This is Richard Wolff from ‘Democracy At Work’ responding to another ‘Ask Prof Wolff’ question
from our Patreon community. This one comes from Rui Claudino from Portugal. Rui asks about
Portugal - whether we can expect to make much headway advocating for worker co-ops
so long as western culture and Portugal, in particular, are covered in, drowning in,
deeply committed to individualism as opposed to the community or the society - ‘Individualism
versus Community’. This back and forth, either-or is an old issue in western thought and indeed in
much of the rest of the world as well. So I’d like to talk about it in terms
of advocacy for worker co-ops and I think the central response I would make and I understand
Rui's question - to be involved in a worker co-op is to have a deep commitment to collectivity,
to working issues out, to building a community but it's a community of individuals and that I think
has to be where we go with this issue. And what I mean by that is- to borrow a page from Hegel
and from Marx - people who I have learned a great deal from in my life. So here we go-
the individual and the community are themselves not polar opposites but conditions of one another,
shapers of one another- caught up in an endless dialectic of mutual transformation. Let me
explain. The individual, whatever he or she is, is shaped by the community in which they exist,
into which literally they are born. Initially the community perhaps of the family, then of the
larger extended family, then of the neighborhood, the tribe, the community, the society.
Those institutions that comprise the society- small or large- shape who we are literally, what
our individuality amounts to. But, because each of us is positioned in a different place- your mother
is not mine, your household is not mine, your town is not mine- each of us is individuated,
each of us is the product of a uniquely structured environment. So, we're all different and in our
differences, we also impact one another, and in our differences and our impacts on one another,
we also transform the society. In other words, the society shapes the individual and vice versa.
So perhaps the way to advocate for worker co-ops is to grab hold of this dialectical mutually
changing open-ended interaction and to say that in order for individuals to change
their workplaces, to make them democratic, to make them genuine communities- there will have to be
changed individuals- true enough. But, likewise, to change individuals
so that they do appreciate, welcome, and make good use of workplaces that are democratic,
we need to make those workplaces democratic because that changed structure will alter the
people inserted into it. If we transform a capitalist hierarchical workplace
in the factory in the office in the store into a collectively democratically run community,
we are not only changing the structure, we will be changing the individuals who constructed that
structure, who made that conversion to that structure happen and as those individuals
construct and work in a democratically run worker co-op, their individuality changing will change
the co-op. It will not be next year the way it was this year. The individuals within it
will leave as deep an imprint upon it, as the creation of it as a social institution leaves
on them as individuals. Let's not get caught up in the either-or. It's not our job to pick
between two aspects of a continuously interactive totality. That's really one of the lessons
that Hegel’s philosophy and Marx’s application of it to society teach. And I think it is very
helpful to understand the importance of creating worker co-ops because of their intrinsic value,
but also because of how they will change workers- individual workers- each in an individual way and,
to welcome that those individuals with their distinctive qualities will also react back on
one another and on the institution of democratic workplaces. Capitalist enterprises changed from
what they began as in England in the 17th century and everywhere else in the succeeding centuries.
Capitalism was always changed by the people it had changed from the feudalism that pre-existed
capitalism. There again, the change from a feudal manner to a capitalist enterprise
changed individuals in basic ways who in turn changed that capitalism across its history,
just like those changed individuals. Now more than ever, we’re looking at that capitalism and
saying we can, we should and we will do better. This is Richard Wolff for Democracy at Work.