1. Dahl, Robert, “Liberal Democracy in the United States,” in A Prospect of Liberal Democracy, ed. Livingston, William (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979), p. 68.Google Scholar

2. For Dahl's early interest in economic democracy see “On the Theory of Democratic Socialism,” Plan Age 6 (1940): 325–56;Google Scholar“Workers' Control of Industry and the British Labor Party,” American Political Science Review 41 (1947): 875–900;Google Scholar and Dahl, Robert and Lindblom, Charles, Politics, Economics, and Welfare (New York: Harper and Row, 1953), pp. 473–83.Google Scholar His most important normative writings on workplace democracy are After the Revolution?: Authority in a Good Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), pp. 115–40;Google Scholar“Power to the Workers?” New York Review of Books 15 (19 11 1970): 20–24;Google Scholar“Governing the Giant Corporation,” in Corporate Power in America, ed. Nader, Ralph and Green, Mark (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1973), pp. 10–24;Google Scholar“On Removing Certain Impediments to Democracy in the United States,” Political Science Quarterly 92 (1977) 1–20;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDilemmas of Pluralist Democracy: Autonomy vs. Control (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), pp. 126–33, 197–205;Google Scholar“Democracy in the Workplace: Is it a Right or a Privilege?” Dissent 31 (1984): 54–60;Google ScholarA Preface to Economic Democracy (Berkeley: Unversity of California Press, 1985);Google Scholar“Sketches for a Democratic Utopia,” Scandinavian Political Studies 10 (1987): 195–206;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDemocracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 325–32;Google Scholar and “Economics, Politics, and Democracy,” in Toward Democracy: A Journey (Berkeley: Institute of Governmental Studies Press, 1997), pp. 547–51Google Scholar

3. Dahl, , After the Revolution?, pp. 56, 140.Google Scholar

4. For examples of consequentialist justifications for workplace democracy see Croly, Herbert, Progressive Democracy (New York: Macmillan, 1914), chap. 18;Google ScholarPateman, Carole, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970);CrossRefGoogle ScholarGreenberg, Edward, Workplace Democracy: The Political Effects of Participation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986);Google ScholarSchweickart, David, Against Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993);Google ScholarBowles, Samuel and Gintis, Herbert, “A Political and Economic Case for the Democratic Enterprise,” in The Idea of Democracy, ed. Copp, David, Hampton, Jean, and Roemer, John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 375–99;Google Scholar and McMahon, Christopher, Authority and Democracy: A General Theory of Government and Management (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).Google Scholar

5. “On Removing Certain Impediments to Democracy,” pp. 10–12Google Scholar; and “Procedural Democracy,” in Philosophy, Politics and Society, fifth series, ed. Laslett, Peter and Fishkin, James (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1979), pp. 97–133.Google Scholar For criticism of Dahl's theory of procedural democracy and his replies see Green, Phillip and Dahl, Robert, “What Is Political Equality?: A Controversy,” Dissent 26 (1979): 351–68;Google ScholarKrouse, Richard, “Capitalism, Socialism, and Political Equality,” Dissent 27 (1980): 453–56;Google ScholarDahl, Robert, “A Reply to Richard Krouse,” Dissent 27 (1980): 456–58;Google Scholar and DiZerega, Augustus, “Equality, Self-Government and Democracy: A Critique of Dahl's Political Equality,” Western Political Quarterly 41 (1988): 447–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. For examples of the autonomy argument see Werhane, Patricia, Persons, Rights, and Corporations (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1985), pp. 133–35;Google ScholarGould, Carol, Rethinking Democracy (Cambidge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 84–85, 143;Google Scholar and Hyland, James, Democratic Theory: The Philosophical Foundations (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), pp. 231–33.Google Scholar

7. For an example of the distributive justice argument see Walzer, Michael, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 291–303.Google Scholar For a critique of Walzer's argument see Mayer, Robert, “Michael Walzer, Industrial Democracy, and Complex Equality,” Political Theory 29 (2001): 237–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Dahl, , Preface to Economic Democracy, p. 85.Google Scholar

9. Cohen, Carl, Democracy (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1971), p. 244.Google Scholar

10. Dahl, , “On Removing Certain Impediments to Democracy,” pp. 10–12.Google Scholar

11. Dahl, , Preface to Economic Democracy, p. 57.Google Scholar

12. Ibid., pp. 57–58.

13. Ibid., p. 61.

14. Cohen, , Democracy, p. 245.Google Scholar

15. Arneson, Richard, “Democratic Rights at National and Workplace Levels,” in Copp, Idea of Democracy, p. 138.Google Scholar

16. Dahl, , Preface to Economic Democracy, p. 111.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., p. 114.

18. Ibid., p. 115

19. Ibid., pp. 116–17.

20. Ibid., p. 123.

21. Ibid., pp. 122–33. For further evidence on the performance of cooperative enterprise see Schweickart, , Against Capitalism, pp. 88–136.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., p. 118.

23. Ibid., pp. 73–83.

24. Ibid., pp. 7–51.

25. Narveson, Jan, “Democracy and Economic Rights,” Social Philosophy and Policy 9 (1992): 45–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26. McMahon, , Authority and Democracy, p. 15.Google Scholar

27. On labor hiring capital in economic democracy see Ellerman, David, The Democratic Worker-Owned Firm (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), p. 64.Google Scholar

28. On the libertarian justification for self-enslavement see Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. 331;Google Scholar and Philmore, J., “The Libertarian Case for Slavery,” The Philosophical Forum 14 (1982): 43–58.Google Scholar

29. Arneson, , “Democratic Rights at National and Workplace Levels,” pp. 138–43.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., p. 140.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. The reasoning that underlies this intuition will be set forth in the next section.

34. Dahl, , Preface to Economic Democracy, pp. 114–16.Google Scholar

35. Throughout this section I avoid the language of “voluntariness” in describing organizations that accord a subjection option to prospective members. In their criticisms of Dahl's proof both Narveson and Arneson employ this terminology, but they fail to distinguish carefully between the different ways in which organizations can be voluntary. Freedom to leave is one dimension of voluntariness, but freedom not to be subject to the organization is another. We would do better to avoid this language entirely and focus on the kinds of options organizations accord to members. For reasons that will become clear in the next section, I also avoid the contested language of consent in building my argument.

36. The claim to political equality in an organization can be a valuable asset. Capitalist firms purchase the claim (negotiate political inequality) because they think they can maximize profits by dictating how the work will be done. Whether an authoritarian political structure in the firm in fact enhances profitability is a contested issue. If it does, then expropriation of this claim (by mandating workplace democracy in every firm) should result in diminshed compensation for labor. For two arguments along these lines see Maitland, Ian, “Rights in the Workplace: A Nozickian Argument,” Journal of Business Ethics 8 (1989): 951–54;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Phillips, Michael, “Should We Let Employees Contract away Their Rights against Arbitrary Discharge?” Journal of Business Ethics 13 (1994): 233–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37. Walzer, , Spheres of Justice, p. xii.Google Scholar

38. Consider the fruitful distinction drawn by Oakeshott, Michael between civil and enterprise associations in On Human Conduct (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975),Google Scholar ch. 2. Polities are not enterprise associations, but they sometimes like to act as if they were.

39. For a similar argument against guest-worker laws see Walzer, , Spheres of Justice, pp. 56–61.Google Scholar

40. In the example we abstract from the circumstance that the monastery belongs to a larger organization (the Church) that may be entitled to choose the superiors. Assume for the sake of argument that the monastery is autonomous.

41. The classic locus for this argument is, of course, Marx's Capital. At the end the chapter on the working day, for instance, Marx observes that “our worker emerges from the process of production looking different from when he entered it. the market, as the owner of the commodity ‘labor-power,’ he stood face to face with other owners of commodities, one owner against another owner. The contract which he sold his labor-power to the capitalist proved in black and white, so to speak, that he was free to dispose of himself. But when the transaction was concluded, was discovered that he was no ‘free agent,’ that the period of time for which he is free to sell his labor-power is the period of time for which he is forced to sell it” (Capital: Volume One, trans. Fowkes, Ben [New York: Vintage Books, 1977], p. 415).Google Scholar

42. Cohen, G. A., “The Structure of Proletarian Unfreedom,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 12 (1982): 11.Google Scholar

43. For the libertarian objection see Nozick, , Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 250–65.Google Scholar

44. On the theory of exploitation see Zimmerman, David, “Coercive Wage Offers,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 10 (1982): 121–45;Google ScholarRoemer, John, A General Theory of Exploitation and Class (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Wood, Allen, “Exploitation,” Social Philosophy and Policy 12 (1995): 136–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45. According to Marx, expropriation of the direct producers results in the formation of “grouped masses of men who have nothing to sell but their laborpower” and “are compelled to sell themselves voluntarily.… The silent compulsion of economic relations sets the seal on the domination of the capitalist over the worker” (Capital, p. 899)Google Scholar.

46. Roemer, John, Free to Lose: An Introduction to Marxist Economic Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), pp. 90–107.Google Scholar

47. On the logic of minimum-wage laws as a remedy for exploitation see Feinberg, Joel, Harm to Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 79;Google Scholar and Hudson, Thomas, “Immutable Contract Rules, the Bargaining Process, and Inalienable Rights,” Arizona Law Review 34 (1992): 343.Google Scholar

48. According to Marx, , the “surplus population of workers…forms a disposable industrial reserve army, which belongs to capital just as absolutely as if the latter had bred it at its own cost” (Capital, p. 784).Google Scholar In this sense workers are virtual conscripts, the capitalist equivalent of the Trotskyist labor army.

49. Dahl, , Preface to Economic Democracy, pp. 84–110.Google Scholar

50. For a powerful defense of workplace democracy on consequentialist grounds see Schweickart, , Against Capitalism, pp. 88–136;Google Scholar for a more skeptical view see Hansmann, Henry, The Ownership of Enterprise (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 66–119.Google Scholar For further reflections on the possible costs of mandatory democratization of firms see Mayer, Robert, “Is there a Moral Right to Workplace Democracy?” Social Theory and Practice 26 (2000): 22–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51. Dahl, and Lindblom, , Politics, Economics and Welfare, p. 477.Google Scholar

52. Dahl, , After the Revolution?, pp. 116–17.Google Scholar For a more recent expression of the same view see “Social Reality and ‘Free Markets’: A Letter to Friends in Eastern Europe,” Dissent 37 (1990): 227.Google Scholar

53. Dahl, , Preface to Economic Democracy, p. 111.Google Scholar