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Barrère, Christian --- "Defining Economic Democracy: A Challenge. An Institutionalist Framework" [2007] ELECD 220; in Marciano, Alain; Josselin, Jean-Michel (eds), "Democracy, Freedom and Coercion" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Democracy, Freedom and Coercion

Editor(s): Marciano, Alain; Josselin, Jean-Michel

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201263

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Defining Economic Democracy: A Challenge. An Institutionalist Framework

Author(s): Barrère, Christian

Number of pages: 34

Extract:

4. Defining economic democracy:
a challenge. An institutionalist
framework
Christian Barrère

This recognition of democracy as a universally relevant system, which moves in
the direction of its acceptance as a universal value, is a major revolution in think-
ing, and one of the main contributions of the twentieth century. (Amartya Sen1)



THE PROBLEM OF ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY

Is `economic democracy' an oxymoron? When she heard that the Moulinex
factory in Alençon where she had worked for 30 years was soon to close
down, Monique protested: `They have exploited us for years and now they
want shut of us. Every day we wait for news, hoping it won't be too bad. Its
racking my nerves. I can't stand it. I feel cut off from the world, from
society, left out of everything. Our lives have been put on hold.'2
Her protest echoes the words of the Abbé Sieyès' two centuries before:
`What is the Third Estate today? Nothing.' Except that Sieyès was chal-
lenging the forms of political power while the factory worker Monique
contests the forms of economic power. In the economic sphere, rights are
not distributed, granted or held by any egalitarian or democratic proce-
dure. This, though, is not a concern for the many people for whom eco-
nomics implies private property (and so owner power exclusively) and
market-allocation of resources (and so unequal entitlement to power).
This attitude derives from the way we model society dichotomously as
political machinery and ...