Quite simply, workers' self-management (sometimes called "workers' control") means that all workers affected by a decision have an equal voice in making it, on the principle of "one worker, one vote." That is, workers "ought to be the real managers of industries." [Peter Kropotkin, Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 157] As noted earlier, however, we need to be careful when using the term "workers' control," as the concept is currently being co-opted by the ruling elite, which is to say that it is becoming popular among sociologists, industrial managers, and social-democratic union leaders, and so is taking on an entirely different meaning from the one intended by anarchists (who originated the term).

In the hands of capitalists, "workers' control" is now referred to by such terms as "participation," "democratisation," "co-determination," "consensus," "empowerment", "Japanese-style management," etc. As Sam Dolgoff notes, "[f]or those whose function it is solve the new problems of boredom and alienation in the workplace in advanced industrial capitalism, workers' control is seen as a hopeful solution. . . . a solution in which workers are given a modicum of influence, a strictly limited area of decision-making power, a voice at best secondary in the control of conditions of the workplace. Workers' control, in a limited form sanctioned by the capitalists, is held to be the answer to the growing non-economic demands of the workers." ["Workers' Control" in The Anarchist Collectives, p. 81]

The new managerial fad of "quality circles" — meetings where workers are encouraged to contribute their ideas on how to improve the company's product and increase the efficiency with which it is made — is an example of "workers' control" as conceived by capitalists. However, when it comes to questions such as what products to make, where to make them, and (especially) how revenues from sales should be divided among the workforce and invested, capitalists and managers don't ask for or listen to workers' "input." So much for "democratisation," "empowerment," and "participation!" In reality, capitalistic "workers control" is merely an another insidious attempt to make workers more willing and "co-operative" partners in their own exploitation.

Hence we prefer the term "workers' self-management" — a concept which refers to the exercise of workers' power through collectivisation and federation (see below). Self-management in this sense "is not a new form of mediation between the workers and their capitalist bosses, but instead refers to the very process by which the workers themselves overthrow their managers and take on their own management and the management of production in their own workplace. Self-management means the organisation of all workers . . . into a workers' council or factory committee (or agricultural syndicate), which makes all the decisions formerly made by the owners and managers." [Dolgoff, Op. Cit., p. 81] As such, it means "a transition from private to collective ownership" which, in turn, "call[s] for new relationships among the members of the working community." [Abel Paz, The Spanish Civil War, p. 55] Self-management means the end of hierarchy and authoritarian social relationships in workplace and their replacement by free agreement, collective decision-making, direct democracy, social equality and libertarian social relationships.

Therefore workers' self-management is based around general meetings of the whole workforce, held regularly in every industrial or agricultural syndicate. These are the source of and final authority over decisions affecting policy within the workplace as well as relations with other syndicates. These meeting elect workplace councils whose job is to implement the decisions of these assemblies and to make the day to day administration decisions that will crop up. These councils are directly accountable to the workforce and its members subject to re-election and instant recall. It is also likely that membership of these councils will be rotated between all members of the syndicate to ensure that no one monopolises an administrative position. In addition, smaller councils and assemblies would be organised for divisions, units and work teams as circumstances dictate.

In this way, workers would manage their own collective affairs together, as free and equal individuals. They would associate together to co-operate without subjecting themselves to an authority over themselves. Their collective decisions would remain under their control and power. This means that self-management creates "an organisation so constituted that by affording everyone the fullest enjoyment of his [or her] liberty, it does not permit anyone to rise above the others nor dominate them in any way but through the natural influence of the intellectual and moral qualities which he [or she] possesses, without this influence ever being imposed as a right and without leaning upon any political institution whatever." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 271] Only by convincing your fellow associates of the soundness of your ideas can those ideas become the agreed plan of the syndicate. No one is in a position to impose their ideas simply because of the post they hold or the work they do.

Most anarchists think that it is likely that purely administrative tasks and decisions would be delegated to elected individuals in this way, freeing workers and assemblies to concentrate on important activities and decisions rather than being bogged down in trivial details. As Bakunin put it:

"Is not administrative work just as necessary to production as is manual labour — if not more so? Of course, production would be badly crippled, if not altogether suspended, without efficient and intelligent management. But from the standpoint of elementary justice and even efficiency, the management of production need not be exclusively monopolised by one or several individuals. And managers are not at all entitled to more pay. The co-operative workers associations have demonstrated that the workers themselves, choosing administrators from their own ranks, receiving the same pay, can efficiency control and operate industry. The monopoly of administration, far from promoting the efficiency of production, on the contrary only enhances the power and privileges of the owners and their managers." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 424]

What is important is that what is considered as important or trivial, policy or administration rests with the people affected by the decisions and subject to their continual approval. Anarchists do not make a fetish of direct democracy and recognise that there is more important things in life than meetings and voting! While workers' assemblies play the key role in self-management, it is not the focal point of all decisions. Rather it is the place where all the important policy decisions are made, administrative decisions are ratified or rejected and what counts as a major decision determined. Needless to say, what is considered as important issues will be decided upon by the workers themselves in their assemblies.

A self-managed workplace, like a self-managed society in general, does not mean that specialised knowledge (where it is meaningful) will be neglected or not taken into account. Quite the opposite. Specialists (i.e. workers who are interested in a given area of work and gain an extensive understanding of it) are part of the assembly of the workplace, just like other workers. They can and have to be listened to, like anyone else, and their expert advice included in the decision making process. Anarchists do not reject the idea of expertise nor the rational authority associated with it. As we indicated in section B.1, anarchists recognise the difference between being an authority (i.e. having knowledge of a given subject) and being in authority (i.e. having power over someone else). We reject the latter and respect the former:

"Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of architect or engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. . . If I bow before the authority of specialists and avow a readiness to follow, to a certain extent and as long as may seem to me necessary, their indications and even their directions, it is because their authority is imposed upon me by no one, neither men nor by God . . . I bow before the authority of special men [and women] because it is imposed upon me by my own reason." [Bakunin, God and the State, pp. 32-3]

However, specialisation does not imply the end of self-management, but rather the opposite. "The greatest intelligence," Bakunin argued, "would not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. Thence results, for science as well as industry, the necessity of the division and association of labour." [Op. Cit., p. 33] Thus specialised knowledge is part of the associated workers and not placed above them in positions of power. The other workers in a syndicate can compliment the knowledge of the specialists with the knowledge of the work process they have gained by working and so enrich the decision. Knowledge is distributed throughout society and only a society of free individuals associated as equals and managing their own activity can ensure that it is applied effectively (part of the inefficiency of capitalism results from the barriers to knowledge and information flow created by the hierarchical workplace).

A workplace assembly is perfectly able to listen to an engineer, for example, who suggests various ways of reaching various goals (i.e. if you want X, you would have to do A or B. If you do A, then C, D and E is required. If B is decided upon, then F, G, H and I are entailed). But it is the assembly, not the engineer, that decides what goals and methods to be implemented. As Cornelius Castoriadis puts it, "[w]e are not saying: people will have to decide what to do, and then technicians will tell them how to do it. We say: after listening to technicians, people will decide what to do and how to do it. For the how is not neutral — and the what is not disembodied. What and how are neither identical, nor external to each other. A 'neutral' technique is, of course, an illusion. A conveyor belt is linked to a type of product and a type of producer — and vice versa." [Social and Political Writings, vol. 3, p. 265]

However, we must stress that while an anarchist society would "inherit" a diverse level of expertise and specialisation from class society, it would not take this as unchangeable. Anarchists argue for "all-round" (or integral) education as a means of ensuring that everyone has a basic knowledge or understanding of science, engineering and other specialised tasks. As Bakunin argued, "in the interests of both labour and science . . . there should no longer be either workers or scholars but only human beings." Education must "prepare every child of each sex for the life of thought as well as for the life of labour." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 116 and p. 119] This does not imply the end of all specialisation (individuals will, of course, express their individuality and know more about certain subjects than others) but it does imply the end of the artificial specialisation developed under capitalism which tries to deskill and disempower the wage worker by concentrating knowledge into hands of management.

And, just to state the obvious, self-management does not imply that the mass of workers decide on the application of specialised tasks. Self-management implies the autonomy of those who do the work as well as collective decision making on collective issues. For example, in a self-managed hospital the cleaning staff would not have a say in the doctors' treatment of patients just as the doctors would not tell the cleaners how to do their work (of course, it is likely that an anarchist society will not have people whose work is simply to clean and nothing else, we just use this as an example people will understand). All members of a syndicate would have a say in what happens in the workplace as it affects them collectively, but individual workers and groups of workers would manage their own activity within that collective.

Needless to say, self-management abolishes the division of labour inherent in capitalism between order takers and order givers. It integrates (to use Kropotkin's words) brain work and manual work by ensuring that those who do the work also manage it and that a workplace is managed by those who use it. Such an integration of labour will, undoubtedly, have a massive impact in terms of productivity, innovation and efficiency. As Kropotkin argued, the capitalist firm has a negative impact on those subject to its hierarchical and alienating structures:

"The worker whose task has been specialised by the permanent division of labour has lost the intellectual interest in his [or her] labour, and it is especially so in the great industries; he has lost his inventive powers. Formerly, he [or she] invented very much . . . But since the great factory has been enthroned, the worker, depressed by the monotony of his [or her] work, invents no more." [Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 171]

Must all the skills, experience and intelligence that very one has be swept away or crushed by hierarchy? Or could it not become a new fertile source of progress under a better organisation of production? Self-management would ensure that the independence, initiative and inventiveness of workers (which disappears under wage slavery) comes to the fore and is applied. Combined with the principles of "all-round" (or integral) education (see section J.5.13) who can deny that working people could transform the current economic system to ensure "well-being for all"? And we must stress that by "well-being" we mean well-being in terms of meaningful, productive activity in humane surroundings and using appropriate technology, in terms of goods of utility and beauty to help create strong, healthy bodies and in terms of surroundings which are inspiring to live in and ecologically integrated.

Little wonder Kropotkin argued that self-management and the "erasing [of] the present distinction between the brain workers and manual worker" would see "social benefits" arising from "the concordance of interest and harmony so much wanted in our times of social struggles" and "the fullness of life which would result for each separate individual, if he [or she] were enabled to enjoy the use of both . . . mental and bodily powers." This is in addition to the "increase of wealth which would result from having . . . educated and well-trained producers." [Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 180]

It is the face-to-face meetings that bring workers directly into the management process and give them power over the economic decisions that affect their lives. In social anarchism, since the means of production are owned by society as a whole, decisions on matters like how to apportion the existing means of production among the syndicates, how to distribute and reinvest the surpluses, etc. will be made by the grassroots social units, i.e. the community assemblies (see section I.5.2), not by the workers' councils. This does not mean that workers will have no voice in decisions about such matters, but only that they will vote on them as "citizens" in their local community assemblies, not as workers in their local syndicates. As mentioned before, this is because not everyone will belong to a syndicate, yet everyone will still be affected by economic decisions of the above type. This is an example of how the social/political and economic structures of social anarchy are intertwined.

Lastly, the introduction of workers' self-management will be a product of two processes.

Firstly, the class struggle will help workers gain experience of managing their own affairs. Struggles to resist oppression and exploitation in the workplace will mean that workers will have to organise themselves to manage those struggles. This will be an important means of accustoming them to make their own decisions. By participating in the structures created to conduct the class war, they will gain the skills and experience needed to go beyond class society. The process of struggle will ensure we can manage our own working time when we take over the means of life and abolish wage slavery.

Secondly, today workers do manage their own working time to a considerable extent. As we have argued before, the capitalist may buy a hour of a workers' time but they have to ensure that the worker follows their orders during that time. Workers resist this imposition and this results in considerable shop-floor conflict. Frederick Talyor, for example, introduced his system of "scientific management" in part to try and stop workers managing their own working activity. As David Noble notes, workers "paced themselves for many reason: to keep time for themselves, to avoid exhaustion, to exercise authority over their work, to avoid killing so-called gravy piece-rate jobs by overproducing and risking a pay cut, to stretch out available work for fear of layoffs, to exercise their creativity, and, last but not least, to express their solidarity and their hostility to management." These were "[c]oupled with collective co-operation with their fellows on the floor" and "labour-prescribed norms of behaviour" to achieve "shop floor control over production." [Forces of Production, p. 33] In other words, workers naturally tend towards self-management anyway and it is this natural movement towards liberty during work hours which is combated by bosses (who wins, of course, depends on objective and subjective pressures which swing the balance of power towards labour or capital).

Self-management will built upon this already existing unofficial workers control over production and, of course, our knowledge of the working process which actually doing it creates. The conflict over who controls the shop floor — either those who do the work or those who give the orders — creates two processes that not only show that self-management is possible but also show how it can come about.