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Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that suggests transfer of decision-making authority from a small minority of corporate shareholders to the larger majority of public stakeholders. While there is no single definition or approach, all theories and real-world examples of economic democracy are based on a core set of fundamental assumptions.

Proponents generally agree that modern economic conditions tend to hinder or prevent society from earning enough income to purchase its output production. Centralized corporate monopoly of common resources typically forces conditions of artificial scarcity upon the greater majority, resulting in socio-economic imbalances that restrict workers from access to economic opportunity and diminish consumer purchasing power.

As either a component of larger socioeconomic ideologies or as a stand-alone theory, economic democracy promotes universal access to common resources that are typically privatized by corporate capitalism and centralized by state socialism. Assuming full political rights cannot be won without full economic rights, economic democracy suggests alternative models and reform agendas for solving problems of economic instability and deficiency of effective demand. As an alternative model, both market and non-market theories of economic democracy have been proposed. As a reform agenda, supporting theories and real-world examples include democratic cooperatives, fair trade, social credit, and the regionalization of food production and currency.

Alternative models
With regard to closing the gap between production and purchasing power, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. suggests:


 * "The problem indicates that our emphasis must be two-fold. We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position, we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available."

But many analysts argue that both full employment and guaranteed basic income are impossible under the restrictions of the current economic system for two primary reasons: First, unemployment is an essential feature of capitalism, not an indication of systemic failure. Second, while capitalism thrives under polyarchy, it is not compatible with genuine democracy. Suggesting that these "democratic deficits" significantly impact the management of both workplace and new investment, some proponents of Economic Democracy favor the creation and implementation of a new economic model over reform of the existing one.

According to most analysts, a serious critique of any problem cannot be content to merely note the negative features of the existing model. We must specify precisely not only the defining characteristics of the existing model, but also the structural features of an alternative. Such a specification is necessarily complicated, since a modern economy is a complicated affair. "But if we want to do more than simply denounce the evils of capitalism, we must confront the claim that 'there is no alternative' -- by proposing one."

Market models
Hungarian historian Karl Polanyi suggests that the drive of market economies should be subordinate to larger societal needs. He states that human-beings, the source of labor, do not reproduce for the sole purpose of providing the market with workers. In The Great Transformation Polanyi says that, while modern states and market economies tend to grow under capitalism, both are mutually interdependent for functional development. In order for market economies to be truly prosperous, he claims social constructs must play an essential role. With the term "fictitious commodities", Polanyi claimed that land, labor, and money are all commodified under capitalism, though the inherent purpose of these items was never intended "for sale". He says natural resources are "God-given", money is a bookkeeping entry validated by law, and labor is a human prerogative, not a personal obligation to market economies.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. claims "Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of Capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both". Assuming that "democracy is not just a political value, but one with profound economic implications", David Schweickart suggests "the problem is not to choose between plan and market, but to integrate these institutions into a democratic framework". According to Schweickart, "Economic Democracy, like capitalism, can be defined in terms of three basic features:


 * Worker Self-Management: Each productive enterprise is controlled democratically by its workers.


 * The Market: These enterprises interact with one another and with consumers in an environment largely free of governmental price controls. Raw materials, instruments of production and consumer goods are all bought and sold at prices largely determined by the forces of supply and demand.


 * Social Control of Investment: Funds for new investment are generated by a capital assets tax and are returned to the economy through a network of public investment banks."

In real-world practice, Schweickart concedes Economic Democracy will be more complicated and less "pure" than this abstract model. However, to grasp the nature of the system and to understand its essential dynamic, it is important to have a clear picture of the basic structure. Capitalism is characterized by private ownership of productive resources, the market, and wage labor. The Soviet economic model abolished private ownership of productive resources (by collectivizing all farms and factories) and the market (by instituting central planning), but retained wage labor. Economic Democracy abolishes private ownership of productive resources, and wage labor, but retains the market.

Worker self-management
In Schweickart’s model, each productive enterprise is controlled by those who work there. Workers are responsible for the operation of the facility, including organization, discipline, production techniques, and the nature, price, and distribution of products. Decisions concerning proceeds distribution are made democratically. Problems of authority delegation are solved by democratic representation. Management is not appointed by the State nor elected by the community at large, nor selected by a board of directors elected by stockholders. Whatever internal structures are put in place, ultimate authority rests with the enterprise's workers, one-person, one-vote.

Although workers control the workplace, they do not "own" the means of production in Schweickart's model. Productive resources are regarded as the collective property of the society. Workers have the right to run the enterprise, to use its capital assets as they see fit, and to distribute among themselves the whole of the net profit from production. Societal "ownership" of the enterprise manifests itself in two ways.


 * All firms must pay a tax on their capital assets, which goes into society's investment fund. In effect, workers rent their capital assets from society.


 * Firms are required to preserve the value of the capital stock entrusted to them. This means that a depreciation fund must be maintained. Money must be set aside to repair or replace existing capital stock. This money may be spent on whatever capital replacements or improvements the firm deems fit, but it may not be used to supplement workers' incomes.

If a firm is unable to generate even the nationally-specified minimum per-capita income, then it must declare bankruptcy. Movable capital will be sold off to pay creditors. The workers must seek employment elsewhere. In such economic difficulty, workers are free to reorganize the facility, or to leave and seek work elsewhere. They are not free to sell off their capital stocks and use the proceeds as income. A firm can sell off capital stocks and use the proceeds to buy additional capital goods. Or, if the firm wishes to contract its capital base so as to reduce its tax and depreciation obligations, it can sell off some of its assets, but in this case proceeds from the sale go into the national investment fund, not to the workers, since these assets belong to society as a whole.

The market
According to David Schweickart, Economic Democracy is a market economy, at least insofar as the allocation of consumer and capital goods is concerned. Firms buy raw materials and machinery from other firms and sell their products to other enterprises or consumers. "Prices are largely unregulated except by supply and demand, although in some cases price controls or price supports might be in order -- as they are deemed in order in most real-world forms of capitalism."

Without a price mechanism sensitive to supply and demand, it is extremely difficult for a producer or planner to know what and how much to produce, and which production and marketing methods are the most efficient. It is also extremely difficult in the absence of a market to design a set of incentives that will motivate producers to be both efficient and innovative. Market competition resolves these problems, to a significant if incomplete degree, in a non-authoritarian, non-bureaucratic fashion.

In Schweikart's view, centralized planning is inherently flawed, and schemes for decentralized non-market planning are unworkable. As theory predicts and the historical record confirms, central planning is both inefficient and conducive to an authoritarian concentration of power. This is one of the great lessons to be drawn from the Soviet experience.

Since enterprises in Economic Democracy buy and sell on the market, they strive to make a profit. However, the "profit" in a worker-run firm is not the same as capitalist profit. It is calculated differently. In a market economy firms, whether capitalist or worker-self-managed, strive to maximize the difference between total sales and total costs. But for a capitalist firm, labor is counted as a cost. For a worker-run enterprise it is not. In Economic Democracy labor is not another "factor of production" technically on par with land and capital. Labor is the residual claimant. Workers get all that remains, once non-labor costs, including depreciation set asides and the capital assets tax, have been paid.

Because of the way workplaces and the investment mechanism are structured, Schweickart's model aims to facilitate fair trade, not free trade, between nations. Under Economic Democracy, there would be virtually no cross-border capital flows. Enterprises themselves will not relocate abroad, since they are democratically controlled by their own workers. Finance capital will also stay mostly at home, since funds for investment are publicly generated and are mandated by law to be reinvested domestically. "Capital doesn't flow into the country, either, since there are no stocks nor corporate bonds nor businesses to buy. The capital assets of the country are collectively owned -- and hence not for sale."

Social control of investment
Under Schweickart’s model of Economic Democracy, a flat-rate tax on the capital assets of all productive enterprises replaces all other business taxes. This "capital assets tax" is collected by the central government, then invested back into the economy, assisting those firms needing funds for purposes of productive investment. These funds are dispersed throughout society, first to regions and communities on a per capita basis, then to public banks in accordance with past performance, then to those firms with profitable project proposals. Profitable projects that promise increased employment are favored over those that do not. At each level, national, regional and local, legislatures decide what portion of the investment fund coming to them is to be set aside for public capital expenditures, then send down the remainder to the next lower level. Associated with most banks are entrepreneurial divisions, which promote firm expansion and new firm creation. For large (regional or national) enterprises that need access to additional capital, it would be appropriate for the network of local investment banks to be supplemented by regional and national investment banks. These too would be public institutions that receive their funds from the national investment fund.

Economic Democracy does not depend on private savings or private investment for its economic development. In Schweickart's model, banks are public, not private, institutions that make grants, not loans, to business enterprises. According to Schweickart, these grants do not represent "free money", since an investment grant counts as an addition to the capital assets of the enterprise, upon which the capital-asset tax must be paid. Thus the capital assets tax functions as an interest rate. A bank grant is essentially a loan requiring interest payments but no repayment of principal.

While an economy of worker-self-managed enterprises might tend toward lower unemployment than under capitalism, Schweickart says it does not guarantee full employment. Social control of investment, under this model of Economic Democracy, serves to mitigate this defect. If the market sector of the economy does not provide sufficient employment, the public sector will provide all but the most severely disabled with the opportunity to engage in productive labor. The original formulation of the U.S. Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978 suggests that full employment can be assured in a market economy only if the government functions as the employer-of-last-resort. In Economic Democracy, the government assumes this role, something a capitalist government cannot do. Thus, social control of investment also serves to block patterns of cyclical, recessionary unemployment typical of capitalism.

Nonmarket models
Many analysts including David Schweickart and Michael Howard tend to consider the terms economic democracy and market socialism interchangable. According to Howard, "in preserving commodity exchange, a market socialism has greater continuity with the society it displaces than does nonmarket socialism, and thus it is more likely to emerge from capitalism as a result of tendencies generated within it." But Howard also suggests, "one argument against the market in socialist society has been that it blocks progress toward full communism or even leads back to capitalism". Thus, nonmarket versions of economic democracy have also been proposed.

Inclusive democracy
Economic democracy is described as an integral component of an inclusive democracy, in Towards An Inclusive Democracy as a stateless, moneyless and marketless economy that precludes private accumulation of wealth and the institutionalization of privileges for some sections of society, without relying on a mythical post-scarcity state of abundance, or sacrificing freedom of choice.

The proposed system aims to meet the basic needs of all citizens (macro-economic decisions), and secure freedom of choice (micro-economic decisions). Therefore, the system consists of two basic elements: (1) democratic planning, which involves a feedback process between workplace assemblies, demotic assemblies and the confederal assembly, and (2) an artificial market using personal vouchers, which ensures freedom of choice but avoids the adverse effects of real markets. Although some have called this system “a form of money based on the labour theory of value”, it is not a money model since vouchers cannot be used as a general medium of exchange and store of wealth.

Another distinguishing feature of inclusive democracy is its distinction between basic and non-basic needs. Remuneration is according to need for basic needs, and according to effort for non-basic needs. Inclusive democracy is based on the principle that meeting basic needs is a fundamental human right which is guaranteed to all who are in a physical condition to offer a minimal amount of work. By contrast, participatory economics guarantees that basic needs are satisfied only to the extent they are characterized public goods or are covered by compassion and by a guaranteed basic income for the unemployed and those who cannot work.

Within the inclusive democracy project, economic democracy is the authority of demos (community) in the economic sphere — which requires equal distribution of economic power. Therefore, all 'macro' economic decisions, namely, decisions concerning the running of the economy as a whole (overall level of production, consumption and investment, amounts of work and leisure implied, technologies to be used, etc.) are made by the citizen body collectively and without representation. However, "micro" economic decisions at the workplace or the household levels are made by the individual production or consumption unit through a proposed system of vouchers.

As with the case of direct democracy, economic democracy today is only feasible at the level of the confederated demoi. It involves the ownership and control of the means of production by the demos. This is radically different from the two main forms of concentration of economic power : capitalist and 'socialist' growth economy. It is also different from the various types of collectivist capitalism, such as workers' control and milder versions suggested by post-Keynesian social democrats. The demos, therefore, becomes the authentic unit of economic life.

For economic democracy to be feasible, proponents of inclusive democracy suggest three preconditions must be satisfied: Demotic self-reliance, demotic ownership of the means of production, and confederal allocation of resources.


 * Demotic self-reliance is meant in terms of radical decentralization and self-reliance, rather than of self-sufficiency.


 * Demotic ownership of productive resources is a kind of ownership which leads to the politicization of the economy, the real synthesis of economy and polity. This is so because economic decision making is carried out by the entire community, through the demotic assemblies, where people make the fundamental macro-economic decisions which affect the whole community, as citizens, rather than as vocationally oriented groups (e.g. workers, as e.g. in participatory economics ). At the same time, workers, apart from participating in the demotic decisions about the overall planning targets, would also participate (in the above broad sense of vocationally oriented groups) in their respective workplace assemblies, in a process of modifying/implementing the Democratic Plan and in running their own workplace.


 * Confederal allocation of resources is required because, although self-reliance allows many decisions to be made at the community level, much remains to be decided at the regional/national/supra-national level. However, it is delegates (rather than representatives) with specific mandates from the demotic assemblies who are involved in a confederal demotic planning process which, in combination with the proposed system of vouchers, effects the allocation of resources in a confederal inclusive democracy.