Efficiency and Domination in the Socialist Republic: A Reply to O’Shea

Abstract

In a recent essay in this journal, Tom O’Shea defends socialist republicanism, marrying the value of freedom as nondomination to public ownership of the means of production. In this reply, I argue that the efficiency costs that often attach to public ownership may undercut the ability of the socialist republic to combat domination by public agents. I provide two reasons in support of this claim. First, the economic gains provided by efficiency can insulate individuals from the discretionary power of other agents. Put briefly, the more wealth you have, the less the discretionary power threatens your basic interests. Second, the efficiency costs of public ownership also make it more difficult to hold accountable the managers of economic organizations. This shortcoming of O’Shea’s argument reveals a point hitherto neglected in the republican literature—caring about nondomination implies caring about efficiency.

The Demos of the Democratic Firm

“…The other characteristic that the above views share is that they largely neglect considerations of efficiency, or conceive of them as mere constraints on the reasons grounding the requirement that companies' governance be democratic (exceptions include Bowles and Gintis, 1993;Malleson, 2014;Herzog, 2021). This neglect is unwarranted, we submit, and not only because it invites the concern that democratic companies trade efficient production for other values, as Singer (2019) and Frye (2020) suggest. The neglect of efficiency considerations is likewise unwarranted because firms exist, and are often granted legal privileges such as entity shielding or limited liability, because they produce goods and services more efficiently than the market can.…”

In Defence of Public Ownership: A Reply to Frye

“…Harrison Frye makes a lucid case for doubting this conclusion. 1 Firstly, public ownership may decrease economic efficiency due to high negotiation and agency costs. When this results in fewer economic goods being available to meet people's basic needs, then they will be more vulnerable to domination.…”

Domination at Work: Resisting the Radical Diagnosis

“…A few raise concerns about radical republicanism , suggesting that republican concern with domination does not fit well with radical politics (Kandiyali 2022). Others take issue with radical republicanism, arguing that republicans need not align with radical ends (for example, Frye 2020; Taylor 2019). This paper seeks to contribute to this latter line of criticism by challenging the radical republican diagnosis of domination at work.…”

“… 7 This may generate a different set of issues for the radical republican. I have argued elsewhere that once we appreciate the challenges of managerial control, it becomes less clear that radical changes to ownership alleviate managerial domination instead of exacerbating it (Frye 2020; cf. O'Shea 2020b).…”