Reclaiming Public Ownership: Making Space for Economic Democracy

The last few years have seen the spectacular failure of market fundamentalism in Europe and the US. As the environmental limits and socially destructive tendencies of the current profit-driven economic model become daily more self-evident, there is a growing demand for a fairer economic alternative, as evidenced by the mounting campaigns against global finance and the politics of austerity. Reclaiming Public Ownership tackles these issues head on, going beyond traditional leftist arguments, to present a radical new conception of public ownership. Framed around economic democracy and public participation in economic decision-making, Cumbers argues that a reconstituted public ownership is central to the creation of a more just and sustainable society.A timely reconsideration of a longstanding but essential topic.

Andrew Cumbers is Reader in Geographical Political Economy at the University of Glasgow. He has written extensively on the problems of uneven development in capitalist societies, responses on the left, and the prospects for a more democratic and egalitarian politics. Recent publications include Alternatives to Market Fundamentalism in Scotland and Beyond (SLR Press), co-edited with Geoff Whittam, and Global Justice Networks: Geographies of Transnational Solidarity (Manchester University Press) with Paul Routledge.