted as a vestige of central control, and so in that respect the workers' organizations lacked real self-government. There's more I could go into, but that's the basic gist. For more info on the economic experimentation in Tito's Yugoslavia, I'd suggest reading: “Titoism: Pattern for International Communism”, by Charles P. McVicker”, and the chapter on the economy from “Yugoslavia: a Country Study.” Additionally, I'd also recommend the chapters on Yugoslavia in “Class Struggle in Socialist Poland”, by Albert Szymanski which deal specifically with some of the failings of Yugoslav socialism, particularly the decade of market-oriented reforms throughout the 60s and 70s. archive.org/details/titoismpatternfo012623mbp ia601205.us.archive.org/18/items/yugoslaviacountr00curt_0/yugoslaviacountr00curt_0.pdf archive.org/details/ClassStruggleInSocialistPoland
That is correct. Not a single factory,agricultural firm has ever been owned by anybody,they were given to the employees to produce goods and earn salaries. Unless they were private owned,established. With limited workforce up to 10 employees.
Prof Wolff, in Yugoslavia, there were three types of property: state property, national property and private property. Factory directors were elected by the so-called workers' council, most often from among economic experts or engineers already working in the factory.
Professor Wolff, could you address issues with co-cooperatives from a Marxist perspective? Namely 1. Anarchy of Production in a market based system --> boom and bust cycle 2. Production for profit (exchange value instead of Use value) --> externalities 3. uneven development of productive forces (market competition) ---> superprofits 4. Imperialism by cooperatives, worker directed corporations continue to exploit the global south. 5. Petty bourgeois ideology and individualism --> greed, fucking over other coops. 6. monopoly formation through competition.
He has addressed 6. in a video on D@W channel of his own personal channel. It was specifically about monopolies and competition and how that would work with worker coops
A problem with Yugoslavia was when the federal state didn't have plans for the economy anymore (not taking about a fully planned economy type of plans, just "guides" I'd call them). This led to the republics competing against each other for the richest industries and in the end they started hating each other. The first workers' strike in Yugoslavia was against federal funds being given to poorer republics.
@١٩٧٩ on the line Mislim da je Slovenački,zar ne? Pozdrav za Sloveniju, da što više proširimo D@W teoriju po Balkanu! So,I think its Slovenian language! 😉
Guyana 🇬🇾, during it heydays in the 70s operated on a system similar to this.Hence, it's official name The Co-operative Republic of Guyana. As matter of fact, many co-operative unions are still in existence. I read the Serbian company - #Energoprojekt were to build our large hydropower dam- the Upper Mazaruni Hydropower Project. But that was short-lived due to American Foreign Policy intervention! It was during this set back that our late President Forbes Burnham took this loan and bank it in his name at a Swiss bank! Coincidentally, that very year the Swiss government decided to nationalized all banks! As such, onto this very day, I am told the money is sitting there in the bank! So yes coming back to the point, Guyana is a signatory to the Non-Aligned Movement. History recorded Guyana commemorating the Non-Aligned Monument at the 1972 Conference held on August 8-11of Foreign Ministers of Non-Aligned countries, the first of its kind to be held in Guyana. The monument is a sculptural piece of the busts of its founders: the Presidents of Egypt, Ghana, India and Yugoslavia However, sadly enough Guyana suffered tremendous setbacks in its political and economic development since it's independence from Great Britain in 1966. The country is divided along ethnic line: blacks vs Indians even though there are the ethnicities of Portuguese, Chinese and First People - the Amerindians. In addition, there is a growing 'mixed' ethnic group. But the two largest groups are the Indians and Blacks. The country is mineral rich and has an abundance of sweet crude oil besides being the only English speaking country on the continent of South America. Love your videos Professor Wolff.👍🇬🇾 . Edit: 2021/01/19
Very nice and rare content! I would love to read more about these experiences, not just from yugoslavia, but other East European Countries in the 20th century too. Can professor recommend some reading material to us?
tito didnt speak his own supposed language, he had foreign accent, he was imposed on yugoslavia as leader and hero.. trough propaganda.. serbia wanted king and kingdom, tito was forced as ruler. all opponents were killed.. tito cursed mother of god very often.. it was experiment for world totalitarian government.. project to destroy nationailties.. religion, family.. negative selection to destroy nation. tito loaned huge amount of money from bankers.. serbia is paying even today.. experiment was succesfull.. yugoslavia territory is destroyed.. people demorlized,. economically collapsed.. and no threat to europe or anyone.. army destroyed.. war is ongoing in different means even today
@@suddndestruction6199 : You are an imbecile. First of all he had an accent because he was born on the border with Slovenia (who speak a bit different). Secondly, he was not imposed to people through propaganda, he was elected by the people and stood against fascist in 2ww, as opposed to croatian and serbian leaders who wanted Third Reich or monarchy. Yugoslavia was successful enough in their economy: covered 7% of world need for paper, it was excelent shipbuider...it was on the third place in the world (after Japan and S. Corea), Mehanotehnika was the producer of toys that was among first ten in the world, they produced first pocket calculator in Europe, 90% of all goods imported to Europe was through Yugoslavia, they were called numerous times to enter EEU (EU) but they wish to stay independent, etc. In the '80 they had financial crises like everyone in the world. Like UK, Italy, France... Because '80 had Global collaps of capitalism! Yugoslavia did borrow money from world monetary fund and the report of that institution says in '85, that they were very successfully in returning it! Fascist diaspora planned with local nationalists (fascist) war as a revenge, a chance to rob people off and to establish fascist dictatorship which they wanted during 2ww. They succeded.
@@suddndestruction6199 those who wanted king and faith were allied with Nazis and partizani kicked their asses for good, and people supported them. Your lies will convince no one here. Much love to my Balkan bros and sisters from Russia)
Big fan of worker self management and direction. One problem in Yugoslavia though, was that businesses raised wages above profits and so they became unviable enterprises and the government had to bail this out. And then businesses started to rely on government bailouts to sustain their profits (and the Yugoslav gov started to rely on the Soviet Union to sustain this). We would need governments to put more restrictions in place to prevent this kind of thing.
From maybe the best piece on Yugoslavian selfmagement ... At one of the conferences on the stalemate in self-government, the editor-in-chief of "Economic Policy", Ljuba Veljković, proposed to move to the identification of workers' property, which would increase the interest of workers and accelerate the shaping of the system. Kardelj reacted to that with a question: "What would you like us to share? And then where are we, the Party! ” In doing so, he revealed what the astute Friedman observed - that workers do indeed manage, but are not owners, because if they became owners, the almighty party would lose the covert role of owner it performed. Undoubtedly, she cared not only to preserve her "control package", but also to prevent the return of private property. pescanik.net/samoupravljanje-buducnosti-jedne-utopije/
@@sara-jn4kv Smatram da D@W nije dovoljno zastupljen kod nas, pa eto možemo to da promenimo. Za početak i to je dosta,zar ne? Javi mi se na mail sboban002@gmail.com Pozz 😉
I am not against worker coops BUT the real problem is with how the work/jobs we do is decided...we have huge factories making toys and they could well be made into worker coops ...but do we NEED people doing that work? do we need those jobs? I say it must be made financially worthwhile for people to SHARE the jobs we NEED people to do and work much LESS...There is no other way to stop people doing the jobs that are destroying the planet. A worker coop in the fossil fuel industries sure won't save us..even if it would be better for the workers.
there is much work to do & people need to be incentivized to do it to build the stateless & moneyless anti-capitalist society can't simply be wished for or hoped for or brought about by snapping one's fingers
@@wtfhah But he is right that there is an abundance of manufactured desires thanks exclusively to advertising, in fact this is the vast majority of products. We absolutely do need to reduce the amount of types of products made and then decide where and how much of this unnecessary labour should be used to make new genuinely beneficial and authentically desired products and services or whether we would prefer free time instead and where the balanced should lie. I personally quite like a 7/8h workday and would like to keep it, so long as the wage I get reflects the value I produce so I can get the products and services I desire and would like votes on tax expenditure to see more investment in space and environment
@@iraholden3606 we need to desire work as life's prime want, not just to get bare necessities i agree that capitalism doesn't serve needs, which is why so many people are so needy despite working and producing a lot of useless garbage the work to undo the damage of capitalism & then to BUILD something better is work that must be carried out, not shirked
I really wish there was more english translated work on Yugoslavia's economy. I have only found some CIA factbook reports on Yugoslavia's co ops and the fact that Yugoslavia's co ops weren't that much of co ops cause of State mandated management. Only some slightly better accumulated profits than USSR. Still great video
My dad worked in a coop, which now is a limited liability company (Serbia, ex-Yugoslavia). Workers had ownership, however the big teft happened in a privatisation process (early 2000s) when the state took half of the shares based on the Privatisation Act - basically they turned coop into a stock company and in the case of my dad's ex-coop from stock to limited liability. Coops were usually in agriculture business and many workers were not educated and/or informed enough to understand the importance of sticking to their shares and demanding voting rights... Majority had sold their stocks short (partially because they needed cash after sanctions and war) and so the workers lost majority of ownership.
@@phoenix. hah, the privatisation route that took former communist regimes are quite similar. In Russia they also gave so called vouchers to all workers. At the beginning vouchers were pretty valuable.Then for a short period of time created an economic collapse which sunk local currency to the bottom, and then groups of criminals in cooperation with bureaucracy and intelligence services bought those vouchers off for a price of vodka bottle. And this is how modern capitalist Russia was born.
@@ontheline3077 Yep, good example of that here was a sugar company which was bought for 1 dinar and transaction was justified as a preservation of employment. These days it's all about huge subsidies to foreign greenfield manufacturing industry (usually from China) which in return pays minimal wage and heavily polutes environment...
because the chinese government has direct control of the market, making it a state-capitalist arrangement, not a bottom-up co-op. They have a political aristocracy ffs. 五毛党 think for yourself, politics isnt team sports
But what if you just create an automated planned economy, where the plan will be drawn up directly by the -soviets- workers councils? In this way, you can minimize the effect of democratic chaos and spend time and resources as efficiently as possible. When USSR economy began to experience difficulties due to an overgrown planning apparatus so it could no longer allocate resources and manage local enterprises with the same efficiency we began to develop the OGAS project in the 50s, but the concept was considered too futuristic and was abandoned in favor of Lieberman's more "decentralized" reforms By the 1980s, market elements had finally broken the already poorly functioning planned economy, and the OGAS was revived, but we did not have time until the union collapsed.
Ogas wasn't the universal problem solver. some of the elements were incorporated almost head on, but bc of the price it was turned down. The real problem of Soviet economy started to face right after the introduction of cooperation law introduced by Gorbi, which destroyed the state monopoly on foreign trade and signed the death sentence to USSR economy.
@@ontheline3077 That is why so many people in the post-Soviet space believe that he was a CIA agent. It's easier for us to think he was an evil genius than a dumb fool. This is the only way for Gorbachev's actions to have logical sense.
@@Gaming_Burnout of course. The problem is that there were no active movement to save the Union, bc people used to be passive and party officials had all the reins. It took only few years of anti socialist propaganda, blocking food supply to Moscow for a few days, and bang- no more Soviet Union.
@@ontheline3077 Actually,there was one en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt it was so active that in three days it almost caused a civil war, but as soon as everyone realized that a peaceful transfer of power would not be possible, they decided to retreat. Gorbachev's reforms led to lack of essential goods and introduction of card system at peacetime.Noone did not want more suffering,meanwhile, alcoliberal Yeltsin convinced people that market will feed everyone.
@@Gaming_Burnout yeah, i know. Those senile generals failed miserably. Especially Krykov, he had all the power in his hands to stop libs, yet he proved to be a coward.
Yugoslav industry was not run as co-operatives as so often claimed, or not co-operatives as we would recognise them. Workers co-ops as we know them are owned by the members. Yugoslavia nationalised all industry so most of the workplaces were owned by the state. It was only managed by the workers
I am from YU. It is partially true. Directors were workers from the same company. Of course not any worker but those who attented universities. As there were 6 republics there central gov was not in charge for companies.
As I said, I agree with Professor Wolff's analysis of this topic however I have one critique to make. Professor Wolff claims that the Yugoslav government had it's agenda and the workers had their own. To a certain extent this is true, however, I think that the fact that the Yugoslav government had it's own agenda in terms that it wanted to keep the country non-aligned from both the west and east is something that also benefits workers. The workers benefit if they live in a state that has ties with the USSR (the first socialist state) and also the western nations but not too close to either one. Workers would not be happy if they had to be deeply tied and influenced to Moscow instead of having control over their own destiny. In this case, the agenda of the Yugoslav government benefitted both the state and the workers because it gave the workers that same independence to control their own destiny while at the same time keeping the country independent.
Dear Professor Wolf, Our organizational in the Philippines, employ 60,000 colleagues. We are in the maritime service industry and logistics.. 30 years ago we started a cooperative to which everyone have one share and are members. We experienmentes this because the pension systems in the country can never be trusted. The name of our organisation is called "Magsaysay". It might interest you......
Dear Professor, I just object to the word "regime". Next time I hope you will use it when mentioning Roosvelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Kennedy, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush... too.
But then again Yugoslavia didn't have co-ops. Yugoslav industry was not run as co-operatives as so often claimed, or not co-operatives as we would recognise them. Workers co-ops as we know them are owned by the members. Yugoslavia nationalised all industry so most of the workplaces were owned by the state. It was only managed by the workers
I don't think Wolff has studied the Yugoslav model in enough detail, he assumes the system was similar to others, which it was not. He differentiates between directors and management and goes on to claim that directors were appointed by government. This is not at all how it worked in Yugoslavia. The board of directors was called the workers council which decided on profits, investment and also appointment of management ... which Wolff cites as the role of directors. The owners of the enterprise were the workers and the workers assembly was the top decision body that had the final say on everything including the appoitment of the board (workers council), management, distribution of profits and investment. Furthermore, the same model was applied throughout society, from the apartment block, through municipalities all the way up to parliament. This is something on an infinitely larger scale than what he explains. The problem is that it did not function very well. Workers had formal power, just as voters have today. But in practice, there were manipulated by powerful people to decide the way people in power wanted decisions to be made. In the end, the system fell apart simply because the economic added value was too low, due to inefficiency, mismanagement and corruption. It was an experimental society and it failed because it never truly took hold. Informal methods were used by politics and party to influence decisions and workers approved them, oftern without much thought. When they rebelled it was always too little and too late.
You know this is one of the subjects I ponder a lot. Not so much getting beyond capitalism but getting beyond the need for a capital based society. Money is a concept a form of trade. This concept creates an imbalance in society. We need to get beyond money the need to trade. The capital needs to be based on the betterment of humanity the safety of our planet and all life that lives on it. The expansion of the human species into a galactic species. Money has about run its course. It’s holding us back.
@Ric Brunner, I think a pure socialist world (or at least a socialist trading-bloc) would be formed around what is called 'counter trade.' This is where the balance of payments is settled not in money, but in commodities.
Calling names to dismiss entire bodies of academic research does not make a good point. It makes you look like a piss baby. git gud. read a book. or one wikipedia article about marxist econ theory,
@@toericabaker I've read Marx already! Under his system, since there's no profits to be made or government. He just "expects" you to show up for work out of your free will... Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds not only in theory but also in practice?
7:25 State officials elected by workers, not just random state officials that were appointed by god instead of capital. Remember the dictatorship of the proletariat is always, under any system. These state officials were elected by the worker organizations, the Soviets.
Problem with your and Yugoslav model is that workers usually dont have a lot of money saved and thus have limited capital. Limited capital means less new machinery and investment. Thus productivity gradually declines
Sure, co-ops are better for workers than ordinary capitalist enterprises, but backbone of any strong economic system consists of giant holdings and corporations, bc the bigger they are, the cheaper is their production, which is the ultimate sign of societal progress and economic success in general
The problem with Yugoslavia is that it was based on the markets which always fail. They loaned so much from the IMF that their economy tanked. It wasn't socialism but capitalism.
Worker coops could not function in a large scale unless the profit motive in capitalist mode of exchange in the market is abolished. Otherwise the workers are just squeezing themselves to get more surplus from their own labor. Such behavior is directly against the material interest of the worker themselves. Only when the goal is switched from the accumulation of capital to meeting social needs can coops be beneficial to the workers, which means a revolution must first happen to break the private monopolies prior to the mass organization of coops.
Monopolies could be broken by enforcing anti-monopoly laws. But workers or people on a large scale do not care, otherwise they would at least refuse to order from Amason for example.
@@phoenix.Breaking here means depriving the capitalists of their ownership of the workplaces as a whole, all of it. It's not the same with anti-trust law in a capitalist society that only breaks a large monopoly into several smaller ones, which still belong to capitalists. This requires a state apparatus belongs to the workers to enforce this change, i.e. a revolution.
If we develop a system that's tailored to meet societal needs,will it be similar to the capitalist economies we have now?(since consumer products are still needs)Though the difference being that it will be in a more cooperative society.And on this topic,in such a system can the value system be abolished?
It would be great to do a follow-up video on examples of tension between a socialist government and worker-coops. I have a hard time imagining worker-coops in a socialist country. They seem better suited for a capitalist economy, but this is probably my lack of understanding.
I work in a company which HQ is in a capitalist country and it claims to be "employee owned", but the truth is - it's owned by the management and not every shareholder has equal voting rights. So it's bs to a large extent. Basically only CEO and board of directors can decide regarding profit share etc. It's also based on meritocracy. So I'd say it's other way around - it's more natural to think about co-ops in a context of the socialistic ideas.
@@phoenix. You make a good point. But the confusion I have is more theoretical in nature. I imagine the worker coop to be driven by finding a balance between profit and work-life enjoyment of the workers and their coop. This is what I imagine for such an enterprise in a capitalist country. In a socialist country, however, the profit motive would be subject to the country's willingness to make market transactions have as high or higher priority over the general welfare of its population. In other words, money in a socialist country shouldn't be able to "price out" others. In such a scenario, money and price are in a zero-sum relationship with society and are toxic. This zero sum relationship between the general population and money/price is a starting point for capitalism. It is, as far as I can see, the end/destruction of socialism.
@@peternyc Hm.. imo your premise is a bit idiosyncratic - regarding profits vs work-life balance. I don't think there is a standard measure for enjoyment or how much profits/earnings is enough :-)) Some enjoy working less, others enjoy working all day and/or seeing products of their labour, etc. Workers co-op simply means that who ever works for a cooperative has ownership over cooperative - different models exist or existed in different political systems, but imo the basic idea of workers cooperatives remains the same regardless of the system. Yugoslavian co-ops were backed by socialist idea of assets belonging to the workers or society. Workers co-ops were local, usually established in agruculture. Industrial factories were usually not co-ops but socialy owned etc.
That is an excellent point. Yugoslavia was caught in no-man's land between Soviet Union and Western Capitalism. Sure, their products were better than USSR but they were nowhere near say German or Italian quality,. I mentioned I lived in Croatia for 6 years and all I heard was how Croatian shipbuilders were the best in the world. My response was that if you are so good then why are you always making losses and why are you always crying for subsidies from the Government. Speaking of Government, Croatians always blame the Government (in particular HDZ party) for their plight but who do they want to fix their problems, you guessed it, the government.
NO, YOU ARE IGNORANT AND ARROGANT TOO, because you think that Yugoslavia made only "YUGO"! For your information, they produced also: RENAULT, FIAT, CITROEN, VW BEETLE, AUTO UNION, DKW, AUSTIN, OPEL...For example, OPEL models were: CADET, RECORD, ASCONA, SENATOR, CORSA...We also made MERCEDES and MAN buses for our public transportation! As you can see, many of those models were FAR, FAR better than your Toyota! And yes, we had electricity and water in the kitchen and bathroom! Jesus, no wonder the rest of the World makes jokes about American ignorance...
From what I hear there is very little difference between serfdom and Yugoslavia co-op the workers can manage the horse that plows the field but don't have any input to what they plant.
Most workers are not educated in the means of production or related sciences. In public schools they are taught football , basketball, soccer, and cell/smart phone. They can barely speak English.
THIS IS TRUE, ESPECIALLY IN THE USA WHERE UNEDUCATED YOUNG PEOPLE COME TO FACTORIES TO WORK RIGHT FROM THE STREET...In Yugoslavia, in order to work in a factory, you had to finish 2-4 years of technical specialised school (mostly 4 years)! Without that - no job...
Are you kidding the corporate own our governing bodies just as was laid out for 1776. A co op today could be worker owned and that would be entirely different. As we have just witnessed our votes are just a exercise in fragility. The state legislature votes for electors who in turn cast to congress. What if a Independent candidate had 260 electoral college votes and the corrupt corporate parties had the remaining? Congress would decide as usual on Partisan lines. How you like our constitution now?
No, we are not. There is so much needed doing with climate change, ageing populations in the Developed Economies, education, housing, water, and infrastructure fit for 21st century societies. Every technological change has created jobs, whilst destroying others, but with the kleptocrats running governments with puppets as front men, the political will is absent. Its upto us to to start pushing for the improvements we need. UBI is a elastoplast over a gaping wound. The kleptocrats want to kill off small and medium enterprises but, as worker ops show, a united and organised workforce can build and create wealth and ensure secure communities. It's time to come off the kleptocrats teats, and start making things happen for ourselves.
6:35 Wait, Yugoslavia was socialist under Tito? I thought it was State-Capitalism Wolf? The more market-oriented mixed economy example of State-socialism is more socialist than China under Mao or the USSR?
So Wolff is advocating for private ownership of cooperatives by the workers? No government ownership or stakeholders on the board? Sounds like just a more inclusive type of capitalism rather than socialism.
He talks about workers cooperatives. If you include other shareholders then it's not a workers cooperative. My understanding is that workers coops can exist in both socialism and capitalism.
I never said shareholders I said stakeholders. The means of production should be the public commons for everyone. Private cooperatives dont fit that definition.
@@PoliticalEconomy101 Ok, do interests of stakeholders get monetised? What are their stakes? Do they work? I don't know, you did not say much either... There was socially owned industry in Yugoslavia in addition to workers cooperatives, these are not mutually exclusive things. Profits would go to local goverments or the state, profitable ones would finance ones with loses etc. Socially owned industry was split between workers and the state in the privatisation process, etc.
@@ejlatsaknetxis Why is yugoslavia unable to uphold itself? I saw some discussion in Chinese Internet recently. The concensus is that class struggle rhetoric cannot survive unless hide behind some sort of nationalism. Otherwise the upper structure would be too expensive to maintain.
@@3a146 That's really interesting, I agree that almost all real socialist experiences in 20th century operationalized nationalism to some degree. I think that the main cause of such outcomes in socialist countries were results of them not being industrialized countries which have high urban proletarait populations who are highly alienated from dense communal relations. I think this is one of the reasons why Marx himself was not very concerned or wrote much about question of nationalism and why he expected revolutions to spark in industrial societes. I think we, in 21th century, with much more developed ties to peoples all around the world, can more or less transcend any nationalistic rhetoric, if not completely destroying nationalist paradigms themselves
@@bahman6035 For me, the line draws at whether you support communism. If so, then I can take the stance to abandon nationlism. But we all know the western mainstream anti-communism ideology. Hence our nationalism rhetoric becomes handy.
Nearly 10 minutes of Rick rapping on Yugoslavian co-ops and he never addresses the problems. In fact he wants to deny that Yugoslavia even had co-ops. Yugoslavian co-ops failed and there is no reason to believe that co-ops meeting Rick's definition would have changed anything. Yugoslavians dealt with the failure by letting their workers emigrate to East Germany. Where is the mention of that? 10 minutes to talk about the problem and not a word addressing the problem. Or what about the problem that co-ops will not solve the income inequality problem?
@@phoenix. I stand corrected on West Germany. The problem was co-ops did not work in Yugoslavia and the only answer was to let people leave to Germany.
@@TheTalkWatcher Workers co-ops actaully did fine in Yugoslavia until.everything collapsed - my dad worked in one. The same entity which used to be a co-op still exists, but as privately owned limited liability company. Teft via privatisation process in ex-Yu and other socialst countries is another story...The problem began when political system started to collapse and you had all directors placed by the party - as Wolff mentioned. Btw. West Germany was a favourite destination for unskilled workers from Yugoslavia, they got jobs Germans did not want to do...
@@TheTalkWatcher There are many reasons, uneqal regional development being one (Slovenia had full employment), but one thing i can tell you in Serbia it was lower then than it has been since 1991 to this very day.
Dearest Professor Wolff; you insist on ignoring what type, what kind, of 'Mass' you are dealing with here. Do WE have what it takes to comprehend a glimpse of any of Your expressed dreams...?
Nice video!! Very engaging from beginning to end. Nevertheless, businesses and investment are the easiest way to make money irrespective of which party makes it to the oval office.
A whopping 84 percent of all stocks owned by Americans belong to the wealthiest 10 percent of households. And that includes everyone’s stakes in pension plans, 401(k)’s and individual retirement accounts, as well as trust funds, mutual funds and college savings programs like 529 plans.
And 90% actually lose principal, in real dollars -- even after accounting for inflation. Some make it up in dividends. Some do not. Fewer than 10% of people could fully fund their own retirement, with no Social Security, Medicare, defined benefit pension plan, etc. That tells you how "good" owning stock is. It is much better than going to casinos, I'll give you that.
The thing that Richard Wolff don't seem to realize is that the reason why people don't form co ops is because they don't want to take the risk. The reason why over half a million people who work for Amazon don't just walk out of their jobs and start their own co ops is because they rather have the security of having a paycheck at the end of the week than starting their own business!
That is one reason too, but I don't think he would necesary disagree with your statement... edit: oh! you're the troll who claimed people in Yugoslavia were shot for not showing up for work. 😹
That's why most people don't start businesses of any kind under the current system, they don't have the capital or security to take that risk, because they're underpaid and most markets are cornered by massive companies. That's a capitalism problem. Under socialism it would be easier to start a business, as you'd be able to amass reasonable savings from the previous job, and markets would be actually be more effectively competitive, functioning more freely at lower levels, because co-ops somewhat limit company size, preventing oligopolies from forming outside nationalised systems. Smaller businesses would have higher and more equal negotiating power.
@@reubennb2859 And also because people don't want to be in co ops either. Or do you think that if Bill Gates,for example, if he were to give 100 million dollars to a hundred people in order to start a business, would any of these people would start a co op? No, they wouldn't! These hundred businesses would be all private owned companies!
@@juniorgod321 And the consequences of this are a really bad deal for the majority of global workers. Your argument is identical to 1700s conservatives saying capitalism is bad because people would prefer to be feudal lords than businesses owners. Of course they would, but it's undemocratic. And not everyone can be in charge at the same time, so good co-ops would be preferable to work under for most employees than autocratic workplaces.
Yes I had Yugo for 10 years! Great city car it was! Yugo was costing me next to nothing in maintenance! Even better it was designed so you could perform basic maintenance by yourself!!!
my aunt gave me one red 45, my first car with broken stick shifter. Had to start from third gear but was unaware of the problem, thought it was normal. When you learn on Yugo you can drive anything else no problem.
Yuga (our nickname for her) was the happiest time of my life. Destroyed by the idiocy of nationalism. When Americans ask me "didn't you come here to escape socialism?", I always tell them, no I came here to escape the misery caused by those who opposed socialism!!! Btw, I'm from a mixed marriage, mom is from Serbia, dad is from Bosnia. I'm a product of the kind of unity promoted by Titos government. Encouraging the people to only see themselves as Yugoslav.
♡
It would have been tough during the war as you have split loyalties and especially as Serbian atrocities against Muslims became obvious to all in the world. There were two experiments in Yugoslavia. First was "brotherhood and unity" and the second was 'Workers Self Management'. In the beginning, both were rather successful but by the end, one collapsed and the other produced a bloody war not seen since WW2. There is peace now in the Balkans. Why? Two main protagonists, Serbia and Croatia, are separated with big buffer zones. War may come again if Republika Srpska decides to secede to create a Greater Serbia. That would be unacceptable for Croatia and Bosnian Muslims.
@@anthonysarich7013 Just stop.
@@anthonysarich7013 It definitely was tough, my dad volunteered in Armija BiH in 91. My mom took us to Serbia in summer of 92 where they were constantly discriminating against me and my brother, even by some on my moms side of the family. In 93 we received news that my dad was killed in action. By November 94 my mom brought us to Las Vegas Nevada. Then in 97 my dad's sister who lived in Austria found my dad still alive in Bosnia. They thought he died because it didn't look like he was gonna make it after being shot in the chest by a sniper. So my aunt notified us here, and my dad then came to the US by 98. In 2005, he got sick from really bad PTSD, and lived another 11 years through that hell. He died on my birthday in 2016 from a heart attack. That war destroyed my childhood, no child should have to live through that.
@@anthonysarich7013 Ethnicity, and nationality are such a stupid concept. South Slavic people killing each other over petty differences that mean nothing material to our lives. Unearned pride. Racism is even dumber.
Hi from Slovenia which was part of Yugoslavia. I talked a lot with my grampa how companies were run in the 60s and 70s. Workers did decide a lot of stuff, like what to do with the profits and what the wages would be. A few times a year representatives from different companies would meet and decide where to invest a portion of the profits. Building roads, hospitals, parks, apartments, playgrounds etc.
The problem was if the ruling communist party didn't like the decisions, they could and would overrule them. So it was more like the workers "owning" 49% of the companies. The party would also appoint many of the top management. So it was worker co-managed not self-managed.
That being said it was far better than capitalism. Profits were shared far more equaly. For example big companies would invest into holiday homes, which the workers could then rent for a small fee.
There was also a private/capitalist sector which was limited to 10 employees. So the capitalists had to offer compareable wages and working conditions.
haha if it was far better than capitalism, why were so many people migrating from Yugoslavia to West Germany, and not the other way around?
@@eff700 cuz the the US was shoveling money into West Germany thru the Marshall plan
this is very interesting. minus the rule of the communist party having sway over the co ops, a lot of yugoslavia sounds like my ideal system. did they tell you anymore about how it worked or day to day life ?
@@eff700 There is still significant migration from Eastern to Western Europe despite all the nations being capitalist. Western Europe has long been wealthier, going back to at least the industrial revolution, so that is a likely driver. I'm not saying you're wrong, but there are other factors which influence migration beyond the particulars of the economic system.
@@eff700 People migrating from the global south to the west come from capitalist systems.This is due to a difference in wealth and more economic wealth.This is a poor metric to use when discrediting socialism.
Finally! My parents are from Yugoslavia and flew to Sweden when the genocide started in Bosnia in the 90's. Been waiting for this moment for awhile now. Let's go Wolff!
Hey loud chattering uncle ! Yugoslavia does not exist anymore. Also self-management is anarcho-syndicalism which is widely practiced in parts of Spain, especially Basque country (example MonDragon)
What bogus regressive content this is, pathetic and inconsequential blahblbalblag!
@@AudioPervert1 Your words don't sound smart or educational either. At least OP talked from their own experience. Regards from Serbia ex-Yu.
Did you read Parenti, "To kill a Nation". He did good analysis of Yugoslavia story, the end of it. th-cam.com/video/ApaMIJiOt-c/w-d-xo.html
@@Mutineer9 thanks for the link! I have't seen that before.
@worldrevolution thank you, I will check it out!
Your premises and wells of information are substandard, but not to digress. During its worst year, Yugoslavia was the world's 24th economy (was ahead of Austria, South Africa, Indonesia, Argentina, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Romania, and Norway), a globally competing exporter of metallurgy, machinery, and equipment, petroleum, chemicals, textiles, wood processing, food processing, pulp and paper, motor vehicles, building materials, and had established an infrastructure-building, and weapon's exporting monopoly across the whole body of the Non-Aligned Movement, with a pioneering digital electronic and robotic industry. Before the war, Yugoslavia was the EEC's second-largest trade partner in the Mediterranean area, just after Algeria, with 90% of industrial imports from Yugoslavia to the EEC not subject to any duty. The only problem was the way the monetary policy was managed, especially during the oil crises in the 70s and 80s. But this could have easily been fixed with a pegged currency. But when Ante Markovic did that in 1990, it was too late - as he had “nationalists” working against him such as Milosevic, sabotaging the central bank by taking out loans and giving them to their constituents as gifts for votes, while at the same time printing money in insane quantities - causing another series of hyperinflation. Not to mention all services such as free healthcare, education, and so on were cut. All this is under the subversions of the IMF. Further on, in the 1970s, Yugoslavia transitioned from being a developing economy to a developed economy, thus the drop in growth parameters.
The assertions made regarding unemployment are even more substandard than the former. What needs to be understood is that one family needed only one full-time provider, whereas the rest did not have to work. There's also the matter of a substantial number of people living off of benefits paid by the state, Yugoslavia had exemplary welfare that was, admittedly, taken advantage of, and the percentage of those who could not find work was but a portion of the total number of the unemployed. What destroyed Yugoslavia and its economy was not its Socialism or its "massive debt", which, in 1991, comprised only 15% or so of Yugoslavia's GDP and is lower several times than the debts of nearly all of its INDIVIDUAL successor states, but the aforementioned subversions of the IMF, the wars, and the shifty privatizations that have spiraled a formerly developed economy into a subset of underdeveloped economies that are being neo-colonized by the West and the East as we speak. Yugoslavia was an example of the successes of Socialism and the failures of Capitalism. In summary, Titoism doesn't have a lot to do with the economy, but ideology and foreign policies - it had inspired and heavily influenced Xiaoping's foreign policy and Gaddafi's Third International Theory, furthered sovereignty, Non-Alignment, and Anti-Imperialism in the whole body of the Third World, ideas rather opposed to both the West and the East during the Cold War, the unipolar, USA-dominated world, and the professor, apparently.
With all this information,I really wish I could personally reach out to you to learn more on this matter.Fascinating analysis.
I'm interested in coops and would be interested in knowing more about coops in Nicaragua. I hear they have a lot.
cooperatives are an amazing alternative to the traditional hierarchical capitalist mode of business organization. they offer a more democratic alternative where workers tend to be much happier and receive higher pay
Online platform workers in Serbia have mobilized to form something similar to a union, and they had rally to demand legal status and a fair tax rate. After the rally, the authoritarian governemnt immediately asked for meeting with the union leadership to negotiate. This has shown that the real power in society that can enact meaningful change is the working class.
Just a point. If l am not mistaken, for 20 years, the average annual economic growth rate in Yugoslavia was 4.8 % until about 1970.
even higher! :) yes it was.very enthusiastic times! :)
4,8% was over the entire course of the country, including the economic crisis period
@J J This applies today to the US and most of Europe.It still doesn't disprove the economic growth.Though I bet if they'd have accepted more criticism they would've still existed.
@J J That is true but it wasn't nearly as bad as in USSR or Nazi Germany where if someone overheard you criticising the govenment they could report you and you would end up in concentration camps. You weren't allowed to organize protests or criticise the government on TV or other media but no one would report you if you said the government sucks. And also 4.8% growth is deffinetly worth not being able to criticise the government. It was very easy to get a job, if you had a job you get an apartment for free or very cheap, I think you even got a car for free or very cheap, you got paid vacation, you were free to leave the country if you wanted. There really wasn't much to criticise. The reason it all fell apart was because after Tito died no one saw the idea of Yugoslavia where all south slavs are equal, they either wanted greater Serbia, greater Croatia or they wanted to leave Yugoslavia.
Not only was that growth due to the fact its new economy was replacing a terrible communist economy that was in ruins, but also depended on foreign aid. Turns out having a terrible economy then receiving a ton of foreign aid is great for high growth rates, but terrible for building a self-sustaining economy that can last generations
Yugoslavia should make clear that macroeconomics matter. You know what the dividing line between the regions in Yugoslavia was? It was trade. Part of Yugoslavia was very competitive and exported stuff successfully while other parts of the country never got a chance. There need to be mechanisms to work this out in the future.
I was born and lived in Yugoslavia and I agree with your conclusion. But you must accept reasons why it was that way. Slovenia an Croatia were much more developed in compare with other party of country. They were in former Austro-Hungarian empire while other parts were under Turks occupation . Slovenia and Croatia have had much better education, more educated workers. more skillful artisans. they had tourism (very important!) Slovenia in Winter and Croatia in summer while other parts of country struggle with scarcity of almost everything and was predominantly rural or raw materials providers, wood, coal, ore(with few exceptions of bigger cities like Belgrade, kragujevac, Niš, Skopje, Sarajevo etc)
@@sedeslav Exactly. This suggests that socialism requires a couple of mechanisms to deal with such a situation. We need a mechanism to transfer technology and we need a mechanism to either transfer wealth from the more advanced regions to the less advanced regions or have the wages reflect the productivity of the local community or a combination of those things.
Yugoslavia should never have been formed. It was totally artificial construct. Therefore, it was not Croatia’s job to subsidise poorer regions of neighbouring republics. It’s Croatia’s job to look after it’s poor regions and poor citizens.
I’m so proud that Croatia is an independent state. It’s political achievements since independence have been amazing. However, economy struggles. Worker self-management did not work. War plus Neo-Liberalism made things worse. Solution? Heaven knows.
Maybe worker democracy is a solution. Learn from Tito’s mistakes. For example, it’s not a good idea to murder people abroad just because they have different opinions. As long as Croatia is independent, has borders and an army to defend it, I’m agnostic about which economic system finally decide to choose.
Thank you. I was waiting for a video on Yugoslavia.
Ah finaly,....Yugoslavian Constitution declared "Factories to the wokers" law in 1950. So every company of any field of economy and institutions were managed by directors (politicaly loyal to the Communist Party) and worker cauncil made from elected persons employed as workers in manufacturing process and some other (administrative) professions. That model was very efficient in many casses (not of all, there was many as well negative examples). Yugoslavia productions were not only tiny "Yugo" car. But also extremely advanced and in real life confirmed military airplanes (including light supersonic fighter "Novi Avion" 1,88 Mach, ready for serial production in 1990), LSA airplanes, engineering projects ( Kuwait capital was completely built by Yugoslav "Energoprojekt" company),...Especially some factories in Slovenia ("Iskra", "Elan" (who sponsored and equipped Sweden World ski champion Ingemar Stenmark) , or "Gorenje" who owned German Consumer Enectronic Co "Korting",...Or "Podravka" well known food product exporter in Croatia, and some factories in Northern Serbian Province of Vojvodina,.... In 1986, Prime Minister Ante Marković through new federal law, materialised the Workers Co-Ops by giving the stocks to the employees of their companies. So workers have been stock owners of the companies they are employed. But, whole project collapsed by collapsing the federal state as victim of Secret State Security Service, playing on card of extreme nationalistic setaratism rather than Proletarian Internationalism,....
I just want to ad, private enterprise has been legal in Yugoslavia from 1950 . But with some limitations. In seventies and eighties small and middle size private companies ( limitations was in the law regulations over the size and number of employees, ...) have been usual. Mostly as family business, but various other forms. From 1986 so called "Prime Minister Ante Marković law on enterprises" liberalized all kind of ownership as legal and equal. At the time many private radio stations obtained a broadcasting licenses, some private companies started to produce ultralight airplanes ( today so globaly popular and advanced manufacturer "Pipistrel" at the time started producion hanglider trikes,...). There was various kind of Private and Co-Op partnerships. Employee legal rights have been same in private and Co-Op companies. Except participation in decission making . But Yugoslav experiment have been destroyed from paramilitar structures of the state,....
@@jazzforever4631
Also, most peasants owned their own land. The land was nationalized only from large landowners.
Small peasants were organized into cooperatives, which bought their products and helped them with mechanization and the application of modern methods in agriculture.
@@ненад-1 Exactly. Thank you Nenad, ...Resultes have been great. In the agricultural oriented regions of Yugoslavia, there was Agricultural Corporations ("Poljoprivredni kombinati") processing quality fruit, vegetables or meat into the first class food products. Some of this products have been sold to US Army or as catering for American international airlines (i guess Pan Am). Just to mention some had their own AG Aircraft fleet, or a share in AG Aircraft fleet stationed in Air Clubs. If we keep in mind that most of Yugosllav economy and infrastructure have been completely destroyed in both World wars, this results have been amazing.
AHAHAHA dude you realize that workers becoming stock owners of companies was a PRIVATIZATION policy? Do you even understand how ridiculous you sound right now?
And yeah sure, there were many companies in Yugoslavia and some of them were alright, but I hate to break it to you but most of the economy was funded by IMF loans which eventually lead to a debt crisis. One of the crucial parts you forgot to mention is the unemployment problems. 35% of the population was unemployed or worked in a capitalist country. 17% of the working population worked in western capitalist countries.
Another part you forgot to mention, probably because of how embarrassing it is, is that Yugoslavia developed all those fancy military machines with cooperation with western companies and basing its designs on earlier western designs...
You also completely forgot about the huge cronyism in worker cooperatives. Workers in cooperatives gave all the jobs to their kids instead of finding somebody actually capable of working at that job which lead to people who are actually good at something not being employed.
"Odlučeno je da će se nakon završetka idejnog projekta i programa realizacije, napraviti izbor između dvije potencijalne tvrtke. Te tvrtke Jugoslavija bi koristila kao svoje razvojne partnere. U tadašnjem Vazduhoplovno tehničkom institutu u Beogradu oformljen je zajednički ured s britanskim BAE-om, a u Parizu s francuskim Marcel Dassault MD. U oba ureda je tokom šest mjeseci razrađen veći broj idejnih rješenja, s različitim varijantama.
Paralelno s pregovorima o tehnološkoj potpori i radu na izradi idejnog projekta, s tvrtkama su vođeni razgovori o proizvodnji i prijenosu tehnologije za motor,[3] naoružanje i avionsku opremu.
Vezano uz razvoj Novog aviona sa Francuskom, Jugoslaviju je posjetio Jean Fleury, načelnik stožera francuskih zračnih snaga, koji je prilikom posjeta zemlji isprobao jugoslavenski školsko jurišni zrakoplov Soko G-4 Super Galeb.[4]"
hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_avion
If you actually talk to people who lived in Yugoslavia they will tell you about all sorts of horror stories about how inefficient companies were and what garbage they produced.
Yugoslavia itself was something between communism, market-socialism with some minor elements of capitalism.
@@grimreaper492 you're a troll
very helpful breakdown!!
I've commented on this before in other vids where Prof. Wolff has addressed this subject, but because it's always good to recap, but also due to the fact that his commentary was a bit too broad-brushed and general, I'll provide a brief overview of Yugoslav socialism with a little more insight.
Essentially, Yugoslavia (chiefly from the years 1951 - 1979) can be broadly characterized as a hybrid quasi-market/planned economy where semi-autonomous, worker-controlled enterprises collaborated with partial central planning from both the federal government along with input from the Republics. Overall, it can serve as an example of socialist economic development and workers' control that was actually positive and somewhat democratic. There were certain deficiencies of course. Specifically, the role the local governments played in the appointment of enterprise directors, as well as the allocation of capital and the division of profits. Despite sincere efforts at decentralization on the part of the governing Communist Party, these were elements the government enacted as a vestige of central control, and so in that respect the workers' organizations lacked real self-government. There's more I could go into, but that's the basic gist.
For more info on the economic experimentation in Tito's Yugoslavia, I'd suggest reading: “Titoism: Pattern for International Communism”, by Charles P. McVicker”, and the chapter on the economy from “Yugoslavia: a Country Study.” Additionally, I'd also recommend the chapters on Yugoslavia in “Class Struggle in Socialist Poland”, by Albert Szymanski which deal specifically with some of the failings of Yugoslav socialism, particularly the decade of market-oriented reforms throughout the 60s and 70s.
archive.org/details/titoismpatternfo012623mbp
ia601205.us.archive.org/18/items/yugoslaviacountr00curt_0/yugoslaviacountr00curt_0.pdf
archive.org/details/ClassStruggleInSocialistPoland
Yugoslav workers didn't owned companies and factories they managed them via worker council's.
That is correct.
Not a single factory,agricultural firm has ever been owned by anybody,they were given to the employees to produce goods and earn salaries.
Unless they were private owned,established.
With limited workforce up to 10 employees.
Prof Wolff, in Yugoslavia, there were three types of property:
state property, national property
and private property. Factory directors were elected by the so-called workers' council, most often from among economic experts or engineers already working in the factory.
*State property, private property and social property!
@@ненад-1 social property , you are right. my mistake (Y)
Professor Wolff, could you address issues with co-cooperatives from a Marxist perspective? Namely 1. Anarchy of Production in a market based system --> boom and bust cycle 2. Production for profit (exchange value instead of Use value) --> externalities 3. uneven development of productive forces (market competition) ---> superprofits 4. Imperialism by cooperatives, worker directed corporations continue to exploit the global south. 5. Petty bourgeois ideology and individualism --> greed, fucking over other coops. 6. monopoly formation through competition.
He has addressed 6. in a video on D@W channel of his own personal channel. It was specifically about monopolies and competition and how that would work with worker coops
Sounds like Scandinavian Social Democrat
A problem with Yugoslavia was when the federal state didn't have plans for the economy anymore (not taking about a fully planned economy type of plans, just "guides" I'd call them). This led to the republics competing against each other for the richest industries and in the end they started hating each other. The first workers' strike in Yugoslavia was against federal funds being given to poorer republics.
Dober prispevek o samoupravljanju! Hvala!
What language is this? Slovak?
@١٩٧٩ on the line Mislim da je Slovenački,zar ne?
Pozdrav za Sloveniju, da što više proširimo D@W teoriju po Balkanu!
So,I think its Slovenian language! 😉
@@slobodanboban8717 nah, man, im Russian.
Просто прочитал, смысл понял, а что за язык конкретно не знаю.
@@slobodanboban8717 и тебе всего хорошего братан)
@@ontheline3077 Veliki pozdrav za Rusiju iz Beograda, Srbija ( Ex,Yugoslavia)
:-)
Guyana 🇬🇾, during it heydays in the 70s operated on a system similar to this.Hence, it's official name The Co-operative Republic of Guyana.
As matter of fact, many co-operative unions are still in existence.
I read the Serbian company - #Energoprojekt were to build our large hydropower dam- the Upper Mazaruni Hydropower Project. But that was short-lived due to American Foreign Policy intervention!
It was during this set back that our late President Forbes Burnham took this loan and bank it in his name at a Swiss bank! Coincidentally, that very year the Swiss government decided to nationalized all banks!
As such, onto this very day, I am told the money is sitting there in the bank!
So yes coming back to the point, Guyana is a signatory to the Non-Aligned Movement. History recorded Guyana commemorating the Non-Aligned Monument at the 1972 Conference held on August 8-11of Foreign Ministers of Non-Aligned countries, the first of its kind to be held in Guyana.
The monument is a sculptural piece of the busts of its founders: the Presidents of Egypt, Ghana, India and Yugoslavia
However, sadly enough Guyana suffered tremendous setbacks in its political and economic development since it's independence from Great Britain in 1966. The country is divided along ethnic line: blacks vs Indians even though there are the ethnicities of Portuguese, Chinese and First People - the Amerindians. In addition, there is a growing 'mixed' ethnic group. But the two largest groups are the Indians and Blacks.
The country is mineral rich and has an abundance of sweet crude oil besides being the only English speaking country on the continent of South America.
Love your videos Professor Wolff.👍🇬🇾 .
Edit: 2021/01/19
Wow, thanks, never heard of that!
Awesome, I think the non-aligned countries can really help as transitional examples. Thanks for the info xD
Very nice and rare content! I would love to read more about these experiences, not just from yugoslavia, but other East European Countries in the 20th century too. Can professor recommend some reading material to us?
tito didnt speak his own supposed language, he had foreign accent, he was imposed on yugoslavia as leader and hero.. trough propaganda.. serbia wanted king and kingdom, tito was forced as ruler. all opponents were killed.. tito cursed mother of god very often.. it was experiment for world totalitarian government.. project to destroy nationailties.. religion, family.. negative selection to destroy nation. tito loaned huge amount of money from bankers.. serbia is paying even today.. experiment was succesfull.. yugoslavia territory is destroyed.. people demorlized,. economically collapsed.. and no threat to europe or anyone.. army destroyed.. war is ongoing in different means even today
@@suddndestruction6199 : You are an imbecile. First of all he had an accent because he was born on the border with Slovenia (who speak a bit different). Secondly, he was not imposed to people through propaganda, he was elected by the people and stood against fascist in 2ww, as opposed to croatian and serbian leaders who wanted Third Reich or monarchy. Yugoslavia was successful enough in their economy: covered 7% of world need for paper, it was excelent shipbuider...it was on the third place in the world (after Japan and S. Corea), Mehanotehnika was the producer of toys that was among first ten in the world, they produced first pocket calculator in Europe, 90% of all goods imported to Europe was through Yugoslavia, they were called numerous times to enter EEU (EU) but they wish to stay independent, etc. In the '80 they had financial crises like everyone in the world. Like UK, Italy, France... Because '80 had Global collaps of capitalism! Yugoslavia did borrow money from world monetary fund and the report of that institution says in '85, that they were very successfully in returning it!
Fascist diaspora planned with local nationalists (fascist) war as a revenge, a chance to rob people off and to establish fascist dictatorship which they wanted during 2ww. They succeded.
@@Vitez-sd2kc Pozdrav za Bosnu iz Beograda 😉
Professor Wolff rules!
@@suddndestruction6199 those who wanted king and faith were allied with Nazis and partizani kicked their asses for good, and people supported them. Your lies will convince no one here. Much love to my Balkan bros and sisters from Russia)
@@ontheline3077 hvala pozdrav i do tebe,
Big fan of worker self management and direction. One problem in Yugoslavia though, was that businesses raised wages above profits and so they became unviable enterprises and the government had to bail this out. And then businesses started to rely on government bailouts to sustain their profits (and the Yugoslav gov started to rely on the Soviet Union to sustain this). We would need governments to put more restrictions in place to prevent this kind of thing.
Well that's the purpose of experiments. You make mistakes and you learn. It took capitalism 4 centuries to get it right.
From maybe the best piece on Yugoslavian selfmagement ... At one of the conferences on the stalemate in self-government, the editor-in-chief of "Economic Policy", Ljuba Veljković, proposed to move to the identification of workers' property, which would increase the interest of workers and accelerate the shaping of the system. Kardelj reacted to that with a question: "What would you like us to share? And then where are we, the Party! ” In doing so, he revealed what the astute Friedman observed - that workers do indeed manage, but are not owners, because if they became owners, the almighty party would lose the covert role of owner it performed. Undoubtedly, she cared not only to preserve her "control package", but also to prevent the return of private property.
pescanik.net/samoupravljanje-buducnosti-jedne-utopije/
That was a great read, thanks
Id really like to watch a video about anarchist communism by you. (When money is abolished)
Ko je zainteresovan da napravimo D@W čitalačko/diskusioni kružok Balkanskog regiona ?
Može! Ja sam zainteresovana i za osnivanje zadruge 😅
Хорошая идея! Попробуйте Дискорд, мы в России так делаем.
Good idea. Perhaps you should try discord, works for us here in Russia.
Mislim da je to sjajna ideja!
@@phoenix. I ja sam pomišljao o osnivanju zadruge. Pošalji mi mail na sboban002@gmail.com
Pozz 😉
@@sara-jn4kv Smatram da D@W nije dovoljno zastupljen kod nas, pa eto možemo to da promenimo. Za početak i to je dosta,zar ne?
Javi mi se na mail sboban002@gmail.com
Pozz 😉
I am not against worker coops BUT the real problem is with how the work/jobs we do is decided...we have huge factories making toys and they could well be made into worker coops ...but do we NEED people doing that work? do we need those jobs? I say it must be made financially worthwhile for people to SHARE the jobs we NEED people to do and work much LESS...There is no other way to stop people doing the jobs that are destroying the planet. A worker coop in the fossil fuel industries sure won't save us..even if it would be better for the workers.
there is much work to do & people need to be incentivized to do it
to build the stateless & moneyless anti-capitalist society can't simply be wished for or hoped for or brought about by snapping one's fingers
@@wtfhah more than half the world's people are doing jobs/work we don't need and could live without.
@@wtfhah But he is right that there is an abundance of manufactured desires thanks exclusively to advertising, in fact this is the vast majority of products. We absolutely do need to reduce the amount of types of products made and then decide where and how much of this unnecessary labour should be used to make new genuinely beneficial and authentically desired products and services or whether we would prefer free time instead and where the balanced should lie.
I personally quite like a 7/8h workday and would like to keep it, so long as the wage I get reflects the value I produce so I can get the products and services I desire and would like votes on tax expenditure to see more investment in space and environment
@@peterjol we need them to be doing jobs that we can't live without
@@iraholden3606 we need to desire work as life's prime want, not just to get bare necessities
i agree that capitalism doesn't serve needs, which is why so many people are so needy despite working and producing a lot of useless garbage
the work to undo the damage of capitalism & then to BUILD something better is work that must be carried out, not shirked
I really wish there was more english translated work on Yugoslavia's economy. I have only found some CIA factbook reports on Yugoslavia's co ops and the fact that Yugoslavia's co ops weren't that much of co ops cause of State mandated management. Only some slightly better accumulated profits than USSR. Still great video
My dad worked in a coop, which now is a limited liability company (Serbia, ex-Yugoslavia). Workers had ownership, however the big teft happened in a privatisation process (early 2000s) when the state took half of the shares based on the Privatisation Act - basically they turned coop into a stock company and in the case of my dad's ex-coop from stock to limited liability. Coops were usually in agriculture business and many workers were not educated and/or informed enough to understand the importance of sticking to their shares and demanding voting rights... Majority had sold their stocks short (partially because they needed cash after sanctions and war) and so the workers lost majority of ownership.
@@phoenix. hah, the privatisation route that took former communist regimes are quite similar. In Russia they also gave so called vouchers to all workers. At the beginning vouchers were pretty valuable.Then for a short period of time created an economic collapse which sunk local currency to the bottom, and then groups of criminals in cooperation with bureaucracy and intelligence services bought those vouchers off for a price of vodka bottle. And this is how modern capitalist Russia was born.
@@ontheline3077 Yep, good example of that here was a sugar company which was bought for 1 dinar and transaction was justified as a preservation of employment. These days it's all about huge subsidies to foreign greenfield manufacturing industry (usually from China) which in return pays minimal wage and heavily polutes environment...
@@phoenix. yes, those foreign investors are only interested in cutting costs, cheap labor and therefore higher profits
Ask professor Wolf, why he never talks anout Huawei being worker owned???
because the chinese government has direct control of the market, making it a state-capitalist arrangement, not a bottom-up co-op.
They have a political aristocracy ffs.
五毛党 think for yourself, politics isnt team sports
But what if you just create an automated planned economy, where the plan will be drawn up directly by the -soviets- workers councils? In this way, you can minimize the effect of democratic chaos and spend time and resources as efficiently as possible. When USSR economy began to experience difficulties due to an overgrown planning apparatus so it could no longer allocate resources and manage local enterprises with the same efficiency we began to develop the OGAS project in the 50s, but the concept was considered too futuristic and was abandoned in favor of Lieberman's more "decentralized" reforms By the 1980s, market elements had finally broken the already poorly functioning planned economy, and the OGAS was revived, but we did not have time until the union collapsed.
Ogas wasn't the universal problem solver. some of the elements were incorporated almost head on, but bc of the price it was turned down. The real problem of Soviet economy started to face right after the introduction of cooperation law introduced by Gorbi, which destroyed the state monopoly on foreign trade and signed the death sentence to USSR economy.
@@ontheline3077 That is why so many people in the post-Soviet space believe that he was a CIA agent. It's easier for us to think he was an evil genius than a dumb fool. This is the only way for Gorbachev's actions to have logical sense.
@@Gaming_Burnout of course. The problem is that there were no active movement to save the Union, bc people used to be passive and party officials had all the reins. It took only few years of anti socialist propaganda, blocking food supply to Moscow for a few days, and bang- no more Soviet Union.
@@ontheline3077 Actually,there was one
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt
it was so active that in three days it almost caused a civil war, but as soon as everyone realized that a peaceful transfer of power would not be possible, they decided to retreat. Gorbachev's reforms led to lack of essential goods and introduction of card system at peacetime.Noone did not want more suffering,meanwhile, alcoliberal Yeltsin convinced people that market will feed everyone.
@@Gaming_Burnout yeah, i know. Those senile generals failed miserably. Especially Krykov, he had all the power in his hands to stop libs, yet he proved to be a coward.
Sooo, is worker self-management the same as self-directed enterprise, or am I mixing things up?
Yugoslav industry was not run as co-operatives as so often claimed, or not co-operatives as we would recognise them. Workers co-ops as we know them are owned by the members. Yugoslavia nationalised all industry so most of the workplaces were owned by the state. It was only managed by the workers
Excellent discussion Prof. Wolff! A key part of the discussion in my opinion!
I have a question if they don't compete won't they just raise prices, to get more?
And would a technocratic worker coop work?
Thanks.
I am from YU. It is partially true. Directors were workers from the same company. Of course not any worker but those who attented universities. As there were 6 republics there central gov was not in charge for companies.
As I said, I agree with Professor Wolff's analysis of this topic however I have one critique to make. Professor Wolff claims that the Yugoslav government had it's agenda and the workers had their own. To a certain extent this is true, however, I think that the fact that the Yugoslav government had it's own agenda in terms that it wanted to keep the country non-aligned from both the west and east is something that also benefits workers. The workers benefit if they live in a state that has ties with the USSR (the first socialist state) and also the western nations but not too close to either one. Workers would not be happy if they had to be deeply tied and influenced to Moscow instead of having control over their own destiny. In this case, the agenda of the Yugoslav government benefitted both the state and the workers because it gave the workers that same independence to control their own destiny while at the same time keeping the country independent.
Dear Professor Wolf,
Our organizational in the Philippines, employ 60,000 colleagues. We are in the maritime service industry and logistics..
30 years ago we started a cooperative to which everyone have one share and are members.
We experienmentes this because the pension systems in the country can never be trusted.
The name of our organisation is called "Magsaysay".
It might interest you......
Dear Professor, I just object to the word "regime". Next time I hope you will use it when mentioning Roosvelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Kennedy, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush... too.
But then again Yugoslavia didn't have co-ops. Yugoslav industry was not run as co-operatives as so often claimed, or not co-operatives as we would recognise them. Workers co-ops as we know them are owned by the members. Yugoslavia nationalised all industry so most of the workplaces were owned by the state. It was only managed by the workers
I don't think Wolff has studied the Yugoslav model in enough detail, he assumes the system was similar to others, which it was not. He differentiates between directors and management and goes on to claim that directors were appointed by government. This is not at all how it worked in Yugoslavia. The board of directors was called the workers council which decided on profits, investment and also appointment of management ... which Wolff cites as the role of directors. The owners of the enterprise were the workers and the workers assembly was the top decision body that had the final say on everything including the appoitment of the board (workers council), management, distribution of profits and investment.
Furthermore, the same model was applied throughout society, from the apartment block, through municipalities all the way up to parliament. This is something on an infinitely larger scale than what he explains.
The problem is that it did not function very well. Workers had formal power, just as voters have today. But in practice, there were manipulated by powerful people to decide the way people in power wanted decisions to be made. In the end, the system fell apart simply because the economic added value was too low, due to inefficiency, mismanagement and corruption. It was an experimental society and it failed because it never truly took hold. Informal methods were used by politics and party to influence decisions and workers approved them, oftern without much thought. When they rebelled it was always too little and too late.
You know this is one of the subjects I ponder a lot. Not so much getting beyond capitalism but getting beyond the need for a capital based society. Money is a concept a form of trade. This concept creates an imbalance in society. We need to get beyond money the need to trade. The capital needs to be based on the betterment of humanity the safety of our planet and all life that lives on it. The expansion of the human species into a galactic species. Money has about run its course. It’s holding us back.
@Ric Brunner, I think a pure socialist world (or at least a socialist trading-bloc) would be formed around what is called 'counter trade.' This is where the balance of payments is settled not in money, but in commodities.
I want to know more about this thought.I've been thinking of the exact same thing.
@@peternyc I've been thinking of this same thing🔥💯I'd like to pick your brain.
Yes, it did.
Someone needs to send this video to the math teacher vaush just debated. Holy shit that was so hard to watch.
Vaush is an idiot communist who comes from a rich background, so my guess is that he has mommy and daddy issues:)
@@duckhuman4657 Yes, but he is a communist. I've seen his videos!
@@juniorgod321 What communist thing does Vaush say he actually wants to do
Calling names to dismiss entire bodies of academic research does not make a good point. It makes you look like a piss baby. git gud. read a book. or one wikipedia article about marxist econ theory,
@@toericabaker I've read Marx already! Under his system, since there's no profits to be made or government. He just "expects" you to show up for work out of your free will... Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds not only in theory but also in practice?
Most of the managers in yugoslavian enterprises were "softly" appointed by the state. Almost never appointed by the workers.
7:25 State officials elected by workers, not just random state officials that were appointed by god instead of capital. Remember the dictatorship of the proletariat is always, under any system. These state officials were elected by the worker organizations, the Soviets.
There is still some of these in existence. They could not get the capital for renewal of everything.
Understandable. Its not in the interests of capitalists.
Problem with your and Yugoslav model is that workers usually dont have a lot of money saved and thus have limited capital. Limited capital means less new machinery and investment. Thus productivity gradually declines
Proff wolff is my inspiration 😁
Sure, co-ops are better for workers than ordinary capitalist enterprises, but backbone of any strong economic system consists of giant holdings and corporations, bc the bigger they are, the cheaper is their production, which is the ultimate sign of societal progress and economic success in general
The back bone of corporations is consumerism.
@@phoenix. there will be no consumerism without mass production.
@@ontheline3077 And vice versa.
In this case we can have workers participation in the administration of big companies
This is true.💯 Though are they a necessity for socialism to become successful?
The problem with Yugoslavia is that it was based on the markets which always fail. They loaned so much from the IMF that their economy tanked. It wasn't socialism but capitalism.
Social democracy
@@ontheline3077 Not particularly democratic either.
You mean like how Soviet input/output planning failed?
@@PoliticalEconomy101 who said it failed?
Worker coops could not function in a large scale unless the profit motive in capitalist mode of exchange in the market is abolished. Otherwise the workers are just squeezing themselves to get more surplus from their own labor. Such behavior is directly against the material interest of the worker themselves. Only when the goal is switched from the accumulation of capital to meeting social needs can coops be beneficial to the workers, which means a revolution must first happen to break the private monopolies prior to the mass organization of coops.
Monopolies could be broken by enforcing anti-monopoly laws. But workers or people on a large scale do not care, otherwise they would at least refuse to order from Amason for example.
@@phoenix.Breaking here means depriving the capitalists of their ownership of the workplaces as a whole, all of it. It's not the same with anti-trust law in a capitalist society that only breaks a large monopoly into several smaller ones, which still belong to capitalists. This requires a state apparatus belongs to the workers to enforce this change, i.e. a revolution.
If we develop a system that's tailored to meet societal needs,will it be similar to the capitalist economies we have now?(since consumer products are still needs)Though the difference being that it will be in a more cooperative society.And on this topic,in such a system can the value system be abolished?
It would be great to do a follow-up video on examples of tension between a socialist government and worker-coops. I have a hard time imagining worker-coops in a socialist country. They seem better suited for a capitalist economy, but this is probably my lack of understanding.
I work in a company which HQ is in a capitalist country and it claims to be "employee owned", but the truth is - it's owned by the management and not every shareholder has equal voting rights. So it's bs to a large extent. Basically only CEO and board of directors can decide regarding profit share etc. It's also based on meritocracy. So I'd say it's other way around - it's more natural to think about co-ops in a context of the socialistic ideas.
@@phoenix. You make a good point. But the confusion I have is more theoretical in nature. I imagine the worker coop to be driven by finding a balance between profit and work-life enjoyment of the workers and their coop. This is what I imagine for such an enterprise in a capitalist country. In a socialist country, however, the profit motive would be subject to the country's willingness to make market transactions have as high or higher priority over the general welfare of its population. In other words, money in a socialist country shouldn't be able to "price out" others. In such a scenario, money and price are in a zero-sum relationship with society and are toxic.
This zero sum relationship between the general population and money/price is a starting point for capitalism. It is, as far as I can see, the end/destruction of socialism.
@@peternyc Hm.. imo your premise is a bit idiosyncratic - regarding profits vs work-life balance. I don't think there is a standard measure for enjoyment or how
much profits/earnings is enough :-)) Some enjoy working less, others enjoy working all day and/or seeing products of their labour, etc. Workers co-op simply means that who ever works for a cooperative has ownership over cooperative - different models exist or existed in different political systems, but imo the basic idea of workers cooperatives remains the same regardless of the system. Yugoslavian co-ops were backed by socialist idea of assets belonging to the workers or society. Workers co-ops were local, usually established in agruculture. Industrial factories were usually not co-ops but socialy owned etc.
"HEAR,HEAR,HEAR"...YES YES YES....
In the end swizz banks owned the whole lot, sadly enogh!
I have seen the cars that were built in Yugoslavia under Communism. I'll keep my Toyota.
That is an excellent point. Yugoslavia was caught in no-man's land between Soviet Union and Western Capitalism. Sure, their products were better than USSR but they were nowhere near say German or Italian quality,. I mentioned I lived in Croatia for 6 years and all I heard was how Croatian shipbuilders were the best in the world. My response was that if you are so good then why are you always making losses and why are you always crying for subsidies from the Government. Speaking of Government, Croatians always blame the Government (in particular HDZ party) for their plight but who do they want to fix their problems, you guessed it, the government.
NO, YOU ARE IGNORANT AND ARROGANT TOO, because you think that Yugoslavia made only "YUGO"! For your information, they produced also: RENAULT, FIAT, CITROEN, VW BEETLE, AUTO UNION, DKW, AUSTIN, OPEL...For example, OPEL models were: CADET, RECORD, ASCONA, SENATOR, CORSA...We also made MERCEDES and MAN buses for our public transportation! As you can see, many of those models were FAR, FAR better than your Toyota! And yes, we had electricity and water in the kitchen and bathroom! Jesus, no wonder the rest of the World makes jokes about American ignorance...
From what I hear there is very little difference between serfdom and Yugoslavia co-op the workers can manage the horse that plows the field but don't have any input to what they plant.
Most workers are not educated in the means of production or related sciences. In public schools they are taught football , basketball, soccer, and cell/smart phone. They can barely speak English.
THIS IS TRUE, ESPECIALLY IN THE USA WHERE UNEDUCATED YOUNG PEOPLE COME TO FACTORIES TO WORK RIGHT FROM THE STREET...In Yugoslavia, in order to work in a factory, you had to finish 2-4 years of technical specialised school (mostly 4 years)! Without that - no job...
Are you kidding the corporate own our governing bodies just as was laid out for 1776. A co op today could be worker owned and that would be entirely different. As we have just witnessed our votes are just a exercise in fragility. The state legislature votes for electors who in turn cast to congress. What if a Independent candidate had 260 electoral college votes and the corrupt corporate parties had the remaining? Congress would decide as usual on Partisan lines. How you like our constitution now?
"Worker" co-ops is fine and all, but the problem is, we are running out of enough "work" to go around.
No, we are not. There is so much needed doing with climate change, ageing populations in the Developed Economies, education, housing, water, and infrastructure fit for 21st century societies. Every technological change has created jobs, whilst destroying others, but with the kleptocrats running governments with puppets as front men, the political will is absent. Its upto us to to start pushing for the improvements we need. UBI is a elastoplast over a gaping wound. The kleptocrats want to kill off small and medium enterprises but, as worker ops show, a united and organised workforce can build and create wealth and ensure secure communities. It's time to come off the kleptocrats teats, and start making things happen for ourselves.
All we need is love da da da da daaa
Future worker cooperative
6:35 Wait, Yugoslavia was socialist under Tito? I thought it was State-Capitalism Wolf? The more market-oriented mixed economy example of State-socialism is more socialist than China under Mao or the USSR?
So Wolff is advocating for private ownership of cooperatives by the workers? No government ownership or stakeholders on the board? Sounds like just a more inclusive type of capitalism rather than socialism.
He talks about workers cooperatives. If you include other shareholders then it's not a workers cooperative. My understanding is that workers coops can exist in both socialism and capitalism.
I never said shareholders I said stakeholders. The means of production should be the public commons for everyone. Private cooperatives dont fit that definition.
@@PoliticalEconomy101 Ok, do interests of stakeholders get monetised? What are their stakes? Do they work? I don't know, you did not say much either... There was socially owned industry in Yugoslavia in addition to workers cooperatives, these are not mutually exclusive things. Profits would go to local goverments or the state, profitable ones would finance ones with loses etc. Socially owned industry was split between workers and the state in the privatisation process, etc.
南斯拉夫后来碎了一地，现在的局面下，不把社会主义藏在民族主义后面没法生存。
没错
Translation?
@@ejlatsaknetxis Why is yugoslavia unable to uphold itself? I saw some discussion in Chinese Internet recently. The concensus is that class struggle rhetoric cannot survive unless hide behind some sort of nationalism. Otherwise the upper structure would be too expensive to maintain.
@@3a146 That's really interesting, I agree that almost all real socialist experiences in 20th century operationalized nationalism to some degree. I think that the main cause of such outcomes in socialist countries were results of them not being industrialized countries which have high urban proletarait populations who are highly alienated from dense communal relations. I think this is one of the reasons why Marx himself was not very concerned or wrote much about question of nationalism and why he expected revolutions to spark in industrial societes. I think we, in 21th century, with much more developed ties to peoples all around the world, can more or less transcend any nationalistic rhetoric, if not completely destroying nationalist paradigms themselves
@@bahman6035 For me, the line draws at whether you support communism. If so, then I can take the stance to abandon nationlism. But we all know the western mainstream anti-communism ideology. Hence our nationalism rhetoric becomes handy.
Currently stoned
Nearly 10 minutes of Rick rapping on Yugoslavian co-ops and he never addresses the problems. In fact he wants to deny that Yugoslavia even had co-ops. Yugoslavian co-ops failed and there is no reason to believe that co-ops meeting Rick's definition would have changed anything. Yugoslavians dealt with the failure by letting their workers emigrate to East Germany. Where is the mention of that? 10 minutes to talk about the problem and not a word addressing the problem. Or what about the problem that co-ops will not solve the income inequality problem?
So you think the problem was emigration? Btw pretty sure Yugoslavs used to emigrate to West Germany not East. Lol why would they go to EG??
@@phoenix. I stand corrected on West Germany. The problem was co-ops did not work in Yugoslavia and the only answer was to let people leave to Germany.
@@TheTalkWatcher Workers co-ops actaully did fine in Yugoslavia until.everything collapsed - my dad worked in one. The same entity which used to be a co-op still exists, but as privately owned limited liability company. Teft via privatisation process in ex-Yu and other socialst countries is another story...The problem began when political system started to collapse and you had all directors placed by the party - as Wolff mentioned. Btw. West Germany was a favourite destination for unskilled workers from Yugoslavia, they got jobs Germans did not want to do...
@@phoenix. if they worked, then why was there unemployment?
@@TheTalkWatcher There are many reasons, uneqal regional development being one (Slovenia had full employment), but one thing i can tell you in Serbia it was lower then than it has been since 1991 to this very day.
Dearest Professor Wolff; you insist on ignoring what type, what kind, of 'Mass' you are dealing with here. Do WE have what it takes to comprehend a glimpse of any of Your expressed dreams...?
I like the shorter more concise videos
you can speed it up
9 minutes is a long video for you? WTF
fix your attention span bro
Nice video!! Very engaging from beginning to end. Nevertheless, businesses and investment are the easiest way to make money irrespective of which party makes it to the oval office.
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Your Patreon must be watching Vaush. Great!
52% of Americans own stocks.
A whopping 84 percent of all stocks owned by Americans belong to the wealthiest 10 percent of households. And that includes everyone’s stakes in pension plans, 401(k)’s and individual retirement accounts, as well as trust funds, mutual funds and college savings programs like 529 plans.
And 90% actually lose principal, in real dollars -- even after accounting for inflation. Some make it up in dividends. Some do not.
Fewer than 10% of people could fully fund their own retirement, with no Social Security, Medicare, defined benefit pension plan, etc. That tells you how "good" owning stock is. It is much better than going to casinos, I'll give you that.
The thing that Richard Wolff don't seem to realize is that the reason why people don't form co ops is because they don't want to take the risk. The reason why over half a million people who work for Amazon don't just walk out of their jobs and start their own co ops is because they rather have the security of having a paycheck at the end of the week than starting their own business!
Amazon is cornering the market on how many classes of goods? No one can compete except Walmart, Target, and similar behemoths.
That is one reason too, but I don't think he would necesary disagree with your statement... edit: oh! you're the troll who claimed people in Yugoslavia were shot for not showing up for work. 😹
That's why most people don't start businesses of any kind under the current system, they don't have the capital or security to take that risk, because they're underpaid and most markets are cornered by massive companies. That's a capitalism problem. Under socialism it would be easier to start a business, as you'd be able to amass reasonable savings from the previous job, and markets would be actually be more effectively competitive, functioning more freely at lower levels, because co-ops somewhat limit company size, preventing oligopolies from forming outside nationalised systems. Smaller businesses would have higher and more equal negotiating power.
@@reubennb2859 And also because people don't want to be in co ops either. Or do you think that if Bill Gates,for example, if he were to give 100 million dollars to a hundred people in order to start a business, would any of these people would start a co op? No, they wouldn't! These hundred businesses would be all private owned companies!
@@juniorgod321 And the consequences of this are a really bad deal for the majority of global workers. Your argument is identical to 1700s conservatives saying capitalism is bad because people would prefer to be feudal lords than businesses owners. Of course they would, but it's undemocratic. And not everyone can be in charge at the same time, so good co-ops would be preferable to work under for most employees than autocratic workplaces.
Did you ever drive a Yugo? 😬🤣
I did. It was not that bad :D
I got my driver licence in Yugo. Not great not terrible. 🙃
There is an american film where they drive Yugo ewerywhere. Jack Black and Bette Midler are playing in it I think. It has a sort of a cult status.
Yes I had Yugo for 10 years! Great city car it was! Yugo was costing me next to nothing in maintenance! Even better it was designed so you could perform basic maintenance by yourself!!!
my aunt gave me one red 45, my first car with broken stick shifter. Had to start from third gear but was unaware of the problem, thought it was normal. When you learn on Yugo you can drive anything else no problem.
Just avoid the ethnic cleansing nonsense lol
The Yugoslav experiment failed because of the nature of the people here. With some other people they might succeed.
Richard is always complaining about success.