A War of Position: Ideas on a Strategy for Worker Cooperative Development

Abstract

This paper explores briefly how the 'war of position' strategy advocated by neo-Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci may be construed as a model for the successful development of worker cooperatives. The approach can provide valuable theoretical support to the myriad pragmatic cooperative projects underway in different economic and sociopolitical contexts; it also justifies the crucial role of institutional, political and cultural supportive mechanisms in economically and democratically successful worker cooperative development. This framework identifies obstacles to worker cooperative promotion emanating from generalized First, Second and Third World scenarios. An assessmnent of the prospects of implementation of the Gramscian-inspired strategy (including potential pitfalls) concludes the paper.