Deindustrijalizacija i radnički otpor - Pokret za slobodu

English SummarySerbia's ''socially acceptable'' privazaonThe New Approach to Privazaon in Serbia“Principle 6. Privatization must be socially acceptable,i.e. the position of employees in the privatized company mustnot deteriorate after privatization; and ensure that a partof the capital must belong not only to the employees but alsoto all adult citizens of the state in order to validate the levelof rights or entitlements that have been achieved in keepingwith previous laws.”From the web site of the Privatization Agency of theRepublic of Serbia, 2001The initial privatization of ‘socially owned’ property in Serbia waslaunched at the end of 1989, and started in earnest a year later. Theprivatization law was conceived by Ante Marković, the last PrimeMinister of socialist Yugoslavia. Under this law, privatization was notmandatory for all socially-owned enterprises. The ultimate decisionwhether or not the company was going to be privatized remained withthe company’s Assembly (the highest decision making body in a sociallyowned enterprise). If the workers decided to do so, the company'scapital was then transformed into private shares and each worker wasgiven the opportunity to buy them again at a reasonable price.This may sound absurd now, but Marković’s privatization had thepotential of actually preserving whatever was left from, and even toimprove upon the model of Yugoslav worker’s self-management.Even the staunchest ‘Yugo-nostalgic’ would be hard-pressed todeny the common critique that Tito’s ’self-managed’ economy was defacto managed by the one-party state. Even though lots of collectivesmanaged to achieve substantial degrees of independence and actualself-management, at a more general level the concept of ‘social ownership’failed to ground itself in a key element necessary for the creationof a sustainable economy – RESPONSIBILITY! Simply put, duringthe 1980s the whole system (especially among socialist politiciansand managers, but also - though to a much lesser extent - among theworkers themselves) became largely irresponsible in handling “social317