Summary
What It Is
Democracy is a form of governing where the members of a business govern their business together. The members of a business are the owners and the workers.
What Problems It Solves
- Prevent Worker Oppression: When workers fully participate in the governing of the business along with owners, they can prevent or eliminate oppressive acts efficiently without a need for costly methods such as strikes.
- Encourage Worker Engagement: When workers can participate in governing, they are likely to engage more of their heart and soul which is the source of innovation and delighting the customer. Disenfranchised workers are more likely to only contribute the minimum required.
- Access More Creative Resources: When the governing process includes all the workers and owners, it casts a wider net that could catch innovative ideas from workers previously excluded.
How It Works (see the “Governance” tab for details)
- Work teams are self-directed, making decisions by discussion and vote. They elect their own team leader.
- Business units decide issues through discussion and vote in meetings open to all workers or in councils comprised of elected members, as the unit chooses.
- The workerle decides issues through a worker Senate. Members are elected to the Senate through an electoral college.
- The business makes decisions through the joint agreement of the ownerle Board of Directors and the workerle Senate.
- Workerle: one worker, one vote. Ownerle: one stock share, one vote (or equivalent in non-corporate forms)
- Laws protect the minority against the tyranny of the majority
Discussion
One of the bed rock principles of the American political experience is the sovereignty of the people. We believe that our governments should be “of the people, by the people, [and] for the people.” Given this, it is difficult to understand why Americans have for so long tolerated work places where they have little or no voice. It might be because the institutions they were most intimately involved with growing up – family, school, police, church, etc. – had little or no democratic features. Thus, having never known what it feels like to have a voice, people are more able to tolerate work in such places. For most, this must be against the deepest yearnings of their soul for self-determination. It is upon this assumption that Liberty Workforce is based: people desire to have a voice in what concerns them and work is no exception to this.
People are generally reasonable. If the cost to obtain what they want is higher than the benefit they expect to receive, they will consider less desirable alternatives if they are available. That there are few democratic workplaces does not necessarily mean that this is because few prefer them. It could be that they would prefer them if the marketplace were to offer them in their career field, in a preferred geographic location, and meeting similar other important factors in their choice of employment. For most who desire self-determination, the main current alternative is self-employment. And only a few can pursue this course. Another alternative would be to force democratic reform in the workplace. The high cost of this approach would generally outweigh the benefits. But, there have been times where workers have determined that the cost is worth it. Unions and strikes are an example of this. Liberty Workforce proposes that people would choose a democratic workplace over one that is not if such an option were available in the marketplace, all things being equal.
It is upon the sentiments expressed in the American Declaration of Independence that Liberty Workforce makes its stand:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, [business Entities] are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of [business] becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new [business Form], laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that [businesses] long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to [leave] such [businesses], and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Some might concede these sentiments, but argue that they are moot because property rights give business owners the sole voice in governing the business. However, the very natural law arguments that are used to justify property rights can also be used to justify the worker’s right to share governance of the business with the owner [ref]. Be that as it may, Liberty Workforce creates a business form where the owners agree, in a legally binding manner, to share governance of the business with the workers [ref]. This form is a “Magna Carta” that recognizes and secures as a property right the involvement of workers in the governing of the business.