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Robert Dahl and the Right to Workplace Democracy Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Political Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works Faculty Publications Spring 2001 Robert Dahl and the Right to Workplace Democracy Robert Mayer Loyola University Chicago, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/politicalscience_facpubs Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Robert Mayer (2001). Robert Dahl and the Right to Workplace Democracy. The Review of Politics, 63, pp 221-247. doi:10.1017/S0034670500031156. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Publications at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Political Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. © University of Notre Dame, 2001. RobertDahl and the Rightto WorkplaceDemocracy RobertMayer Do employeespossess a moralright to democratic voice at work?In A Preface ToEconomic Democracy and otherwritings over the past two decades, Robert Dahl has developeda neo-Kantianproof for the existence of such a right.Even ifwe acceptthe norm of distributive justice upon which Dahl foundshis proof, voluntary subjection to authoritarianpower in firmsdoes not violate the legitimate entitlementsof employees.While adult residentsof territorialassociations do possess a moral rightto politicalequality, polities and firmsare qualitatively differenttypes of associationsin whichthe entitlements of subjectsare distinct. Subjectionto power is acquiredin differentways in thetwo kinds of associations, and thisdifference deprives employees-but not residents-of a rightto democratic voice as a matterof moral desert. Throughouthis career,Robert Dahl has been troubledby the differentways in whichthose who governpolities and firmsare chosen in modernsociety. While democracyis the normin the state,at leastin theadvanced industrial nations, authoritarianism prevailsin theeconomy. Most employees are subjectto managers theydid not electand to rulesin whichthey had littleor no say. Theyare subordinates,a rolemanifestly at odds withthe ideal of the democraticcitizen. Given the "contradictionsbetween our commitmentto thedemocratic ideal and thetheory and practice ofhierarchy in our dailylives,"' Dahl has expressedinterest from hisearliest publications in reestablishing symmetry between polity and economythrough the democratictransformation of work. TodayDahl is one ofthe most prominent advocates of workplace democracyin America,having devoted a book and numerous articlesand chaptersto thesubject over the past six decades.2 1. RobertDahl, "Liberal Democracy in theUnited States," inA Prospect ofLiberal Democracy,ed. WilliamLivingston (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979), p. 68. 2. For Dahl's earlyinterest in economicdemocracy see "On theTheory of DemocraticSocialism," Plan Age 6 (1940):325-56; "Workers' Control of Industry and theBritish Labor Party,"American Political Science Review 41 (1947):875-900; and RobertDahl and CharlesLindblom, Politics, Economics, and Welfare (New York: Harperand Row,1953), pp. 473-83.His mostimportant normative writings on workplacedemocracy are Afterthe Revolution?: Authority in a GoodSociety (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1970), pp. 115-40;"Power to the Workers?"New This content downloaded from 147.126.10.37 on Wed, 13 May 2015 17:54:17 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 222 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS But although a consistent advocate of the democratic reorganizationof work,Dahl's strategyof justificationfor this alternativehas evolved duringthe course of his career.Until the middle 1970s, Dahl framed the argument for workplace democracyin termsof its relativedesirability by contrastwith theauthoritarian firm. In Afterthe Revolution?, for instance, Dahl was concernedto identify "the most desirable system of authority" in differentkinds of associationsaccording to the abilityof a structureto optimizethe values of personalchoice, competence and economy.He argued thaton thisstandard the "Corporate Leviathan"is "ludicrouslyfar from optimal," given that it violates thecriterion of personal choice, and that"self-management seems to me closerto theoptimal than bureaucratic socialism or interest groupmanagement."3 As Dahl began to develop a theoryof procedural democracy in the later 1970s, however,a new method of justificationfor workplacedemocracy emerged alongside his earlierapproach. In A Prefaceto Economic Democracy and otherwritings, Dahl now claimed thatthe self-managedfirm is not merelydesirable by contrast with the alternatives but is also a moral right of employees. According to this argument,labor is entitled to democraticvoice in the firmas a matterof right,as a kind of compensationfor subjection to therules. In thisway Dahl shifted the debate about workplacedemocracy from the questionof its consequencesto thequestion of whatjustice demands. If power at workis a moralright of employees, then it is theentitlements of the individual that matter and not merely the relative desirabilityof this set of arrangements.Moral rightsmust be YorkReview of Books15 (19 November 1970): 20-24; "Governing the Giant Corporation,"in CorporatePower in America,ed. Ralph Nader and Mark Green (New York: Grossman Publishers,1973), pp. 10-24; "On Removing Certain Impedimentsto Democracyin theUnited States," Political Science Quarterly 92 (1977) 1-20;Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy: Autonomy vs. Control(New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1982), pp. 126-33,197-205;"Democracy in theWorkplace: Is ita Rightor a Privilege?"Dissent 31 (1984):54-60; A Prefaceto Economic Democracy (Berkeley:Unversity of California Press, 1985); "Sketches for a DemocraticUtopia," ScandinavianPolitical Studies 10 (1987): 195-206;Democracy and Its Critics(New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1989), pp. 325-32;and "Economics,Politics, and Democracy,"in TowardDemocracy: A Journey (Berkeley: Institute of Governmental StudiesPress, 1997), pp. 547-51. 3. Dahl, Afterthe Revolution?, pp. 56, 140. This content downloaded from 147.126.10.37 on Wed, 13 May 2015 17:54:17 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RIGHT TO WORKPLACE DEMOCRACY 223 respectedeven ifthey do notbenefit others, and thismeans that ifDahl's laterargument is correct,then the consequentialist one is of onlysecondary importance. Dahl's moral-rightsargument, however, is not persuasive. Democraticvoice in the firmis not a rightto which employees are morallyentitled, or so I hope to show.In thefollowing pages I criticallyexamine Dahl's prooffor the existence of a moralright to workplacedemocracy. I also reviewthe counterarguments that have been advanced thus far,which sufferfrom their own weaknesses. I show thataccording to the normof distributive justice Dahl himself accepts, voluntary subjection to authoritarianpower in the firmdoes not violate the legitimate entitlements of employees. This is not true in political associations, for subjects of a polity are indeed entitled to democraticvoice as a matterof right,if we accept thatequals must be treatedequally. Against Dahl, however,I insist that politiesand firmsare qualitativelydifferent types of associations in which the entitlementsof subjectsare distinct.Subjection to power is acquired in differentways in the two kinds of associations,and this differencedeprives employees-but not residents-of a moralclaim to democraticvoice. While seeking to refute Dahl's moral-rightsproof for workplace democracy,it is not my intentionto contest his argumentabout its benefits. I am in factsympathetic to arguments aboutthe desirability of workplace democracy, although I am also skepticalthat the wholesale democratizationof work would be as unambiguouslybeneficial as Dahl and otheradvocates claim.4 The point,however, is thatI agreethat desirability is theproper groundupon whichthe issue should be decided. If thedemos is 4. For examplesof consequentialistjustifications for workplace democracy see HerbertCroly, Progressive Democracy (New York:Macmillan, 1914), chap. 18; Carole Pateman,Participation and DemocraticTheory (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1970); Edward Greenberg, Workplace Democracy: The Political Effects ofParticipation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); David Schweickart,Against Capitalism(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Samuel Bowles and HerbertGintis, "A Politicaland EconomicCase forthe Democratic Enterprise," in The Idea of Democracy,ed. David Copp, Jean Hampton, and JohnRoemer (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 375-99;and Christopher McMahon,Authority and Democracy: A General Theory of Government and Management (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1994). This content downloaded from 147.126.10.37 on Wed, 13 May 2015 17:54:17 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 224 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS persuaded thatdemocratizing work is clearlyadvantageous, it shouldbe entitledto mandatethat reform because no moralrights are at stake.Conversely, if the demos is notconvinced about the benefitsof politicalequality at work,it should notbe compelled to make the change in the name of protectingan alleged moral right.Within the firm, unlike the polity, the question of how power should be distributedcannot be resolvedby appeal to themoral rightsof the individual. It is a matterof discretion, and should be decided by a consequentialistcalculation of therelative benefits. On the question of democratizingwork,
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