A Preface To Economic Democracy

Tocqueville pessimistically predicted that liberty and equality would be incompatible ideas. Robert Dahl, author of the classic A Preface to Democratic Theory, explores this alleged conflict, particularly in modern American society where differences in ownership and control of corporate enterprises create inequalities in resources among Americans that in turn generate inequality among them as citizens. Arguing that Americans have misconceived the relation between democracy, private property, and the economic order, the author contends that we can achieve a society of real democracy and political equality without sacrificing liberty by extending democratic principles into the economic order. Although enterprise control by workers violates many conventional political and ideological assumptions of corporate capitalism as well as of state socialism. Dahl presents an empirically informed and philosophically acute defense of "workplace democracy." He argues, in the light of experiences here and abroad, that an economic system of worker-owned and worker-controlled enterprises could provide a much better foundation for democracy, political equality, and liberty than does our present system of corporate capitalism.

Robert Dahl's Preface helped launch democratic theory fifty years ago as a new area of study in political science, and it remains the standard introduction to the field. Exploring problems that had been left unsolved by traditional thought on democracy, Dahl here examines two influential models--the Madisonian, which represents prevailing American doctrine, and its recurring challenger, populist theory--arguing that they do not accurately portray how modern democracies operate. He then constructs a model more consistent with how contemporary democracies actually function, and, in doing so, develops some original views of popular sovereignty and the American constitutional system.

This work, originally published in 1989, examines a highly important phenomenon: the growth of profit-sharing and share-ownership schemes for employees within the company. The Origins of Economic Democracy traces the origins and developments of such schemes internationally, and presents an explanatory framework for understanding their emergence. Both legislation and economic conditions play key roles in determining the popularity of such schemes for companies and their employees. The subject of profit-sharing is of vital importance to companies endeavouring to improve their financial performance while increasing the degree of job satisfaction and organizational loyalty of staff members.

Explains the causes and consequences of democratization within the firm. It discusses workers' cooperatives, collective capital ownership and industrial democracy. The book proposes new institutions and policies by which a self-managed sector could be promoted under capitalism.

This title was first published in 1999: The author contends that economic democracy is the economic system the U.S. purports to have, but has thus far failed to achieve because it, like all the economic powers that have gone before, seeks to control the economies of weaker nations. It is the shocking lack of economic democracy, and the efforts of so many to achieve it, that fuels today's conflicts and will fuel those of the 21st century.To show how and why, this comprehensive work provides a detailed analysis of the history of numerous aspects of the development of the Neo-Mercantilist world economy; the geopolitical systems put in place by the developed world to manage and perpetuate that economy; and the numerous proposals and modeling plans that have been offered over the years for the achievement of economic democracy.

Powerful challenge to the current neoliberal economic orthodoxy. Asserts that economic democracy should be the new guiding principle for humanity.