Democratic capitalism and respect for the value of freedom

Waheed Hussain

International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, 2006, vol. 2, issue 3/4, 280-293

Abstract: Most theorists believe that when it comes to freedom, no economic system does better than laissez-faire capitalism – the system may have other problems, but as far as freedom is concerned, laissez-faire is as good as it gets. The goal of this paper is to show that this view is mistaken. I begin by criticising two important contemporary conceptions of freedom, the libertarian and the liberal egalitarian conceptions, both of which support the dominant view. I then develop a better alternative, one that I call the social democratic conception of freedom. Using this conception, I go on to show that an economic system that requires firms to have an internal structure that makes decision-making more transparent and responsive to the concerns of workers actually shows greater respect for freedom than laissez-faire capitalism does.

Keywords: freedom; autonomy; democracy; corporate governance; economic democracy; workplace democracy; co-determination; capitalism; business governance; laissez-faire capitalism; democratic capitalism. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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