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Industrial Democracy, Worker Status, and Economic Efficiency
Petit, Thomas A.
1/2  (Winter 1959): 66-75

This article focuses on the industrial democracy. Since the triumph of business unionism in the United States, few workers have questioned seriously the unilateral authority of business managers to establish operating policies and make decisions, which implement them for the firms, which they manage. Democratization of the management process would result in important psychological, sociological, and political benefits for workers. The history of capitalism is replete with reform programs designed to improve man's lot by changing the institutional foundations of economic life. Many of these programs agree in two fundamental premises: first, material well- being has been immeasurably enhanced by the increase in economic efficiency which resulted from the development of the modern factory system of production. Second, this increase in material well-being has been purchased dearly in terms of the individual freedom of workers. A common goal for economic reform programs is to attain greater freedom for workers without foregoing the efficiencies of large-scale highly capitalized productive organization.

 

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