Author : Alex Gourevitch
Release : 2015
Genre : Business & Economics
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 179/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth by : Alex Gourevitch

Download or read book From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth written by Alex Gourevitch. This book was released on 2015. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reconstructs how a group of nineteenth-century labor reformers appropriated and radicalized the republican tradition. These "labor republicans" derived their definition of freedom from a long tradition of political theory dating back to the classical republics. In this tradition, to be free is to be independent of anyone else's will - to be dependent is to be a slave. Borrowing these ideas, labor republicans argued that wage laborers were unfree because of their abject dependence on their employers. Workers in a cooperative, on the other hand, were considered free because they equally and collectively controlled their work. Although these labor republicans are relatively unknown, this book details their unique, contemporary, and valuable perspective on both American history and the organization of the economy.