Sam Pizzigati, The Case for a Maximum Wage
Louise Haagh, The Case for Universal Basic Income
James K. Boyce, The Case for Carbon Dividends
Frances Coppola, The Case for People’s Quantitative Easing
Joe Guinan & Martin O’Neill, The Case for Community Wealth Building
Anna Coote & Andrew Percy, The Case for Universal Basic Services
Gerald Friedman, The Case for Medicare for All
Andrew Cumbers, The Case for Economic Democracy
polity
Copyright © Andrew Cumbers 2020
The right of Andrew Cumbers to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2020 by Polity Press
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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3386-2
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cumbers, Andrew, author.
Title: The case for economic democracy / Andrew Cumbers.
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2020. | Series: The case for | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: “Andrew Cumbers shows why economic democracy’s time has come”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019034779 (print) | LCCN 2019034780 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509533848 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509533855 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509533862 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Distributive justice. | Social justice. | Democratization.
Classification: LCC HB523 .C84 2020 (print) | LCC HB523 (ebook) | DDC 330.01--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019034779
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019034780
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I am grateful to the Adam Smith Business School and the wider academic community at the University of Glasgow for providing me with the space, time and collegiality to help me complete this book. Special thanks are due to Robert McMaster who has been my partner on the related project to construct an Economic Democracy Index, and who has been the source of important discussions and insights on economic democracy over almost two decades. I am grateful too to the ESRC for the initial funding for that project ‘Transforming Public Policy through Economic Democracy’ (REf: ES/N006674/1), which helped to develop some of the ideas behind this book. Our other co-investigators on that project, Michael White, Susana Cabaco and Karen Bilsland, also deserve thanks for their support in various ways over the past four years.
Special thanks are also due to David Featherstone for his broader insights on progressive and radical thought. Outside Glasgow, Thomas Hanna, Joe Guinan and Gar Alperovitz of the Democracy Collaborative, Andy Pike and Danny MacKinnon at CURDS, Geoff Whittam and Katherine Trebeck have all in different ways been a source of ideas, debate and creative thinking that have helped me clarify and refine my arguments over the past decade. Thanks also to George Owers, my editor (plus three anonymous referees) for the perceptive and insightful thoughts and comments that have greatly improved the book. All remaining errors are of course mine. Thanks also to George and Julia Davies at Polity for their patience and support through the numerous missed deadlines. Anni Pues has, as ever, been an ever-present source of love, encouragement and inspiration. Finally, thanks to Anna and David for their constant reminders that there is more to life than work.