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Past research on collectivist-democratic organizations has attributed their distinctiveness to their socio-political goals and democratic decision-making and largely ignored their work processes. This ethnographic study examines how such organizations resist alienating forms of work even in the face of direct competition with for-profit companies. It focuses on Scopix, a French cooperative sheet-metal factory where the first author spent one year as a shop-floor worker. Cooperators there developed various practices to retain an emancipatory dimension to their work, regularly putting forward “craft ethics” as a counterweight to the sheet-metal industry’s drive to rationalize work processes. Drawing on the sociology of worth, the authors analyze how these practices emerged from the arrangements that workers made between the industrial world on the one side and the domestic and inspired worlds on the other. This study contributes to the literature into two main ways. First, the authors refine the sociology-of-worth framework by conceptualizing the emancipatory dimension of work as the result of ad hoc arrangements between different worlds. Second, the authors highlight the need for the literature on collectivist-democratic organizations to increase its focus on work, introducing the concept of work degeneration as a step in that direction.

Capital increasingly takes the form of intangible assets, especially trademarked corporate brands. Further, contemporary capitalism increasingly accumulates through commodification of iconic cultural images and legendary narratives constituting a “second enclosure movement” (Boyle, 2008). This paper develops a critical theory of brands, branding, and brand management within economies of spectacle.

A case study of the consumer culture surrounding large displacement motorcycling is used to critique the central premise of consumer culture theory (marketing professionals create brands that become valuable icons) and develop an alternative view using concepts from critical theory, especially spectacle (Debord, 1967) and culture industry (Adorno, 1991).

After initial enclosure, legends were managed by Crossmarketing Licensing Networks (CMLN), coalitions of corporate and state actors, each possessing a piece of the legendary pie. The Sturgis CMLN was organized into two political divisions, rally profiteers and civic leaders, with overlapping but differentiated interests and approaches to the management of the Sturgis legend. The CMLN intervened in the cultural commons to overcome legendary degradations (banality, incoherence, undesirability) surrounding the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

Brands are capitalized culture created by enclosures, a form of primitive accumulation. Under current conditions of immaterial production, CMLN’s engage in ongoing cultural production to maintain the capitalized value of their brands. Brands are not only hunted in the wilds of culture, but also increasingly domesticated and fattened when herded through legendary commons.

This volume explores an expansive array of organizational imaginaries, or understandings of organizational possibilities, with a focus on how collectivist-democratic organizations offer alternatives to conventional for-profit managerial enterprises. These include worker and consumer cooperatives and other enterprises that, to varying degrees, (1) emphasize social values over profit; (2) are owned not by shareholders but by workers, consumers, or other stakeholders; (3) employ democratic forms of managing their operations; and (4) have social ties to the organization based on moral and emotional commitments. The contributors to this volume examine how these enterprises generate solidarity among members, network with other organizations and communities, contend with market pressures, and enhance their larger organizational ecosystems. In this introductory paper, the authors put forward an inclusive organizational typology whose continuums account for four key sources of variation – values, ownership, management, and social relations – and argue that enterprises fall between these two poles of the collectivist-democratic organization and the for-profit managerial enterprise. Drawing from this volume’s empirical studies, the authors situate these market actors within fields of competition and contestation shaped not just by state action and legal frameworks, but also by the presence or absence of social movements, labor unions, and meta-organizations. This typology challenges conventional conceptualizations of for-profit managerial enterprises as ideals or norms, reconnects past models of organizing among marginalized communities with contemporary and future possibilities, and offers activists and entrepreneurs a sense of the wide range of possibilities for building enterprises that differ from dominant models.

For Colombia, cocaine is a product that is sold for profit in the United States. Mainstream political economy, let alone the other social sciences, has little to say about the process of extraction of surplus value in the production and distribution of cocaine, in other words, how cocaine is exploited for profit. The paper argues that the conventional framework, which locates profits generated from the cocaine trade in an economic model of crime shields a much deeper reality than simply ‘money laundering’ as a ‘legal problem.’ The central argument is that the cocaine trade in general, and the cocaine economy in particular, are a vital aspect of U.S. imperialism in the Colombian economic system. The paper tackles a critical problem: the place of cocaine in the re-colonization of Colombia – defined as ‘narcocolonialism’ – and the implications of the cocaine trade generally for U.S. imperialism in this context. The paper evaluates selected literature on the Colombian cocaine trade and offers an alternative framework underpinned by a political economy analysis drawn from Marx and Lenin showing that cocaine functions as an ‘imperial commodity’ – a commodity for which there exists a lucrative market and profit-making opportunity. It is also a means of capital accumulation by what could be termed, Colombia's comprador ‘narcobourgeoisie;’ dependent on U.S. imperialism. It is hoped that by analyzing cocaine with a Marxist interpretation and political economy approach, then future developments in understanding drugs in Colombia's complex political economy may be anticipated.

The Mondragon cooperatives are the most thoroughly studied and well-known example of worker cooperatives in the world. Yet while there has been much discussion and wide recognition of the empirical growth of the Mondragon co-ops, there is substantial confusion about the lessons we can draw from this case in thinking about workplace democracy more broadly.

The normative and empirical literature on Mondragon is carefully analyzed to draw out the main implications from this case study for the broader issue of workplace democracy.

I contend that Mondragon teaches us two main lessons. First, that workplace democracy can indeed operate in a way that is economically sustainable and socially superior to conventional firms. Second, Mondragon sheds light on the question of whether co-ops are doomed to degenerate.

This paper advances our understanding and conceptualization of workplace democracy.

This paper provides practitioners with an up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of the world’s most successful cooperative network.

This paper provides insight into the practical feasibility and normative desirability of alternative organizations of workplaces in the form of worker cooperatives.

This paper will be of particular interest to scholars and activists interested in democratic alternatives to conventional hierarchical firms by illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of the Mondragon cooperatives and drawing out the lessons that this specific yet influential example has for issues of workplace democracy more broadly.

One of the surprising developments in the privatization processes of post-socialist economies was the high incidence of employee ownership. However, the available evidence suggests that the number of employee-owned firms is declining quite rapidly. This paper approaches the decline by using data on individuals in Estonian employee-owned firms. The key idea is that employee ownership can be sustainable only if it is extended also to new, incoming employees.We analyze the determinants of ownership in employee-owned firms and find out that new employees are excluded from ownership. While this finding is consistent with the literature on “degeneration” of employee-owned firms, it is not consistent with earlier empirical research. We argue that in developed economies, there are many countervailing forces that prevent the decline, but these are not in operation in Estonia. The peculiarity of Estonian findings is explained by different motives of entry of employee ownership vs. advanced market economies. However, the findings from this study may carry over to other transition economies as well.

In this paper, my claim is that employee ownership of industrial companies enables economic survival, democracy, and joint responsibility. My main focus is a case study of Ljuders Nickelsilfverfabrik and its change to employee ownership. In 1980, 36 of the 42 employees became owners. My research question is how have the economy and democracy in an employee-owned industrial company changed over the years? My main research method includes a 35-year in-depth longitudinal case study of Ljuders Nickelsilfverfabrik since its employee takeover. The empirical material includes documents, interviews, participant observations, and informal talks over the entire study period. My theory is based on the study by Connell Fanning and McCarthy (1983, 1986), who have compiled the critical literature on employee-owned companies and have asked why so few employee-owned companies exist in Western economies. They formulate six non-viability hypotheses for employee ownership, against which I present my empirical study and conclude that employee ownership is possible. From my case study in combination with the literature about organizational changes, I formulate a recipe for a successful employee takeover and collective entrepreneurship. The experience of Ljuders Nickelsilfverfabrik shows that a more complete business idea can subsequently unfold with the help of different people’s knowledge and experiences. Degeneration from democratic to more traditional ownership and control can be avoided by placing new people in leadership positions. The management must create legitimacy for a different organizational form for internal and external stakeholders.

Literature on nontraditional firms has focused on behavioral differences with for-profit firms. Less attention has been given to the variations in behavior among nontraditional firms. This chapter examines differences across three types of Uruguayan nonprofit health care organizations.

This chapter draws on a unique dataset of Uruguayan health care organizations during the period 1982–1990, as well as interviews with doctors working in the three types of nonprofits during spring 2010. We use a simple OLS regression to identify differences in average behavior, and differences in reaction to a regulatory change.

The chapter shows that structure of stake holding and governance significantly affect behavior, even where many behaviors are highly regulated.

These findings highlight the importance of specifying governance structure when predicting behavior of nontraditional firms. Empirical tests of behavioral differences between traditional and nontraditional firms will be more meaningful if the governance structure of nontraditional firms is common and specified. A limitation of our study is our inability to control for the timing of degeneration of producer cooperatives. This would be one element of governance structure to consider in future data collection.

These findings highlight the need to avoid drawing broad policy conclusions from the behavior of a specific subset of nontraditional firms.

This chapter highlights the importance of carefully specifying stakeholder and governance structure when predicting behavior of nontraditional firms. It is of interest to anyone using a sample of nontraditional firms to test general hypotheses about their behavior.