Getting the Unions into Social Planning

The time has come to bring trade unions into the formulation of economic policy. Democratic socialists have always believed that workers should participate in decision-making and have recognized the trade unions as the legitimate representatives of the workers. But there have been problems. Workers’ participation clashed at points with liberal democratic theory, which emphasized political action; it also encountered the resistance of capital and the state. Now it has become urgent that unions take a hand in shaping the policies of the mixed economies. It is urgent for the economy as a whole, because of the failure of Keynesianism, the institutional instability of the system, and the impossibility of having policies on incomes, prod...