Economic Democracy (ED) refers to democracy in the realm of economic life aiming to complete Political Democracy and to democratize the economy. ED is about an economic constitution based on democracy instead of economic autocracy.
ED goes beyond organizational democracy within a single enterprise. It concerns multiple levels of socio-economic decision-making reaching from the intraorganizational level of a single enterprise to relations with other enterprises, stakeholders, and the state. ED thus is an alternative political-economic set of structures that decentralizes power and reshapes responsibilities in economic decision-making on multiple levels across a broad range of actors. As a multi-level project ED addresses the micro- (e.g. expansion of co-determination), the meso- (e.g. regional and local councils for economic development), the macro- (e.g. regulatory frameworks for the Social Economy) and the transnational and European level.
Democratic enterprises practicing -> Organizational Democracy, such as authentic co-operatives (owned and democratically controlled by workers, consumer/users or multiple stakeholders), are at the forefront of ED. Work councils and unions have a vital role for democratizing work and economy.
The concentration of economic power, rising inequality and the erosion of political
democracy contribute to the revival of the debate on ED that attempts to rethink the capitalist order of society and is often informed by the work of Karl Polanyi who argued for re-embedding the economy into society by overcoming the dichotomization of politics and economy, restructuring societal relations. ED refers to the basic organizational principle of economic practices that put people and nature first instead of profit production.
ED is framed in different ways, e.g. as a “diverse ecology of democratic collective ownership” entailing a mixed economy of both planned and market sectors yet with a shift towards public, cooperative, employee- and community-owned forms of enterprise; as market socialism; as an attempt at the socialization of markets; as market-free participatory socialism based on decentralized, democratic planning. Trade unions often situate ED within a mixed economy context including various forms of ownership and being shaped by a comprehensive regulatory framework.
DICES investigates Economic Democracy and Organizational Democracy as applied by Social Economy actors as drivers of inclusive care. The project maps Economic Democracy and Organizational Democracy within the Social Economy across six European countries (WP2–WP3), analyses organizational democracy and social dialogue in the Social Economy, e.g. comparing different social economy ownership models and degrees of organizational democracy (WP4), and tests new democratic practices through local pilot actions (WP6).
Economic democracy · Organizational democracy · Social inclusion · Welfare governance
Cumbers (2020). The Case for Economic Democracy. Cambridge, UK, Medford, MA/USA: Polity Press.
Exner, A. (2021). Ökonomien der Gabe. Frühsozialismus, Katholische Soziallehre und Solidarisches Wirtschaften. Vienna, Austria: Mandelbaum
