This may sound absurd now, but Marković’s privatization had the potential of actually preserving whatever was left from, and even to improve upon the model of Yugoslav worker’s self-management.

Even the staunchest ‘Yugo-nostalgic’ would be hard-pressed to deny the common critique that Tito’s ’self-managed’ economy was de facto managed by the one-party state. Even though lots of collectives managed to achieve substantial degrees of independence and actual self-management, at a more general level the concept of ‘social ownership’ failed to ground itself in a key element necessary for the creation of a sustainable economy – RESPONSIBILITY! Simply put, during the 1980s the whole system (especially among socialist politicians and managers, but also - though to a much lesser extent - among the workers themselves) became largely irresponsible in handling “social property.” It was thus a really good idea to try to prevent the collapse of the economy by offering workers a private stake in what had previously been "everybody’s, but at the same time nobody's" (Sr. 'svačije ali ničije').

Markovic’s move at the time was known as the “cold shower”, but from today’s point of view his approach to privatization can be read as a particular response to the most pressing question concerning post-communist Yugoslavia’s democratization: how to salvage a future for workers self-management from the dead-end fate awaiting the one-party state? Indeed, increasing worker ACTIVISM during the late ‘80s, in the form of countless strikes and demonstrations all over the country, became a serious threat to the ruling party (especially in an international context were communist regimes were collapsing throughout Eastern Europe). In order to maintain their power, party bureaucrats in the republics decided to change their political tune into that of nationalism.

And anyway, do not the dreams of establishing ‘greater’ national state demand ‘great’ national capitalists, and not small worker-shareholders running the economy?

The rest as they say was history and Marković’s approach to privatization was superseded by others in all of the ex-Yugoslav republics. In Serbia, Slobodan Milošević used the economic crisis and hyperinflation of 1993 as an excuse to annul Marković’s privatization. Another law that reduced the number of shares Serbia’s workers could expect was adopted in 1995 with the support of Serbia’s then opposition (now ruling) Democratic Party. It is worth noting, that this was the only case during the 1990s in which Milošević’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and Zoran Đinđić’s Democratic Party voted the same way.

A second privatization law was adopted in Serbia in 1997. Again, this privatization wasn’t mandatory and again the decision to privatize ‘socially owned’ enterprises ultimately lay with the enterprises own Assemblies.  However, this time again, only a portion of the newly released shares were offered to those working in the newly privatized enterprises. For the first time, the state also received rights to its own share of socially owned property under the 1997 law. According to this law, the Republic of Serbia could acquire 30% of the company’s shares. The remaining 70% was on offer not only to the workers of the company but also to other employed citizens who couldn't acquire shares in their own firms because their firms couldn’t be privatized (i.e. this applied mostly to those working in the public sector – including at hospitals, schools, in the state administration, the police, the army – as well as those working for military industries and in the banking and insurance sectors, etc).

In fact, it was under Milosević’s privatization law that the populist concept of ‘socially acceptable’ privatization first emerged – i.e. the idea that all adult citizens of Serbia had rights to their share of whatever was ‘socially owned’ in the state. Of course, hiding behind the mask of social justice was a plan to execute the exact opposite of what Marković’s earlier approach to privatization had intended. That is to say, the new model of privatization sought to deprive workers of effective decision-making authority. Simply put, if 30% of the capital now belongs to the state and 35% to ‘external’ shareholders, then this means that only 35% of the votes at the Shareholders’ Assembly would actually represent the interests of the workers in the company.

Additionally, in order to prevent communication between the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ shareholders, the government ensured that the ‘external’ shareholders were from cities far removed from the enterprise in question and its workers. Needless to say, this whole process was unfolding in a context of successive wars, economic sanctions, dictatorship, etc. In such an environment there was very little education among workers about what the hell was going on, which rights were being lost and which ones were being ‘gained.’

When the new ruling coalition won the 2000 elections - ending ‘communist’ rule and establishing ‘democracy’ - felt no political obligation whatsoever to consider workers as inheritors of socially owned property and rights. A new neoliberal privatization law was instead adopted in 2001. The state thus began confiscating all socially owned property. Privatization was made mandatory and a strict timeline was set for the completion of this process - a timeline that incidentally expires this year.

The new 2001 law stipulates that 70% of the company can now be sold to private investors, and that only after selling the majority share, workers can receive the remaining 30% or 15% (depending on the case). These shares are actually free, which is actually a suitable price for something that isn't worth anything.  The sole owners of the 70% majority in the enterprise can now have absolute control over management, which gives them the power to not even disclose profits to the remaining shareholders or to consult them about the direction that the company is taking.

Of course, while the new owners are technically obliged by law to disclose and share their profits with other shareholders, the reality is that for the corrupt Serbian authorities, worker-shareholders are almost uniformly seen as embarrassing ‘leftovers of communism,’ ‘enemies of reform,’ and even as ‘Stalinists.’ On the other hand, the new 70% majority shareholder is seen as an important pillar upon which the success of Serbia’s ‘democratic’ reforms depends. That is to say, these reforms depend on former communist or nationalist apparatchiks and nouveau riche ‘tycoons’ who got rich by either plundering the social property now being privatized or who managed to accumulate wealth through the wars waged in the 1990s (wars that the workers of the newly privatized firms had to bear the costs of).

In these conditions, strong pressure has been exerted in recent years on those small-shareholders that managed to hold onto majority-ownership in some of the best Serbian companies as a result of the 1997 privatization law. These shareholders have been ‘encouraged,’ through corruption and poverty, to enter a process of ‘secondary privatization’ – i.e. to sell their shares on the stock market (because this was the only aspect of their property rights that the new neoliberal regime recognized). Few of these small-shareholders dared to use their shares to actually run their own factories in the new conditions. The few workers who have elected to do so – mainly those gathered around the Jugoremedija pharmaceutical plant in Zrenjanin – could be one of the only hopes left for greater democracy in Serbia.

And yes, the ‘social acceptance’ of privatization was finally achieved last year, when all the adult citizens of Serbia who had never exercised their ‘democratic right to free shares of former held social property,’ received their own chance to avail themselves of this ‘right’ via the privatization of public sector firms – i.e. the Serbian telecom, oil and electricity providers. In this way the vast majority of the impoverished population in Serbia became accomplices in their own long-term destruction, hoping to get a few hundred Euros from the sale of public goods.

That is what neoliberals call popular support.

Ivan Zlatić