History & Area Studies / World History / European History

When a Country Made Every Worker the Boss: The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia's Self-Management Utopia

Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-91

Branislav Jakovljević

Imagine a country where the government handed the factory keys to the workers, abolished CEOs, and let 1 in 6 employees become a manager. Sounds like a dream, right? It was a nightmare that tore a nation apart. In this video, we dive deep into Stanford professor Branislav Jakovljević’s book *Alienation Effects: Performance and Self-Management in Yugoslavia, 1945-91*. We explore how Yugoslavia, trapped between the Soviet East and capitalist West, attempted a radical third way: market socialism. From the golden years of explosive economic growth to the brutal reality of hyper-bureaucracy, forced labor performances, and the rise of extreme body art as political rebellion, we uncover the shocking contradictions of a system that promised freedom but delivered alienation. Discover how the gig economy today echoes this forgotten experiment—and why you might be performing your own alienation right now. This is a wild, must-see history lesson.