Workplace Democracy: Are Workers the Citizens of their Workplace?

Catalog description

Adam Smith argued that a firm owned by the workers would be more productive than others. Following this insight, there have been people who argue we should have worker ownership of firms: workplace democracy. Other supporters think that workplace democracy is not merely a more efficient way of running a business, but they think that individual workers' dignity and rights are threatened when we don't have workplace democracy. Elizabeth Anderson argues that workplace democracy is the way to avoid being dominated by our bosses, who are functionally dictators or tyrants unless we have workplace democracy. This course will look at workplace democracy and its critics. We will focus on two cases to see how many moral similarities and dissimilarities they have as workplaces: the firm and the university.