Course: DSPS 6122 Political InstitutionsEssay Title: Can workplace democracy be justified by deliberative democracy?Student Name: Man Kong LiStudent ID: 116329

Can workplace democracy be justified by deliberative

democracy ?

Introduction

In this article, I will examine in what way workplace

democracy can be justified on the ground of deliberative

democracy. Joshua Cohen has famously employed his ideal

of deliberative democracy to support workplace democracy.1

I will argue that his arguments to justify workplace

democracy by his ideal of deliberative democracy are

defective. In this article, I hope to provide a more

plausible consideration of the way in which workplace

democracy could contribute to the ideal of deliberative

democracy.

1 Joshua Cohen “The Economic Basis of Deliberative Democracy”, Social Philosophy and Policy, Vol. 6 (02), 1989, pp. 25-50

I will also take a rather broad conception of

workplace democracy in this article. As long as workers

as a collective, within which the collective decisions

are determined by some form of democratic way that

workers have equal say, have a guaranteed substantial

influence in major decisions making of the enterprise, I

will take it as a manifestation of workplace democracy,

regardless of the ownership of the enterprise.2 In section

I of the article, I will first survey actual existing

examples of institutions that are self-claimed as

workplace democracy. I will argue that my conception

covers two major forms of existing worker participation

in the governance of enterprise, namely worker

cooperative and labor union participation. Certainly the

two forms of workplace democracy have important

differences. But I will show that they share important

politically relevant features to be coined as “workplace

2 Here I follow similar definition as used by a survey article written by Hsieh Nien-he. As will be covered in section I, I will explain why I think this definition would be more suitable to our discussion in this article. See Hsieh Nien-he, “Survey Article: Justice in Production”, The Journal of Political Philosophy Vol. 16 (1), 2008, pp. 72-100. p. 82

democracy”.

Then in section II, I will examine Cohen’s arguments

to support workplace democracy by his conception of

deliberative democracy. I will argue that his conception

of deliberative democracy can indeed be satisfied without

the presence of workplace democracy. Other institutions

can also satisfy, if not better satisfy, what Cohen

considers to be the reasons to support workplace

democracy. Cohen’s own arguments, therefore, cannot

satisfactorily support workplace democracy as economic

institution of his ideal of deliberative democracy.

In section III, however, I will argue that indeed we

have reasons to think that workplace democracy as an

institution of deliberative democracy, if we consider the

incentive for organization and mobilization it generates.

It is true that the protection of workers’ and employees’

economic autonomy does not necessary require labor

mobilization, but the latter is the political guarantee

of the former. If these considerations are plausible,

then I will conclude that they indeed point to an

important omission in Cohen’s theory of deliberative

democracy, echoing some of the claims of his more radical

critics.

I. The definition and institutions of workplace

democracy

There have been diverse proposals of workplace

democracy, and by “workplace democracy”, or, more

loosely, “democratic” or “worker controlled/managed”

enterprises or firms, they do not necessarily refer to

the same thing. In this section, I will discuss some

major definitions of workplace democracy, as embedded in

different theorists’ relevant institutional designs, with

illustration of some of their existing examples. After a

brief survey of these proposals, I will propose a rather

broad understanding of workplace democracy, which I

consider could capture what makes most of these

institutions “democratic”, despite their other important

differences. I would also discuss the reasons why some of

these institutions should be excluded in this definition

of workplace democracy.

Workplace democracy as worker’s cooperative. Cohen

uses “worker-managed firms” and “workplace democracy”

interchangeably, referring that “workers in a firm have

the right to fix the terms on which they are managed”.3 He

considers that in an ideal deliberative democracy, the

economic sphere would be so organized that it would

contain “public control of investment, realized through a

scheme in which publicly owned means of production are

operated by worker-managed firms”. That means “a wide

variety of forms of association- small and large,

centralized and decentralized, cooperative and

atomistic”, where “different firms could be expected to

arrive at different views about the delegation of

3 Cohen “The Economic Basis of Deliberative Democracy”, pp. 40-41, 46.

authority to managers, the extent of cooperation in work

itself, and the distribution of enterprise earnings”.4

Thus in Cohen’s proposal, as long as worker as a

collective can claim an exclusive control of a firm, it

can be qualified as workplace democracy. But it is not

entirely clear how the power should distribute, i.e.

whether every worker have an equal vote in voting and

election or managers.5

Elster and Ove Moene considers an ideal cooperative as

one that “all workers and only workers hold equal shares in

firm”, and consider labor union, as well as labor

participation in managing a firm, only as a means to

protect workers against “mutual harmful competitive

practices” among firms. Unions may have role in helping

to establish cooperatives in an economy consists of

mainly privately owned firm, but only the cooperatives

4 Ibid. pp. 40-415 It should also be noted that it is also not entirely clear to what extent the “public control of investment”, i.e. the control of the profit and plans of investment (of every firm? Or profit collected from all the firms?), by the democratic state, would interfere the decision of those worker-managed firms, thus weaken the scope of control of the firm by workers as a collective.

fit to their ideal of workplace democracy.6

Elster and Ove Moene also consider two forms of

cooperatives that can be regarded as manifesting worker

control, but with some qualifications. The first one is

cooperatives that workers do not own the majority of

shares of the firm, but fully control or have a majority

in the governing board of the firms, i.e. the firms

govern by “one man, one vote” rather than “one share, one

vote”. This can be also found in the cooperatives in

footwear, printing and clothing industries in Britain.7

Sometimes these cooperatives would hire wage workers that

do not have voting rights. Elster and Ove Moene consider

this practice, if excess and thus create unacceptable

inequality, would threaten democratic control.8

6 Jon Elster and Karl Ove Moene, “Introduction”, in Jon Elster and Karl Ove Moene eds. Alternatives to Capitalism. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 1-35. pp. 23, 34-35. It should be noted that Elster and Ove Moene also consider the question of workplace democracy in their broader ideal of market socialism, which is “a system of labor cooperatives”. But they also concede that in a economically realistic vision of market socialism would consist of both traditional capitalistic enterprises and labor cooperatives, andit is even possible to maintain a market socialist framework even if cooperatives are in a minority. This concession complicates their vision of both market socialism and workplace democracy. See Ibid. p.267 Ibid. pp. 22, 308 Ibid. pp. 25

The second form is firms that organized according to

the Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) in America.9

This form of worker control of firm indeed is widely

recognized as realistic realization of workplace

democracy.10 In a firm organized according ESOP, a “trust”

will be set up and hold stocks on behalf of its

employees.11 ESOPs allow unequal distribution of shares

among employees, usually proportional to their salaries,

and workers exercise their control mainly through their

shares, i.e. “one share, one vote”.12 But if the

inequality of shares, and thus inequality of voting power

in decision making, is excess, it would again also

threaten democratic control of the firm.13 Since in this

form of worker ownership workers do not directly own the

firm but control the firm via a trust, the indirectness

9 Ibid. pp. 2210 Gar Alperovitz, “The Pluralist Commonwealth and Property-Owning Democracy”, in Marin O’Neill and Thad Williamson eds. Property- Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), pp. 266-286. p. 271; Drew Christie, “Recent Calls for Economic Democracy”, Ethics Vol.95 (2), 1984, pp. 112-128. p. 11211 Alperovitz “The Pluralist Commonwealth and Property-Owning Democracy”, p.27112 Elster & Ove Moene, “Introduction”, p. 2213 Ibid. p. 25

in decision making process also weakens its democratic

accountability.14

Labor unions and labor participation as workplace

democracy. Labor unions and the institution of labor

participation are given more positive role in other

proposals of workplace democracy. Lansbury considers

workplace democracy as system that promotes “sharing of

power between workers and management”.15 Thus a means to

realize or to promote workplace democracy is by

introduction of the institution of collective bargaining,

so that representatives of labor (union) can have a

formal channel to bargain with the management over

various firm policies concerns the interest of the

workers.16 The German “co-determination” is an often-cited

14 Alperovitz, “The Pluralist Commonwealth and Property-Owning Democracy”, p. 271; For the relation between the level of hierarchy and democratic accountability, see Patrick NS Dumont and Frederic Varone, “Delegation and accountability in parliamentary democracies: smallness, proximity and short cuts”, in Braun, Dietmar and Gilardi, Fabrizio (eds.). Delegation in Contemporary Democracies (London and New York: Routledge/ECPR, 2006), pp. 52-76.15 Russell Lansbury, “Workplace Democracy and the Global Financial Crisis”, The Kingsley Laffer Memorial Lecture, University of Sydney, 2009. Freely retrieved online at http://www1.econ.usyd.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/18772/Laffer_Memorial_Lecture_160309.pdf. p. 416 Ibid. p. 3

relatively successful institutionalization of this kind

of worker participation: it is legally required that

large corporations must reserve half of the seats in the

supervisory boards for representatives of workers.17

Furthermore, the German co-determination also involve

industry-wide corporatist bargaining between industry-

wide labor unions and supervisory boards of

corporations.18

Workplace democracy with limited scope and organized

in sub-corporation level. On the other hand, there are

also some reform proposals, which claimed to be enhancing

workplace democracy, which are organized with limited

scope, and/or organized in sub-corporation level. In

Australia, it is legally required that enterprise to have

occupational health and safety committees that involve

worker participation. Thus democratic decision making, or

involvement of worker representatives, only covers some 17 Waheed Hussain, “Nurturing the Sense of Justice: The Rawlsian Argument for Democratic Corporatism”, in Marin O’Neill and Thad Williamson eds. Property- Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), pp. 180-200. p. 182; Heish, “Justice in Production”, p. 82; Christie, “Recent Calls for Economic Democracy”, pp. 112-11318 Hussain, “Nurturing the Sense of Justice”, p. 182

limited and predesigned aspects, most of them are related

to labor protection, but not major decisions (such as

investment) of the corporation. In Japan, there are

corporative reforms that more power in work design and

execution are delegated to some “semi-autonomous

workgroups”.19 Thus the scope of democracy is limited to

just some parts of the production processes, and involves

only part of the workers. In such workgroups, the level

of delegation is often decided only by the management of

the corporation.

It is quite obvious that although all these

institutional arrangements can in some senses be called

workplace democracy, they are constructed to pursue

diverse goals and take into account diverse

considerations, say promoting economic efficiency and/or

work incentive, or the protection of interest of the

workers. To manifest democratic accountability in their

institutional design is at most one of the goals that

19 Lansbury, “Workplace Democracy and the Global Financial Crisis”, p.3

those proposals aim to pursue, and only part of those

institutions can be qualified as manifesting democratic

values. But it is false to include all of these proposals

as workplace democracy simply because they have some

elements of self-governing among any subset of workers in

any subset of policy areas of a firm or of a corporation.

I believe it will stretch the concept of “democracy” used

in workplace democracy too much. To take workplace

democracy as a concept politically relevant to democratic

institution, institutional features that define the

concept of workplace democracy should sufficiently

parallel to those of a proper democratic state.

Modern democratic states have four defining features

for being “democratic”, namely that (1) major policies

and laws are more or less decided by majority rule, or at

least cannot be decided independent of the majority’s

will; (2) sufficient degree of freedom of speech on

matters of public concern; (3) citizens have roughly

equal opportunity to political influence; (4)

representatives are elected by equal votes assign to the

electorate to form the governing body, though it does not

exclude more direct form of participation of the

electorate in governing.20 If this interpretation of the

idea of democratic state is uncontroversial enough, then

we can stipulate a parallel definition of workplace

democracy: (i) major policies of the firm are deduced by

majority vote of the workers, or at least cannot be

determined independent of the will of the majority of the

workers; (ii) workers’ freedom of speech on the matters

of the corporation should not be restricted, or be

threatened by the employers by imposing unacceptable

costs to the employees; (iii) workers have roughly equal

20 Here I mainly borrow the Richard Arneson’s formulation in his “TheSupposed Right to a Democratic say”, but also the discussion from Philip Pettit, especially his understanding of democratic representation. See Richard Arneson, “The Suppoesed Right to a Democratic Say”, T. Christiano and J.Christman, eds: Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy. Chicester: Wiley and Blackwell, 2009, pp.197-212, pp. 198-199; as cf. Philippe Pettit, “Varieties in publicrepresentation”, in Ian Shapiro, Susan Stokes, E. J. Wood and Alexander Kirshner (eds), Political Representation. (New York: Cambridge University Press,2010), pp. 61-89. pp. 61-62. Surely there are other relevant parallels as well as important differences between state anda firm, and they are relevant in considering the merit of workplace democracy. Here I only concern the parallel features in the “democratic” aspect, and postpone the discussions of other parallels and differences to section II of the article.

opportunity to influence major decisions of the firm;

(iv) the governing body is constitutive of or the

representatives of workers as a collective.

If we take this four features as defining features of

workplace democracy, then worker’s cooperatives which all

the productive assets are collectively owned by workers,

and that the decision is made, or the governing body is

elected, according to the principle of “one worker one

vote”, is qualified to be democratic corporations. The

institution of collective bargaining between management

and labor representative as specified by the co-

determination system can arguably satisfy feature (i) and

(ii), but hardly be seen as satisfying (iii) and (iv).

But given the economic reality that most of firms are

organized in the traditional capitalistic way, we can

reasonably concede that collective bargaining and co-

determination is sufficiently democratic, though not

through and through democratic as worker cooperatives

where workers have equal votes in decision making and in

election of the governing bodies of the corporations.

Similar reasoning can be applied to those unequal vote

variants of existing workers’ cooperatives: as long as

the inequality in the control of major decision makings

of the cooperatives is restricted in a tolerable degree,

they can be qualified as sufficiently manifesting

workplace democracy. “Tolerable degree” is certainly a

vague description. But it suffices for our purpose here

as we can rule out, say, some ESOPs that the inequality

of shares is so large, and /or the trust which owns the

corporation is not involve in daily management. Consider

the parallel case in existing democratic states: we all

know that capitalists and those who born in the upper

class have larger opportunity to political influence than

ordinary citizens, but we nevertheless consider those

states as democratic states, although not ideal ones.

What should clearly be ruled out are those

institutions which only very limited policy aspects of

the corporations are delegated to a limited set of

employees, say, a group of workers of the same production

line. It is because they satisfy none of the features

(i), (iii) and (iv), and only arguably satisfies (ii).21

Not all employees are granted the right to have a say in

those policies, and those policies are hardly major

decisions concerning the fate of the corporation. Thus

“semi-autonomous workgroups” as a form of institution

cannot be counted as workplace democracy in a politically

relevant sense. Having committees that would involve

labor participation focusing only on limited aspects, say

occupational safety, as delegated by the management, can

be seen as more democratic than not having those

committees at all. To have those committees can be seen

as improvement of workplace democracy, but having only

those committees can hardly be qualified as sufficiently 21 It is surely true that people’s formal freedom of speech is protected by the law of the state. But without sufficient labor participation in major decision making such as hire and fire employees, it seems it is still within the power of the employers to fire an employees who openly disagree with the corporation’s policy. Or at least he will be under the threat to be fired for openly challenging the policy of the corporation. This situation seems wouldbe less likely to happen in workers cooperatives and corporations with legally protected collective bargaining institutions, provided the employees or workers have more equal influences in the hiring andfiring decision, and thus larger power to protect their own freedom to challenge corporation policies.

democratic in a politically relevant sense.

To sum up our discussions so far: a corporation is

sufficiently or reasonably qualified as manifesting

workplace democracy if workers or employees as a

collective, within which the collective decisions are

determined by some form of democratic way that workers

have equal say, have a guaranteed substantial influence

in major decisions making of the enterprise regardless of

the ownership of the enterprise. This definition covers

the most important institutional designs that enhance

democratic participation of employees in the management

of corporations, namely the collective bargaining in

general, as well as the co-determination system, and

different variants of worker’s cooperatives where the

inequality of voting power among workers are within

tolerable level. From now on, unless indicate otherwise,

I will simply use “workplace democracy” in this article

to mean institutions that are sufficiently or reasonably

qualified as manifesting workplace democracy. So, then,

can workplace democracy so conceived be justified by

deliberative democracy?

II. Joshua Cohen’s ideal of deliberative democracy

and workplace democracy

Having laid out a more concrete understanding of

workplace democracy, I will in this section examine

Joshua Cohen’s support of workplace democracy from the

view point of his ideal of deliberative democracy. As we

have seen in the opening of section I, Cohen’s own

understanding of workplace democracy is both narrower and

more ambiguous than the definition I gave here in this

article, as he only regards firms that the workers have

the full control of management as workplace democracy,

but at the same time does not specify if workers in those

firms need to have equal influence in decision. I will

argue in this section that his ideal of deliberative

democracy does not support even his own understanding of

workplace democracy. I will also add that it does not

support workplace democracy as defined here either.

Cohen’s ideal of deliberative democracy. Cohen argues

that to be qualified as democratic polity, a society must

contain institutions that manifest three features, namely

public deliberation focuses on the common good,

manifested equality among citizens, and that the

democratic politics must shape the identity and interests

of citizens in way that contribute to the formation of

common good.22 He argues that these three features are

elements of “an independent and expressly political

ideal”, which actual institutional arrangements of a

society should “mirror”.23 This ideal is his normative

ideal of deliberative democracy.

Cohen’s ideal of deliberative democracy, or as he

calls it the “ideal deliberative procedure”, consists of

five formal features (D1 to D5) and four substantive

features (I1 to I4). The formal features are, first, the

deliberative democratic polity must be an independent and

22 Joshua Cohen, “Deliberative Democracy and Democratic Legitimacy”, in Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit (eds.), The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp. 17–34. p. 1923 Ibid. p. 20

self-standing association (D1); Citizens of the polity

must share a commitment to co-ordinate their activities

within the institutions of deliberative democracy,

following their rules and norms (D2); Deliberative

democracy allows pluralistic preferences among citizens,

i.e. no pre-institutional similarity of preference

profiles is required (D3); The institutions should not

only guarantee the result of collective decision be the

same as that of deliberation, but also the process of

citizens engagement must also manifest the virtue of

deliberation (D4); Citizens recognize one another as

having deliberative capacities, i.e. the capacities for

public reasoning.24 From these five formal features, Cohen

suggests four further substantive features that suit

these formal features: first, citizens in a deliberative

democratic polity is free, in a sense that they are

bounded only by the results and preconditions of the

deliberation, and that regard simply for the fact that

the result is arrived at a process of deliberation would

24 Ibid. p. 21

sufficient to motivate them to act according to it (I1).

Second, deliberation results can only be settled by

public reasoning among citizens, i.e. as Cohen quotes

from Habermas, “no force except that of the better

argument is exercised” (I2). Third, citizens should be

equal, in the sense that every citizens with deliberative

capacities should have equal standing in deliberation,

and that the unequal distribution of power and resources

among them should be barred from influencing their equal

standing and chances to contribute to deliberation (I3).

Finally, the deliberative process should aim at a

consensus guided by public reason, but if for practical

reason such consensus cannot be reached, the result could

also be determined by majority rule (I4).25

Cohen argues that this ideal deliberative procedure

provides the abstract framework how a polity’s

institutions can be arranged so that to promote both

citizens’ autonomy and the polity’s common good.26 It is

25 Ibid. pp. 22-2326 Ibid. pp. 23-24

because the five formal and four substantive features of

the ideal deliberative procedure normatively exclude any

possibilities of adaptive preference and accommodative

preference by ensuring citizens’ free and equal standing

in deliberative democratic polity.27 Furthermore, the

constraints of public deliberation procedure require

citizens advance only public reasons, or reasons that are

acceptable to others, in decision makings for public

affairs, and thus could transform people’s reasons for

holding certain preferences, or even the priority of

preference.28 Thus the decision outcome is not aggregation

of pre-institutional individual preferences but decisions

expressing collective rationality. Citizens are

motivated, so Cohen argues, to forgo personal preference

for the sake of collective rational decisions, and thus

enhancing a polity’s common good.29 Since those

constraints of public deliberation are grounded by

ensuring citizens’ free and equal standing, this

27 Ibid. p. 2528 Ibid. p. 2429 Ibid. pp. 24-25

transformation of preference and reasons is thus

consistent with citizens’ individual autonomy.30 Cohen’s

ideal of deliberative democracy thus brings together the

ideal of individual autonomy of citizens and the ideal of

attainment of common good for a polity.

Cohen’s justification of workplace democracy by the

ideal of deliberative democracy. Cohen then employs this

ideal deliberative procedure to justify workplace

democracy, or “worker self-management”.31 First, he argues

that workplace is sufficiently parallel to that state,

and since we would consider state should be deliberative

democratic, it is also the case for workplace. We

consider a state should be democratic because it is a

collective cooperative activity that governed by mutually

recognized rules to achieve mutual advantage of the

members. Since it is a joint enterprise, everyone

involves in the cooperation should have an equal right to

participate and excise their deliberative capacities in

30 Ibid. pp. 25-2631 Cohen “The Economic Basis of Deliberative Democracy”, pp. 46

determination of those rules. This is the normative

foundation of the ideal deliberative procedures. Cohen

argues it is also the case of economic enterprises, “the

deliberative ideal of justification carries over from the

state to firms”.32

Second, workplace democracy provides an arena for

citizens to exercise and develop their deliberative

capacities (D5), i.e. citizens’ active character and the

focus on common good.33 Thirdly, ideal deliberative

procedure requires citizens to have equal standing in the

deliberation, in the sense that their material and

economic inequalities are barred from influencing the

deliberation (I3). Since it is expected that in workplace

democracy (worker managed firms) workers would distribute

the profit among them more equally, enhanced material

equality among citizens thus could be achieved, and thus

enhancing their equal standing in a deliberative polity.34

It seems reasonable to consider Cohen’s three

32 Ibid. pp. 27, 4633 Ibid. pp. 4634 Ibid. pp. 47

arguments to support worker managed firms would also

extend to the wider definition of workplace democracy we

employ here in this article. First, in co-determination

and collective bargaining, employees are granted the

right to participate in the major decision making of the

firms via their representatives in labor union. Secondly,

since employees and workers have relatively equal

opportunity to influence the union or the worker

collectives, they would also have more chances to

exercise their deliberative capacity than when they are

in traditional privately owned capitalist firms. Thirdly,

though maybe less successfully, co-determination and

collective bargaining also would bring more equal

remuneration among employees and higher managers,

following the same line of reasoning that bring income

equalization in worker managed firms.

Refutation of Cohen’s three arguments for workplace

democracy. However, Cohen’s three arguments to support

workplace democracy by his ideal of deliberative

democracy indeed fail. It is because, on the one hand,

the parallel between state and enterprise is not

convincing, and on the other hand, there may well be

other institutions that serve better to attain those

effects that Cohen ascribes to workplace democracy. .

First, it is hardly true that a single firm has to be

conceived as sufficiently parallel to the state. One’s

citizenship to a nation state is largely involuntary. We

would have too much at stake in our home country, for

example our cultural ties to the place. To leave a

country, i.e. to emigrate, is by no means an easy option,

and it is hard to find a person who would change her

citizenship for several times in a life. But on the

contrary, we do not have similar stake in a firm. Usually

what is at stake when we choose to quit a job is that we

would lose our income from it. But as long as a society

can provide sufficient unemployment pension and re-

employment assistances, it seems that nothing substantial

one would really lose, even one changes jobs for a few

times a life.35 At the very least, we know that what one

could lose in this situation has nothing important that

is comparable to leaving our home country.

It seems it would be more appropriate to conceive the

employment relation as market relationship, where

employees are the seller of their labor and service,

while employers are buyers. Provided that it is a fair

market, i.e. the sellers and buyers have relatively equal

bargaining power (there are sufficient state pension for

unemployment, for example), and that the enforcement of

contracts are guaranteed by the state, it seems we do not

have good reasons to argue that market relation have to

be governed by democratic means. If the market is fair,

why can the sellers (employees) have a collective say on

a buyer’s (firm’s) decision to use her money? This

implies that the employees’ autonomy and rights can be

sufficiently protected if their bargaining power in the

labor market is sufficiently protected, for example by an

35 Here my arguments are mainly drawn from Richard Arneson, “Democratic Rights at National and Workplace Level”, pp. 118- 148 in David Copp, Jean Hamption and John Roemer eds, The Idea of Democracy. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 139.

extensive social security scheme. Workplace democracy is

at least not necessary to protect people’s right.

Bowles and Gintis argue that in the employment

relation there is inherent inequality of power between

employers and employees, and this inequality of power

generates for the employees’ part a moral claim for

democratic accountability of the decision making of the

firm. It is because an employer may dismiss employees as

she wishes, and it is always a substantial financial

loss, and thus a substantial loss of well being, on the

employees’ part.36 Thus even though state and firm are not

sufficiently parallel, we could still argue for workplace

democracy on the ground of democratic accountability.

But mere inequality of power is not sufficient to

generate democratic claims. Many forms of human relations

would involve unequal power and authority, for example

the authority of parents over their children and teachers

over their students. But as long as the human rights of

36 Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, “A Political and Economic Case for the democractic Enterprise”, pp. 375-399 in David Copp, Jean Hamption and John Roemer eds, The Idea of Democracy. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.), pp. 375, 382-383

those under authority are protected, it is not clear why

those who have less power must have a claim of democratic

accountability. Labor regulations can impose constraints

on employers so that they cannot unreasonably terminate

the contract. And as long as there is enough social

support for unemployment such as those listed in the

previous paragraphs, it seems unlikely that the fired

employees must have a substantive loss in well being.

Concerning Cohen’s argument that workplace democracy

provide an arena to exercise and develop the deliberative

capacity, the direct refutation will be that empirical

studies reveal that it needs not be the case. Long

conceived as the most successful worker’s cooperative,

studies show that workers work at Mondragon Corporacion

Cooperativa (MCC) does not have substantive different

experience to those workers work in traditional

capitalist firms.37 Indeed, severe market competition may

lead democratic firms to forgo democracy for the sake of

efficiency, for example hiring non-voting workers or out-

37 Heish, “Justice in Production”, pp. 82-83.

sourcing the jobs. As proponents of workplace democracy,

Bowles and Gintis also admit that if the workforce does

not receive appropriate democratic education, the

inefficiency caused by democratic process may be

prohibitive. The inefficiency may even discourage

workers’ motivation and interest to democratic process.38

On the other hand, workplace is by no means the only

place that people can exercise and develop deliberative

capacities. Neighborhood-assemblies to discuss and decide

local policy issues may also serve as arena to exercise

and develop those capacities.39 In short, workplace

democracy seems neither sufficient nor necessary to

develop deliberative capacities.

Finally, workplace democracy is not the only way to

reduce economic inequality. Progressive income and salary

taxes, extensive public education and public health care

system, and laws to limit salary ratio between highest-

paid and lowest-paid employees in a firm may also ensure

38 Bowles & Gintis, “A Political and Economic Case for the democracticEnterprise”, pp. 392-39339 Benjamin, Barber, Strong Democracy. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 270-271

citizens’ social and economic equality.40 Compare to the

rather uncertain distributional effects within worker

cooperatives that are subject to bargaining, discussion

and constraints of economic environments, these

protections of economic equality by state direct

redistributive policies seem more promising and

effective. In short, it seems that workplace democracy,

no matter under Cohen’s own definition or under the

definition I adopt in this article, is by no means

necessary or sufficient to satisfy or contribute to

Cohen’s ideal of deliberative democracy.

III. Workplace democracy as institutionalized

mobilization, and its contribution to

deliberative democracy

But although Cohen’s arguments to justify workplace

democracy by deliberative democracy fail, here I will

argue that there are other important reasons to support

workplace democracy as contributing to deliberative

40 Christie, “Recent Calls for Economic Democracy”, pp. 120-121

democracy. I will argue that workplace democracy provides

institutionalized incentives to labor mobilization and

organization, and the latter are political guarantees of

state policies that promote workers’ equal standing as

democratic citizens. In this sense workplace democracy is

an institution that promotes deliberative democracy. I

will also argue that if this is the case, then it shows

that Cohen’s ideal of deliberative democracy put too

little attention to place of social mobilization and

organization in achieving deliberative democracy.

Workplace democracy as institutionalized mobilization.

Although we could protect worker’s economic autonomy, and

thus their democratic citizenship, by state policies that

ensure labor rights and protection as well as various

forms of social pension, these policies are, historically

speaking, the result of social movement and labor

movement. For example, the introduction of economic

policy of welfare state in Britain is largely the

achievement of the post-war Labor Party.41 And the rise of

Labor party is the direct result of the labor movement in

late nineteenth century. Indeed, large scale labor

movement is the basis of most left-leaning socialist and

labor parties across Europe, and those pasties eventually

come to power and in turn introduce most of the welfare

state policies.42 The success of Nordic social democratic

regimes is also highly depended on their long history of

union movements.43 Thus organized labor is the political

guarantee of policies and institutional designs that

protect workers from dependence and mistreatments from

their employers. This independence, as we have seen in

Cohen’s ideal, is an essential element to make

deliberative democracy works.

Workplace democracy is the institutionalization of

this sort of social and labor movements, and sometimes

41 Ben Jackson, “Property-Owning Democracy: A Short History” in Marin O’Neill and Thad Williamson eds. Property- Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), pp. 33-52. pp. 44-4542 For an excellent summary of this history, see Eric Hobesbawm, How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism, (London: Little Brown, 2011), pp.401-402, 404-40943 John Roemer, Egalitarian Perspectives: Essays in Philosophical Economics. (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 330

even their result too. Elster and Ove Moene cite that

trade unions have played important role in transforming

enterprises into cooperatives, often when the enterprises

go bankruptcy.44 The system of co-determination also

provides incentives for employees to be organized into

labor unions. Thus workplace democracy promotes workers’

level of mobilization and organization, which turns the

power of separate and otherwise unorganized individuals

into a social force with shared interest and capacities

for collective actions. If organized labor movement is

the political guarantee of progressive social policies

that ensure people’s equal standing as deliberative

democratic citizens, and if workplace democracy

institutionalizes and provides incentive for organized

labor movement, then workplace democracy is qualified as

contributing to deliberative democracy.

Certainly, as we have seen from my refutation of

Cohen’s argument in section II, workplace democracy is

44 Elster & Ove Moene, “Introduction”, p. 34; Alperovitz, “The Pluralist Commonwealth and Property-Owning Democracy”, p.271

not alone sufficient. As institutional extension of

workplace democracy, a democratic corporatism that

exercise co-determination in a industry-wide level can

both expand the scale of labor mobilization and reduce

market competition. It is because the rules to regulate

the production of the industry are the result of

deliberation among the actors rather than strategic

actions to beat the market competitors.45 And as Bowles

and Gintis rightly argue, to avoid workplace democracy

being prohibitively inefficient, we have to introduce

democratic education in school. But still, workplace

democracy provides institutional incentives for workers

to be mobilized and organized into social forces to

secure progressive policies.

Other forms of associations may also serve the role to

mobilize and organize people, but in such cases people

are not mobilized so directly for the goal to protect

economic interest and economic independency as workplace

45 Hussain, “Nurturing the Sense of Justice”, p. 196; also cf. Elster and Ove Moene’s claim that “unions are needed to protect workers against mutually harmful competitive practices.”, as I cited earlier in this article.

democracy. If we take into account the development of

Multi-national Corporations and their influence to our

economic life, workplace democracy can organize along the

line of the identity of employees/workers rather than

national or local identity. This, if possible, seems more

promising in securing people’s economic equality and

independency than other more locally based or voluntary

forms of social organizations in the era of

globalization.46

Implication to Cohen’s ideal of deliberative

democracy. If my arguments above are plausible, then both

Cohen’s ideal of deliberative democracy and his support

of workplace democracy overlook an important element of

deliberative democracy. That is the mobilization and

organization of citizens. Vibrant discussions and

engagements of common good cannot be achieved if absent

of an active civil society, which in turns means a high

46 For some of the difficulties and prospects of cross-national non-government organizations, see James Rosenau, “Governance and democracy in a globalizing world”, pp. 28–57 in Daniele Archibugi, David Held & Martin Kohler (eds) Reimagining Political Community, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998).

level of social mobilization and organization on issues

of public affairs. Deliberative democracy as depicted by

Cohen is a polity in which individuals freely use their

public reasoning to discuss and reach agreements on

public affairs. But in the real world, organization and

mobilization matter in organizing collective interests

along different lines, in forming different political

agendas, and most importantly in confrontations against

the state and those who are in power. These social

organizations and mobilization are crucial to promote and

to push policies and institutions in favor of a more

equal and more inclusive society.

In short, mobilization and organization are important

social conditions to sustain the ideal of deliberative

democracy. In the case of workplace democracy, we can see

that how this dimension is overlooked in Cohen’s

framework. Here my arguments echo with radical critics of

the dominant liberal deliberative democratic model such

as John Dryzek, who argues that liberal deliberative

theory concerns too much on constitutional and state

official institutional features, but neglects the

importance of real political dynamics and confrontations

in the public sphere, i.e. civil society.47

IV. Conclusion

Therefore, workplace democracy, as defined by the

broad definition as used in this article, can be

justified on the ground of deliberative democracy. It is

because it provides institutional incentives for workers

mobilization and organization that are important to

secure workers’ economic autonomy, and thus their equal

standing as democratic citizens. I have also argued that

Joshua Cohen’s defense of workplace democracy as

deliberative democratic institution overlooks this

aspect, and his own reasons to support of workplace

democracy are indeed shaky. It is clear thus that

workplace democracy, for its organization and

47 John Dryzek, “Discursive democracy vs. liberal constitutionalism”,in M Saward (ed.), Democratic Innovation: Deliberation, representation and association, (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 295-308. pp. 304-306

mobilization power, has an important role in deliberative

democracy, no matter in Cohen’s conception or in a

broader conception of deliberative democracy as some of

his radical critics suggest.

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