Workers\u27 Self-management – Socialist Myth or Prognostication

The study consists in the comparative analysis of four Yugoslav and Canadian enterprises. I t has tried to answer some basic questions resulting from the humanist socialist theory, within a small sample and within all the limitations imposed by a survey-research method. The first question tries to answer: is the workers’ self-managed enterprise, just as it is nowadays in Yugoslavia, more democratic than it is in Canada? Empirical findings show that the self-managed organization is, indeed, according to the respondent’s perceptions, more democratic than the Canadian one. But when passing from the general distribution influence perception to the personal influence perception, we get contradictory results at first sight: workers, as well as the members of management, perceive that they have greater influence in the self-managed organization. The author explains the finding by means of the supposition about »plus sum game« structure of power in a social system. In spite of the feelings of a greater influence of workers in the self-managed organization, the difference between them and the members of management is great in both systems. The second question tries to answer: is the degree of alienation lessened by the self-managed organization? Two levels of alienation have been considered in that case, work and societal levels. Rather interesting, and for classical theory contradictory results, have been obtained. That is, it has been found alienation in everyday life appears greater in Yugoslavia than in Canada, and vice versa, alienation at work is greater in Canada than in Yugoslavia. The more precise analysis suggests that there is no close connection between the work alienation and wider social community. At the end, on basis of the obtained empirical findings, the author suggests that the self-managing system in Yugoslavia is going towards the evolution development, from »the representative model« to »the complete participatory model«. Since the model does not function quite as it has been conceived, the author suggests the formation of models of an interdegree development, what does not mean giving up the final goals, but just an adaptation to the real conditions at the different phases of development