Theodore Burczak’s Proposed Constitutional Amendment

Whenever people work together in a common enterprise (whatever their number), it is they and they only who appropriate the results of their labors, whether positive (products) or negative (costs or liabilities), and who control and manage democratically on the basis of equality of vote or weight the activities of their enterprise.  These workers may or may not be owners of the capital assets with which they work, but in any event such ownership does not impart any rights of control over the firm.  Only possession of and income from such assets can be assigned to the owners, to be regulated by a free contract between the working community (i.e. the enterprise) and the owners.

This constitutional amendment was originally proposed by Jaroslav Vanek in 1996 and is now being championed by Theodore Burczak.  Burczak (2009, p. 118) writes, “Such a rule would be similar to the constitutional provision against slavery.  In this case, it is a constitutional provision against what some Marxists have called ‘wage slavery.’”