Isabelle Ferreras

Firms as Political Entities (eBook, PDF)

Saving Democracy through Economic Bicameralism

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

When people go to work, they cease to be citizens. At their desks they are transformed into employees, subordinate to the hierarchy of the workplace. The degree of their sense of voicelessness may vary from employer to employer, but it is real and growing, inflamed by populist propaganda that ridicules democracy as weak and ineffective amid global capitalism. At the same time, corporations continue untouched and even unremarked as a major source of the problem. Relying on 'economic bicameralism' to consider firms as political entities, this book sheds new light on the institutions of industrial relations that have marked the twentieth century, and argues that it is time to recognize that firms are a peculiar institution that must be properly organized in order to unshackle workers' motivation and creativity, and begin nurturing democracy again. For more information, please visit the accompanying website: www.firmsaspoliticalentities.net.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cambridge University Press
• Erscheinungstermin: 25. Oktober 2017
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781108246767
• Artikelnr.: 50216532

Autorenporträt

Isabelle Ferreras is a tenured fellow of the Belgian National Science Foundation, a professor of sociology at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, and a senior research associate of the Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School, Massachusetts. A sociologist and political scientist by training, she is driven by the idea that the social sciences can make a difference. This book is the keystone of her long-term research into the tensions between capitalism and democracy.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction: what about the workers?; Part I. Critical History of Power in
the Firm: The Slow Transition of Work from the Private to the Public
Sphere: 1. Stage one: the workplace and its emergence from the household;
2. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries: workers' movements and the
invention of collective bargaining; 3. The twentieth century and the
ambiguities of institutional innovations in the capitalist firm; 4. The
twenty-first century service economy is bringing work fully into the public
sphere; Part II. What Is a Firm?: 5. Obsolete vision: instrumental
rationality as the firm's sole logic; 6. Foundations for the political
theory of the firm; Part III. Looking to the Future: From Political
Bicameralism to Economic Bicameralism: 7. Bicameral movements: a pivotal
institutional innovation for governments in democratic transition; 8.
Analogy: the executive of the firm answering to a two-chamber parliament;
Conclusions: a reader's guide for reflection and debate about economic
bicameralism.