On Isabelle Ferreras’ Firms as Political Entities: Saving Democracy Through Economic Bicameralism , Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017 (paperback 2018)

Résumé En

"Ferreras proposes a very original solution to the crisis democratic regimes face from new forms of capitalism: that the democratic principle be applied to firms, extending labor rights by organizing the voice of labor side by side with that of the capital owners.A majority of political economists and social scientists now agree that the logic of capitalism is now largely contradictory to democratic principles. Depending on the reasons they identify as underlying this common diagnosis, different authors have prescribed different therapies and predicted different outcomes—Stiglitz (2012) has called for the power of the state to be restored, so that it can re-regulate economic activity for the benefit of citizens; Piketty (2014) has recommended progressive taxation, ideally at the international level; Streeck (2017) has discussed ways in which the divorce between nationally embedded political systems and global capitalist trends makes fertile ground for social movements defending national sovereignty in the name of democracy; while Iversen and Soskice (2019) have argued that if democracies invest in education and innovation and promote free competition and wise macroeconomic policies, advanced sectors of the knowledge economy will grow, generating a new middle class capable of helping foster renewed prosperity. Ferreras’ approach differs from all of these. She scrutinizes a key but frequently neglected organization, the firm. She argues that firms can be governed in a way that allows them to act as a lever to renew democracy." (source éditeur)