Elena Icardi // Structural Economic Domination: Workplace Democracy or Democracy Tout Court?

The Centre for Ethics Politics and Society (CEPS), University of Minho

CEPS Seminar Meetings, Friday, January 26th at 11h (GMT) – hybrid format

Elena Icardi (CEPS)

“Structural Economic Domination: Workplace Democracy or Democracy Tout Court?”

We welcome Elena Icardi to discuss her paper “Structural Economic Domination: Workplace Democracy or Democracy Tout Court?”

The session starts at 11h (GMT), and will take place in Sala Ceps (Edifício ELACH) – Campus de Gualtar, Universidade do Minho. You’re also welcomed to join us online, through the following Zoom link: tinyurl.com/CEPSSEMINARS2324

Abstract: Despite the existence of employment contracts, in contemporary capitalist societies workers are often at the mercy of their employers because of the significant power asymmetry between them. This poses a serious challenge for neo-republicanism, the strand of contemporary political philosophy that advocates freedom as non-domination. To meet this challenge, some scholars have proposed workplace democracy. Namely, the idea that in order to get rid of employer-employee domination in the workplace, workers should have a say in workplace decision-making. Although workplace democracy may seem appealing, I argue that it is redundant in the face of structural economic domination. In a capitalist system, all individuals who cannot challenge the rules of the labor market, whether they are employees or unemployed, are dominated by those who control these rules. Thus, to overcome structural economic domination, everyone, not just those within the workplace, should have the ability to challenge the economic structure, including labor market regulations and workplace organization. Rather than advocating for workplace democracy, I hence propose a political capillary democracy to address these issues at various levels (national or local) and in different spaces (cities assemblies, trade unions, etc.). The rationale is that every citizen should have a say on these issues in order to ensure that no one is at the mercy of anyone else’s economic power