Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

Enterprise Obstructions to Democracy 243ventured into formal employee control, as in Germany’s legalprovision for employee membership on corporate supervisoryboards even though not on the more active managerialboards.I would proceed cautiously in appraising the authoritarianworkplace as an obstacle to democracy. Workplacedemocracy is on some points at odds with democracy for thewhole society. It is not at all clear what range and degree of“industrial democracy” is necessary to the larger democracy.Would one on democratic grounds advocate turning thearmy over to the control not of legislature or cabinet but ofthe soldiers in it? Would one turn tax policy over to the employeesof the tax-collecting authority? Would one turn decisionson where to construct new highways over to theworkers who construct them?The appropriate constituency for military, tax, or highwaydecisions is, roughly speaking, “all of us,” not justthose who do the work, even though those who do the workhave intense interests in how it is organized and done. Howmany television sets of what kinds ought to be produced isa decision that impinges on all persons who want a set orsomething else instead, not just on those who make them.Decisions on rates of pay in a factory affect all claimants toshares of the society’s production, not only on the employeesin that one factory.If employees were to replace stockholders as proximatecontrollers of corporations, their new managers, whomthey would presumably elect, would need to continue topractice a responsiveness to market controls as well as a responsivenessto new employee controls. The two controlswould conflict, as when employees might want to drain thefirm of its liquid capital by taking wage increases whilemarket controls call for investing the capital for growth.