Title: Reclaiming public ownership : making space for economic democracy /
Authors: Cumbers, Andrew
Publisher: Zed Books,
Year: 2012
Subjects: Economic history; Government ownership Great Britain; Privatization Great Britain; Government business enterprises Great Britain.
Abstract: "The last few years have seen the spectacular failure of market fundamentalism in Europe and the US, with a seemingly never-ending spate of corporate scandals and financial crises. As the environmental limits and socially destructive tendencies of the current profit-driven economic model become daily more self-evident, there is a growing demand for a fairer economic alternative, as evidenced by the mounting campaigns against global finance and the politics of austerity. Reclaiming Public Ownership tackles these issues head on, going beyond traditional leftist arguments about the relative merits of free markets and central planning to present a radical new conception of public ownership, framed around economic democracy and public participation in economic decision-making. Cumbers argues that a reconstituted public ownership is central to the creation of a more just and sustainable society."--Publisher's website.
Contents: Introduction: an unexpected guest -- the return of public ownership -- Public ownership as state ownership: the post-1945 legacy -- The neoliberal onslaught and the politics of privatization -- Coming to terms with Hayek: markets, planning and economic democracy -- Financial crisis and the rediscovery of the state in the neoliberal heartland -- Public ownership and an alternative political economy in Latin America -- Alternative globalizations and the discourse of the commons -- Remaking and rescaling public ownership -- State ownership, deliberative democracy and elite interests in Norway's oil bonanza -- Decentred public ownership and the Danish wind power revolution -- Conclusion.