Incessant propaganda endlessly blares “there is no alternative” to capitalism. But there is always an alternative. Humanity need not be condemned to sit by helplessly as an uncontrollable economic and political system spanning the world brings us devastating inequality, precarious jobs, life-threatening environmental destruction and global war. What Do We Need Bosses For? Toward Economic Democracy analyzes past and present efforts to establish systems of economic democracy on a national or society-wide basis, dissecting the mounting inequalities of capitalism and theorizing how we might organize a better world.

Working people everywhere have repeatedly sought to create that better world, organizing to reverse their subordinate positions under capitalism and to take charge of their working lives and their workplaces through egalitarian movements that sought to build economies for everybody rather than for a minuscule capitalist elite. Political democracy is impossible without economic democracy. Economic democracy, in turn, is impossible under capitalism. As ever more people realize the present world system offers them nothing but more hardship, movements to create a better world inevitably will rise again.

Six examples of past and present efforts to establish new systems of economic democracy on a national or society-wide basis discussed are workers’ self-management in Yugoslavia, workers’ control in Czechoslovakia, the social-property area of Allende-era Chile, the democratic confederalism of Rojava, the cooperatives of Cuba and the communes of Venezuela. What Do We Need Bosses For? also contains brief discussions of several other examples of attempts to establish economic democracy, critiques of the mounting inequalities of capitalism and analyses of several theoretical ideas by various authors as to how we might organize a better world, one that produces for human need rather than private profit.

Table of contents:
1. Without economic democracy, there is no political democracy
2. ‘The factories for the workers’: Workers’ self-management in Yugoslavia
3. ‘An inalienable right of the socialist producer’: Workers’ control in Czechoslovakia
4. ‘The only privileged ones will be the children’: The social-property area of Chile
5. ‘Mutual and peaceful coexistence and understanding’: The democratic confederalism of Rojava
6. ‘A socialist form of joint ownership’: The cooperatives of Cuba
7. ‘The construction of a fair and just society’: The communes of Venezuela
8. Can we reform our way to a better world?
9. Can we use the bricks of today to build the world of tomorrow?