Economic democracy

Ulf Johanson and Emmanuel Aboagye

Chapter 9 in Pluralistic Economics, 2026, pp 107-121 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: For centuries, economic systems have gained influence, often linked to technological development. The expansion has occurred within a deeply undemocratic structure. Most individuals today spend their daily lives working in institutions where there is no democracy. “Getting a job” fundamentally means that an individual agrees to rent themselves to a company where the board and top managers are unaccountable to them. In exchange for a wage, the worker subordinates themselves to a board of directors they cannot elect. Looking back, Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the 1830s, viewed the rising manufacturing aristocracies with suspicion, calling them “one of the harshest which ever existed”. He predicted that if permanent inequality were to re-enter the world, this would be the channel through which they would arrive. The system creates a society of rulers who give orders and people who obey, spending their lives merely taking orders without thinking for themselves. This leads to a dystopian reality where AI-powered cameras are used to monitor workers’ movements.

Keywords: Employee-owned cooperatives; Social architecture; Technological infrastructure; Test of economic democracy; Democratic AI governance; Principal-agent problem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035393497
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