From Socialist Self-Management to Neoliberal Democracy on Example of Serbia or Must Democracy Have ONLY One Dimension?

Social changes are considered in the article on the example of Serbia, accomplished by the transition from the self-managerial socialism to the neoliberal capitalism. Most of the social-economic rights of workers were reduced, even canceled, the rights that characterized the self-managerial socialism of the ex-Yugoslavia in which Serbia was one of the republics having the same rights. Yugoslav self-managerial socialism had significant differences concerning the Soviet model of real-socialism, so that it was often called “soft socialism”, since it provided also the influence of the people that were not members of the Communist Party to political life of the country. In Serbia in the last quarter of the 20th century, and especially after the 2000, black economy is flourishing, a great number of workers is non-registered, wages are among the lowest in the world regarding the education of the labor, unemployment rate is high, there is no possibility to get a flat except in case of debtor’s slavery with foreign banks, there is a high contingency regarding the keeping of the own job since labor contracts that guaranteed employment for indefinite period are being cancelled, precarity is being developed, and these are just a few of the phenomena that appeared as the consequence of the transition. While workers in Serbia used to have the right to choose the director of their company and decide at workers’ gatherings on the distribution of profit and who was going to get a flat from the company, today they have only the right to vote, periodically, at elections, as citizens. Self-management rights are lost forever, while gained political freedoms have become much less important for their everyday life. Is it possible that democracy is simultaneously social-economic and political category, which is the issue to which the answer is searched?