By Christian Schemmel
Liberal republican justice requires adequate, reasonably equal protection against domination, while giving everybody a reasonably equal opportunity to live their lives as they see fit. This article investigates which central policy follows from it for workplace non-domination, under realistic assumptions about the nature of our working lives and some structural characteristics of advanced economies (especially the presence of large firms). It argues for a legal default of workplace democracy, understood as any arrangement that gives workers equal individual control rights over the management of their firm, and, as a body, more control rights than any other groups of enfranchised stakeholders, taken together.
The argument has two steps. The first demonstrates where the most promising alternative liberal strategy – that of enhancing all individuals’ power to exit from their job through granting unconditional resources –fails. The second shows how this failure leads to the specific conception of default workplace democracy outlined.
Published:
2024
DOI:
doi.org/10.1177/00323217241274012
Online available:
journals.sagepub.com