At the Hochschule für Gesellschaftsgestaltung (HfGG) in Koblenz, we have been allowed to hold the course on ‘Economic and Organisational Democracy’ once a year since the winter semester 2023/24.

In this two-part course, we give HfGG students an insight into the topic of economic and organisational democracy (EOD).

With various impulses, such as lectures, creative workshop methods and interviews with experts from theory and practice, the students are taken on a journey through the three levels of the EOD.

In addition to their own presentations on the micro (e.g. neutralised capital & company councils), meso (e.g. socialisation & regional economic councils) and macro (e.g. democratic planning) levels, the students embellish the corridors of the university with collages of their newly acquired knowledge, among other things.

Economic and Organizational Democracy is still largely underrepresented even in economics degree programs. Therefore, we aim to engage with this topic more intensively in the future and look forward to further collaborations and educational formats.

Vielen Dank an die Hochschule für Gesellschaftsgestaltung für diese erste Kooperation und bis zum nächsten Jahr!.

As part of the edited volume "Socialization: The Socio-Ecological Question", edited by Tino Pfaff, we had the opportunity to contribute the chapter "Socialization Means Democratization – A Discussion of Workplace Council Models as a Building Block for a Democratic Economy."

The anthology was published by oekom Verlag in the beginning of 2024 and is available free of charge as a PDF (In German): https://www.oekom.de/buch/vergesellschaftung-und-die-sozialoekologische-frage-9783987260629

Since autumn 2024, we have been offering seminars on economic and organisational democracy at various Berlin adult education centres. In the 1/2-day and 2-day formats, we discuss our previous experiences with democracy in education and work together with the participants and take a critical look at the current state of co-determination in Germany..

Building on this, participants will learn about various concepts of corporate democracy in theory and practice (from cooperatives and worker-owned businesses to neutalised capital, company councils and sociocracy to forms of commoning, such as community-supported agriculture) and reflect on possible alternatives to the status quo.

Further information and the specific seminar dates can be found under ‘Events’.