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system which - if it is socialist - cannot be based on economic laws alone. In other words, the hired labor force’s status of a commodity is not only a necessary conseąuence of the effects of the commodity market, i. e. the effects of economic laws, but may be preserved in a socialist system due to the activity of social factors which do not make possible the overcoming of the condiłion of hired labor as a social condition.

Deprived of the opportunity to participate in the making of decisi-ons affecting the elementary conditions of their existence - the con-ditions under which work is performed, and the exercise of the right to work - workers and other »producers« do not have the means with which to fight the two basie evils of every class society, poyerty and unemployment.¹⁴ (It should be mentioned that the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process varies depending on the type and branch ofworking activity: individuals employed in non-industrial and non-agricultural branches, particularly various experts and spe-cialists, are in a better position than the working class as a whole).

The unfavorable economic condition of the working class is not the only problem (although the condition of hired labor is not a purely economic, but also a social condition). The social position of the »pro-ducer« in the Yugoslav system is defined in such a way as to preserve the partial status of tlie worker, not only in the technological system, but in the society as a whole, sińce it connects the workers almost ex-clusively within a profession and within a stratum. The problem, therefore, is not limited to the freąuently emphasized shorteoming, i. e. that there are no self-managing links connecting the basie self-managing units with the top. It is actually far morę serious and is related to the fact that self-managing units are constituted in a way which prevents them from uniting their social forces, from integrating the working class into a single social force. Instead, the working class is atomized, enclosed within the walls of individual factories or insti-tutions; these walls are characterized by the old stratification which secures the intaetness of the social power concentrated at the top, thus making it impossible for the self-managing cells to overcome various forms of class differentiations and to prevent the desintegration of the social power of »producers«.

Within the system itself may be found the reasons for the inability of the working class and other »producers« to enter the »general po-litical scene« and begin to deal in a morę decisive manner with the

¹⁴ See data given by N. Popov in the article »Strajkovi u savremenom jugoslo-venskom druśtvu« (Strikes in the contemporary Yugoslay society), Sociologija, 4, 1968, on the Iow standard of living of workers (p. 616). Analysis of incomes in the economy shows that 36.8 percent of workers employed in the economy received in 1968 significantly less than what was the average income for the economy. 89567 workers in 500 work organizations received the minimum income which was far below the true minimum necessary. If one would analyze the incomes of people employed in the economy upon excluding industrial workers, the situation would no doubt be even less favorable. On the other hand, statistics do not make it possible to analyze the true growth of unemployment, but it would certainly be safe to tlaim that the actual figurę would be twice the one given by the authorities which do not take into account all that are unemployed, but only those listed at the Labor Exchange.

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