Firm Foundations for Democracy? Worker Ownership and Control in Advanced Capitalism
ISBN: 978-1-78560-966-4, eISBN: 978-1-78560-965-7
Publication date: 6 June 2017
Abstract
This chapter maps existing patterns of broad-based worker ownership and control in contemporary advanced capitalism and considers future possibilities for expanding democracy within firms. Section one discusses worker ownership and control arrangements in relation to different theories of the firm and shows how these arrangements map onto different national systems. Section two compares Germany, which is characterized by worker control without ownership, and the United States, which is marked by worker ownership without control. Section three explores three pathways through which broad-based worker ownership and control might be deepened and more strongly coupled in the future.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Fred Block, David Ellerman, Richard Freeman, Erik Poutsma, and Trevor Young-Hyman for very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. All remaining errors are his alone.
Citation
Pinto, S. (2017), "Firm Foundations for Democracy? Worker Ownership and Control in Advanced Capitalism", Sharing in the Company (Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory & Labor-Managed Firms, Vol. 17), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 125-155. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0885-33392016000017008
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited