Syllabus: Introduction to Workplace, Organizational, and Economic Democracy ("the COVID-19 edition")

Pre-Course Reading and Course Text

The course text is Jim Stanford’s book, Economics for Everyone: A Short Guide to the Economics of Capitalism (Pluto Press, 2015). This book will be our reference guide. Our take-up of economic democracy as “alternative” to capitalism will be informed by Stanford’s’ accessible and critical overview of capitalism and its neoliberal variety – our era’s still dominant but currently at-risk economic model. COVID-19 will likely force capitalism to transform itself into another variety, which we will discuss throughout the class.

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Here are a few other readings – mostly short – that you should review before the class starts to orient yourself to our times and the themes of the “COVID-19 edition” of this course:

 

• Jim Stanford’s response to the COVID-19 socio-economic crisis.

• Comparative resilience for post-COVID reconstruction (Michael Schuman).

• What solidarity means during the coronavirus crisis, from OISE professor Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández.

• No return to normal for a post-pandemic liberation (Max Haiven).

• David Schweickart’s vision of economic democracy.

• Marcelo Vieta and Fiona Duguid on co-operatives’ responses to the COVID-19 crisis.

• Palliatives for productivism during times of quarantine (for our own well-being!):

  • From UofT political science professor Aisha Ahmad.

  • A brief message from musician Nick Cave.

• Watch “Movement Building in the Time of the Coronavirus: A Rising Majority Teach-In,” with Naomi Klein and Prof. Angela Davis (April 6, 2020, on YouTube)

• For excellent and balanced coverage of the impact of COVID-19 on Canada’s society and economy, see the academic journalism of The Conversation Canada.

• For an emerging database of COVID-19 resources, The Syllabus: Coronavirus Readings.

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