Getting Democracy into General Motors

Back in the thirties a small group of Marxists tried, unsuccessfully, to raise the slogan, “Open the Books!” as a way of compelling American giant corporations to disclose the true state of their financial dealings and holdings. It was done in the hope that the unions, in their negotiations with industry, would pick up this idea and that it would become part of a growing worker’s militancy.

Now, some decades later a parallel idea is taking hold. It is the widening drive, spearheaded by students and the United Auto Workers Union, to get the major corporations to adopt more socially responsible and responsive positions on questions such as pollution and the hiring of minorities. Its clearest manifestation to date ...