According to Antonio Gramsci, workers' councils were transitional institutions expected to carry on business in a market economy and thereby prepare the ground for the revolution. However, upon seizing power, workers were expected to establish a centrally planned system and, hence, to renounce...

Which is the fundamental contradiction of capitalism: the capital-labor polarity or the contrast between socialized production and private appropriation? Those looking on the capital-labor polarity as the main contradiction will argue that socialism arises when the passage from a system...

An analysis of Marx’s alienation theory is the starting point for establishing if alienation would actually be cancelled in a system of self-managed firms. As Marx held that alienation comes at various degrees and is strongest in capitalistic systems with hired labor, the author argues...