Self-Management in Yugoslavia

Yugoslav self-management is a complicated and far-reaching system of industrial relations and social or ganization that began some 25 years ago in a society that was initially still of the Soviet-type. It endeavors to eliminate any domination of nonproducers in the economy and society (the liberation of labor) through a decision-making structure that is neither a compromise nor a mixture of Western-type and Soviet-type industrial relations. The system has been steadily extended to encompass the individual worker, who in the process has ostensibly been acquiring ever more rights. However, in reality the power position of the individual worker has not changed all that much. The political party structures were, and still are, of paramount importance. On behalf of self-management it may be said that it has cer tainly alleviated the ills usually inherent to industrializa tion, that it has facilitated the transformation of a pre dominantly agrarian to an industrial society, and that it has encouraged a certain measure of political democratization. But it has not resolved basic economic differences between the several republics of Yugoslavia, nor has it diminished large-scale unemployment. It is difficult to conclude whether the achievements and shortcomings are attributable to gen eral human failings or whether they are due to specific Yugoslav conditions.