Corporate Justice within Efficiency Horizons

Abstract

This chapter expands on the idea of norm-governed productivity. Because this approach opens the door for a more straightforwardly political assessment of corporate hierarchy, this chapter considers how theories of workplace democracy stack up against this view of corporate efficiency. It argues that radical and participatory democrats are prone to error by essentially doing the mirror image of what the Chicago school does: where Chicago school scholars conflate firms for markets and obscure their cooperative nature, radical democrats often mistake firms for purposive communities and obscure their economic nature. While democratic theorists are right that undefended authority exists within firms and is a problem, they are often in danger of utterly discounting efficiency. It concludes with a more exact enunciation of norm-governed productivity, which emphasizes the manner in which efficiency concerns necessitate a bounded application of noneconomic values.