This timely read provides students and scholars with innovative analyses of the councils. It offers new analytic frameworks for conceptualising the relationship between politics and the economy and contributes to emerging debates within political theory on workplace, economic and council democracy. 'This fine collection answers an urgent need to take up the challenge of transforming capitalist market relations as part of the task of envisioning new modes of democratic politics. The authors draw on an archive-the theory and history of council democracy-that Western political theory has mostly overlooked but that provides today's protest movements with new institutional models and a new confidence in the possibilities for large-scale social transformation.' - Lisa Disch, Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies, The University of Michigan 'With the rising profile of new and innovative democratic practices around the world, it is critical to revisit radical ideas from the not-so-distant past. This volume's impressive appraisal of council democracy is a significant achievement. Its in-depth analysis will be of great interest to those concerned with democracy's potential in contemporary capitalism, the extension of democracy into social and economic life, and the future of the political left.' - Michael Saward, Professor of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick