An Authoritarian Oligarchy

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” ~ Winston Churchill

It’s important to point out that in an economic democracy the primary goal of a non-capitalist investment system, as mentioned in several previous posts, would be the creation of economic enterprises that are owned and democratically managed by the workers of those same enterprises.

Capitalist firms are actually authoritarian governances. The employer controls when and where one eats, when one can use the restroom, how one can dress, when one can speak, to whom one speaks, and in what manner one speaks. Even if the employer doesn’t exercise such authority it’s usually because they choose not to rather than being restricted from doing so.

Most capitalists will acknowledge the reality of the dictatorial employee-employer relationship but will say that it’s not a problem because the employee has a legal right to quit. This denial of a problem ignores the hardship and risk involved with being unemployed. Plus, changing jobs simply means going from one dictatorship for another in the hopes that the next will be less abusive and degrading. The worker is not truly a free agent but is dependent upon the employee-employer relationship for his or her survival.

Even if an employee purchases shares of stock in their own firm they won’t have enough shares to exert any form of governance over their own workplace. In reality only a small percentage of Americans own controlling shares in the corporations. The capitalist mode of production is not only authoritarian but oligarchic.

This authoritarian oligarchy extends to state socialism as well. Whether the workplace is managed by a capitalist class or a bureaucratic class the worker is still in an economic dictatorship.

Democracy can be defined as government by the governed. It’s time for democracy to be expanded from its current limit of public self-governance to also include economic self-governance.