LHA1148H
This course explores theories and practices of democratizing work, organizations, and the economy. It looks at the ways workers and communities can take stewardship of working life, work organizations, and the economy and critically assesses management and workers' strategies of workplace and organizational participation. The course also homes in on how contemporary alternative economic arrangements (such as worker cooperatives and numerous forms of self-managed community initiatives), the social and solidarity economy, and environmental and social movements prefigure the expansion of economic democracy and social change while they, at the same time, directly contest the ongoing crisis spawned by neoliberal capitalism. The course applies theory to practice via multiple case studies from the global North and South and student' own experiences with work and participative organizations in the for-profit, not-for-profit, and public sectors. Throughout, the course interlaces explorations of workplace, organizational, and economic democracy with critical adult learning theory and practice.