Building the new common sense

Social ownership for the 21st century

Labour Representation Committee, paperback, 24 pages, £3

The financial crisis and the impending downturn means that more thoroughgoing solutions to economic problems are now being widely discussed for the first time in decades.

This pamphlet by the Left Economics Advisory Panel argues that there is an urgent need to reconsider the role for workers in exercising control over their workplaces and their employers. And it emphasises the need to reassert the role of social ownership on the economy.

John McDonnell MP argues that the takeover of bank Northern Rock put social ownership back on the political agenda — and subsequent bail-outs have confirmed this. Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT rail union, puts forward a model of public ownership for the railways as an alternative to the disastrous privatisation of the industry. And Maria Exall and Gary Heather, executive members of the CWU communication workers’ union, argue the case for taking the telecoms industry back under state control.

>None of the contributors want a return to the bureaucratic nationalised industries of the past. The focus of the pamphlet is on workers’ control and industrial democracy.

This pamphlet is highly relevant in these tumultuous times. It reminds us why trade unions need to be at the forefront with the answers to the crash, now that the regime of the last 30 years has broken.