Democratizing the corporation: the bicameral firm and beyond
Ferreras, Isabelle ; Malleson, Tom ; Rogers, Joel
Verso - London
2024
323 p.
corporate governance ; workers participation ; workers empowerment ; democracy
Business economics
English
Bibliogr.
978-1804294536
13.06.7-68851
"Worker representation is the first step toward democratizing the economy
Although contemporary Western societies refer to themselves as "democratic," the bulk of the population spend much of their lives in workplaces that have more in common with tyranny. Gigantic corporations such as Amazon, Meta, Exxon, and Walmart are among the richest and most powerful institutions in the world yet accountable to no one but their shareholders. The undemocratic nature of conventional firms generates profound problems across society, hurting more than just the workplace and contributing to environmental destruction and spiraling inequality.
Against this backdrop, Isabelle Ferreras proposes a radical but realistic plan to democratize the private firm. She suggests that all large firms should be bicamerally governed, with a chamber of worker representatives sharing equal governance power with the standard board representing owners. In response to this proposal, twelve leading experts on corporate behavior from multiple disciplines consider its attractiveness, viability, and achievability as a "real utopian" proposal to strengthen democracy in our time."
Paper
Table of contents:
I. The Proposal
1. Democratizing the Corporation: The Proposal of the Bicameral Firm, Isabelle Ferreras
II. Democracy at Work
2. The Progressive Era’s Public Firm, Carly R. Knight
3. Workplace Democracy, the Bicameral Firm, and Stakeholder Theory, Marc Fleurbaey
III. The Corporation and the Law
4. Fallacies about Corporations: Comments on “Democratizing the Corporation,” David Ellerman
5. Prospects for Democratizing the Corporation in US Law, Robert F. Freeland
6. Economic Democracy at Work: Why (and How) Workers Should Be Represented on US Corporate Boards, Lenore Palladino
IV. Nuts and Bolts of Economic Bicameralism
7. Islands and the Sea: Making Firm-Level Democracy Durable, Max Krahé
8. Are Bicameral Firms Preferable to Codetermination or Worker Cooperatives? Thomas Ferretti and Axel Gosseries
9. Learning from Cooperatives to Strengthen Economic Bicameralism, Simon Pek
V. Economic Democracy: The Big Picture
10. The Prospects for Economic Democracy: Learning from Sweden as Failed Case, Bo Rothstein
11. Ferreras and the Economic Democracy Debate, Christopher Mackin
12. Five Principles of Economic Democracy, Ewan McGaughey
13. Economic Democracy against Racial Capitalism: Seeding Freedom, Sanjay Pinto
VI. Conclusion
14. A Response to My Readers, Isabelle Ferreras
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