Serbian political democracy reverses economic democracy?

["Vic Thorpe" <just.solutions@pandora.be>]

Ironically, more evidence surfaced this week of the antagonism between the
liberal free market and the concept of worker ownership - and from a most
unlikely source.

The new Serbian government plans to change the country's privatisation laws
to reduce the number of shares allocated to workers under any ownership
changes.  The previous law (introduced in 1997 during the Milosevic regime)
foresaw 60 per cent of shares in any privatisation going to the workers
without cost.  Over 600 companies have begun to privatise under those rules
since 1997.

Now the new reformist government plans to introduce a revised law that would
set aside 75 per cent of shares for private investment, 15 per cent for
distribution to the citizenry as vouchers and just 10 per cent for the
enterprise workforce.  A strike by the national trade union confederation
planned for this week was called off when the government agreed to sit down
and engage in dialogue over the moves.

However, this is quite a shock coming from the country which arguably had
one of the most developed experiences of self-management in the past.

Do others think there is a natural enmity between the new capitalism phrased
in the movement for so-called 'free market' reforms and the interests of
worker owners?

Vic Thorpe