Imprese cooperative e democrazia economica

In a recently published book, Bruno Jossa (2015) proposed an economic system composed mainly of co-operative firms (democratic enterprises), where means of production are publicly owned and wage labour is forbidden. Jossa argues that a system of co-operative firms, not a system of planned economy, is the true socialism, fully compatible with the letter of Marx's writings. Jossa's proposal is compared with that of Meade (1989, 1993) involved in the use of a special kind of co-operative, DLCP, defined as a firm in which workers and capitalists negotiate an agreement which fixes the firm's profit appropriation criterion and provides for the issuance of two different categories of shares, labour shares and capital shares. Meade's project also provides a large state intervention in the economy. Both proposals lead, according to their authors, to reduce unemployment and to an improvement in the material and moral condition of individuals. Strengths and weaknesses of the two proposals are highlighted.