Firms as Political Entities

Saving Democracy through Economic Bicameralism

Inbunden, Engelska, 2017

AvIsabelle Ferreras

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When people go to work, they cease to be citizens. At their desks they are transformed into employees, subordinate to the hierarchy of the workplace. The degree of their sense of voicelessness may vary from employer to employer, but it is real and growing, inflamed by populist propaganda that ridicules democracy as weak and ineffective amid global capitalism. At the same time, corporations continue untouched and even unremarked as a major source of the problem. Relying on 'economic bicameralism' to consider firms as political entities, this book sheds new light on the institutions of industrial relations that have marked the twentieth century, and argues that it is time to recognize that firms are a peculiar institution that must be properly organized in order to unshackle workers' motivation and creativity, and begin nurturing democracy again. For more information, please visit the accompanying website: www.firmsaspoliticalentities.net.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2017-10-25
Mått158 x 235 x 18 mm
Vikt450 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor226
FörlagCambridge University Press
ISBN9781108415941

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Isabelle Ferreras is a tenured fellow of the Belgian National Science Foundation, a professor of sociology at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, and a senior research associate of the Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School, Massachusetts. A sociologist and political scientist by training, she is driven by the idea that the social sciences can make a difference. This book is the keystone of her long-term research into the tensions between capitalism and democracy.

Introduction: what about the workers?; Part I. Critical History of Power in the Firm: The Slow Transition of Work from the Private to the Public Sphere: 1. Stage one: the workplace and its emergence from the household; 2. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries: workers' movements and the invention of collective bargaining; 3. The twentieth century and the ambiguities of institutional innovations in the capitalist firm; 4. The twenty-first century service economy is bringing work fully into the public sphere; Part II. What Is a Firm?: 5. Obsolete vision: instrumental rationality as the firm's sole logic; 6. Foundations for the political theory of the firm; Part III. Looking to the Future: From Political Bicameralism to Economic Bicameralism: 7. Bicameral movements: a pivotal institutional innovation for governments in democratic transition; 8. Analogy: the executive of the firm answering to a two-chamber parliament; Conclusions: a reader's guide for reflection and debate about economic bicameralism.

'Isabelle Ferreras presents a forceful case for a very big idea. Firms, she argues, are political entities, and democracy is the right kind of governance for political entities. So firms should be governed democratically - by a bicameral body, representing workers as well as owners of capital. We urgently need creative, ambitious, constructive thinking, and Isabelle Ferreras delivers it: clearly, gracefully, and with great intellectual power.' Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers, Apple University and University of California, Berkeley, Editor of the Boston Review and University of Wisconsin, Madison, Director, COWS