Democratizing the Corporation: The Bicameral Firm as Real Utopia

IF 4.1 2区社会学 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Politics & Society Pub Date : 2023-05-29 DOI:10.1177/00323292231168708

Isabelle Ferreras

引用次数: 3

Abstract

In the context of capitalist democracies, the contradiction between people's expectations of equality and the subordination they experience at work is intense. I argue that it is the defining experience of the contradiction between capitalism and democracy. Capitalism grants political rights to property owners, while democracy grants political rights to the citizens recognized as equals. They are thus regimes of government that distribute rights in dramatically different ways. This essay is grounded in the understanding that firms are best analyzed as “political entities,” and workers as “labor investors,” and have thus a legitimate right to bear on the government of their work life. Examining the history of how political entities have become democratic through the innovation of bicameralism provides a “real utopia”: economic bicameralism, that is, a set of patterns that may be applied to democratize and transition the corporate firm beyond capitalism.

查看原文本刊更多论文

公司的民主化:两院制公司是真正的乌托邦

在资本主义民主的背景下，人们对平等的期望与他们在工作中所经历的从属关系之间的矛盾是激烈的。我认为这是资本主义与民主之间矛盾的决定性经验。资本主义赋予财产所有者政治权利，而民主赋予平等的公民政治权利。因此，它们是以截然不同的方式分配权利的政府体制。本文基于这样一种理解，即最好将企业分析为“政治实体”，而将工人分析为“劳动投资者”，因此他们有合法权利对政府的工作生活施加影响。考察政治实体如何通过两院制的创新而变得民主的历史，提供了一个“真正的乌托邦”:经济两院制，也就是说，一套可以应用于民主化和超越资本主义的企业转型的模式。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Politics & Society Multiple-

CiteScore

5.00

自引率

4.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： Politics & Society is a peer-reviewed journal. All submitted papers are read by a rotating editorial board member. If a paper is deemed potentially publishable, it is sent to another board member, who, if agreeing that it is potentially publishable, sends it to a third board member. If and only if all three agree, the paper is sent to the entire editorial board for consideration at board meetings. The editorial board meets three times a year, and the board members who are present (usually between 9 and 14) make decisions through a deliberative process that also considers written reports from absent members. Unlike many journals which rely on 1–3 individual blind referee reports and a single editor with final say, the peers who decide whether to accept submitted work are thus the full editorial board of the journal, comprised of scholars from various disciplines, who discuss papers openly, with author names known, at meetings. Editors are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest when evaluating manuscripts and to recuse themselves from voting if such a potential exists.