UC Irvine UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Economic Democracy: From Continual Crisis to a People Oriented Economy Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0wn9n362 Author Carlos, Alfredo Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Economic Democracy: From Continual Crisis to a People Oriented Economy DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In Political Science by Alfredo Carlos Marquez Dissertation Committee: Professor, Dr. Cecelia Lynch, Co-Chair Professor, Dr. Rodolfo D. Torres, Co-Chair Professor, Dr. Kevin Olson Professor, Dr. Raul Fernandez 2015 © 2015 Alfredo Carlos Marquez DEDICATION For my family: my daughter, my little June bug and my sunshine Amelie Carlos-Martinez; my father Alfredo Carlos Sr.; my mother Eva Carlos Marquez; my sisters, Lourdes (Lulu) Carlos, Gabriela (Gaby) Elizabeth Carlos and in the memory of my sister Veronica Carlos. You have all inspired me and this work in more ways than you know. May your legacy of struggle, determination, survival and above all your sense of justice live on in my work beyond these pages. "When I rise, it will be with the ranks, not from the ranks." -Eugene V. Debs “It takes a lot of laughing to make a new world, one where many worlds fit.” -Subcomandante Marcos ii Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS V CURRICULUM VITAE VII ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION XV INTRODUCTION 1 CONTEXT 3 SIGNIFICANCE OF RESEARCH 7 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 13 OUTLINE OF DISSERTATION 15 CHAPTER ONE: DEMOCRATIZING THE DISCIPLINE 17 A SHORT SIGHTED POLITICS: THE DISCIPLINE AS DISCOURSE 20 TOWARDS AN EMANCIPATORY SOCIAL SCIENCES 33 MARXISM AS A PEDAGOGY AND METHOD OF THEORY AND PRAXIS 36 DEMOCRATIC RESEARCH: ACTION RESEARCH 39 ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY 45 CHAPTER TWO: HEGEMONY, WAR OF POSITION AND WORKPLACE DEMOCRACY 47 THE CHANGING NATURE OF LABOR: CAPITALISM AND WORKPLACE DEMOCRACY 47 CAPITALIST HEGEMONY AND A WAR OF POSITION: HUMAN NATURE, CULTURE, AND IDEOLOGY 48 CAPITAL, LABORING CLASSES, LABOR UNIONS AND THE WAR OF POSITION 55 OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE THE NATURE OF LABOR 60 A DIFFERENT SOCIAL RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION: WORKER COOPERATIVES AND BUILDING A COUNTER- HEGEMONIC CULTURE AND ORGANIZATIONAL FORM 63 BUILDING COOPERATIVE CULTURE AND FIGHTING A WAR OF POSITION IN THE BAY AREA 73 CHAPTER THREE: ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY: ITS ORIGINS, DEBATES, THEORETICAL LEGACY AND PRAXIS 81 ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY AND THE FAILURE OF CAPITALISM AND POLITICS 84 PROPERTY IN COMMON 92 SOURCE OF WEALTH AND VALUE AND THE (DIS)UNITY OF WORKER AND MEANS OF LABOR 96 THE COOPERATIVE MODE OF PRODUCTION AND THE REUNIFICATION OF LABORER AND HIS PRODUCT 100 ANARCHISM AND ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY 104 CONCLUSION 110 CHAPTER FOUR: RACISM, CAPITALIST INEQUALITY AND THE COOPERATIVE MODE OF PRODUCTION 112 INTRODUCTION 112 IDENTITY CHALLENGES WITHIN COOPERATIVES 113 PATERNALISM IN A COOPERATIVE ENVIRONMENT 121 MOVING BEYOND A POLITICS OF DIFFERENCE 129 RACISM, AND THE MACROPOLITICS OF COOPERATIVES 135 COOPERATIVES AND A BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE 143 iii CHAPTER FIVE: COOPERATIVES, NEO-LIBERAL CAPITALISM AND CHANGING THE MODE OF PRODUCTION 149 COOPERATIVES, A CULTURAL WAR OF POSITION AND THE FORMATION OF A NEW HISTORICAL BLOC 149 NEO-LIBERAL CRISES AND SPACE FOR COUNTER HEGEMONY 152 MOVING FROM AND ANTI-AGENDA TOWARDS A COOPERATIVE MODE OF PRODUCTION 158 APPENDIX A: SAMPLE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 168 BIBLIOGRAPHY 169 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I want to thank my family, friends and people whose paths have crossed mine to teach me. I thank them for all of the support, inspiration, sacrifices, wisdom and knowledge that they have provided me in setting the foundation for this work and what comes after. I am a reflection of their work and lessons. To my mentors and dissertation committee Cecelia Lynch, Rodolfo Torres, Raul Fernandez and Kevin Olson, I have a great debt of gratitude for your guidance and support. I am extremely thankful and appreciative of the time you spent on helping and guiding me. Each of you had a fundamental role in shaping my scholarship. I am indebted to a great many people. Rudy Torres, who I met my second year in graduate school and has become a great friend and mentor provided me the space to explore my intellectual curiosity. I would not have been able to complete this project without his support, dedication, guidance, expertise and more importantly friendship. I am greatly humbled to have been your student. I will miss our discussions and debates but I will always carry your passion for social justice and economic democracy with me. Thank you. To Cecelia Lynch, I offer you my deepest respect. Your guidance has been invaluable and I am especially grateful for the way you balanced supporting my research interest with challenging me to do better. You provided me the methodological, intellectual and writing support that has been instrumental to my development. Thank you. To Profe Raul Fernandez who I met as a wide-eyed and new graduate student my first quarter at UCI, I am grateful for so many things that you have imparted on me. Your time, support, guidance, knowledge, wisdom and friendship have meant a great deal to me. I have the utmost respect and admiration for you and I will miss our coffee platicas. Thank you for guiding my theoretical interests and for being a kindred spirit. I am very grateful and deeply indebted to Ralph-Armbruster Sandoval and Zaragosa Vargas who were the very first to take a chance on a young Chicano from Los Angeles at UC Santa Barbara majoring in History and Chicano Studies. I would never have thought of being on this path let alone begin it without your vote of confidence. It was in your classes that my intellectual passion for economic justice first grew. My dissertation is a culmination of the work you inspired in my early years. Both of your’ passion and focus on working class politics continues to inspire and motivate me. To El Congreso de UCSB, all of the people that came with me, before me and have come after me, I have the greatest of respect and appreciation for you. It is here that I first learned how to fight for social and economic justice. It was the people of El Congreso who taught me to think and question critically but also to act with praxis. It was El Congreso that instilled in me a great sense of justice for working people, who without, I would not be who or where I am today. v I want to thank all of the great minds and friends that I made at UC Irvine. Armando Ibarra, Robert Nothoff, Alejandra Albarran, Carolina Sarmiento, Erin Evans, Danny Gascon, Aaron Roussell, Nicole Shortt, Analicia Mejia Mesinas, Tom Le, Arturo Jimenez, Hector Martinez, Dirk Horn, Archie Delshad, Jennifer Garcia, and the members of the Chicano Latino Graduate Student Collective, all of you taught me as much as any graduate seminar and your support sustained me in this process. Thank you all. To my carnales, Osvaldo “Ozze” Orozco, Nicholas “Nick-Cuz” Centino, Saul “DJ Orbs” Serrano, Saul “Chapo” Zevada, Miguel “Miggy Mumbles” Solis, Erick “Chonsy” Iniguez, and my carnalas, Angela “Chola” Portillo and Gloria “G” Sanchez, thank you for all of your support and carnalismo in difficult as well as good times. It has meant the world. I am grateful to all of the hard working people of all sorts of different racial, ethnic and gender backgrounds struggling to make a living in and outside the U.S. Their struggle inspires me. I am especially indebted to the workers that shared their stories with me. Their stories are the backbone and the purpose of this work. To Sonia L. Martinez, thank you for accompanying me on this journey. Your support has meant more than you will ever know. Above all I extend my love, admiration and appreciation to padres y familia. Eva Carlos Marquez y Alfredo Carlos Ramirez, gracias por todos sus sacrificios y enseñansas y mas que nada su apoyo y amor. Gracias Familia: Lourdes Carlos, Gabriela Carlos, Veronica Carlos Johnny Ortiz, Luna Ortiz, Rocky Ortiz and all of my family in the U.S. and Mexico, too many to name. Tia Belen you are deeply missed, thank you for helping to raise me, may you rest in power. And finally, thank you mija, my little June bug Amelie Carlos-Martinez. Your smile gives me strength and purpose. I only hope that in some small way I can continue all of your legacies and be the kind of academic and agent for justice that you have all taught me to be. Mil respetos a todos/as and with mad flaming amor, GRACIAS! vi CURRICULUM VITAE Alfredo Carlos Marquez EDUCATION Ph.D., Political Science in University of California, Irvine American Politics Irvine, California. 2015 Political Theory M.A., Political Science in California State University, Long Beach Comparative Politics Long Beach, California. 2008 International Relations B.A., History and Chicano Studies University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, California. 2003 RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS Social Movements and Economic Democracy; Racial and Ethnic Politics; Mexican, Chicano and Latin American Politics; Immigration; Urban Politics; Labor Politics; Political Economy; Democratic Theory; Politics of Development; Politics in Entertainment Media and Culture. FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS • UC Irvine Associate Dean’s Fellowship, School of Social Science 2014- Fall • University of California President’s Dissertation Year Fellowship 2013- 2014 • Q.A. Shaw McKean, Jr. Fellowship, Rutgers University 2013- 2014 School of Management and Labor Relations • DECADE Graduate Student Travel Award, UC Irvine 2013- March • Gilbert G. Gonzalez Graduate Student Research Paper Award 2013- February Department of Chicano/Latino Studies, UC Irvine • Research Grant, Department of Political Science, UC Irvine 2013- February • DECADE Graduate Student Travel Award, UC Irvine 2013- February • Travel Award, University of California – Cuba Academic Initiative 2013- Nov.