In Defence of Public Ownership: A Reply to Frye

O'Shea, Tom

doi:10.1177/0090591720936609

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“… 19. I add this pro tanto clause because many egalitarians might be sceptical about the efficiency costs of institutional solutions changing the constitutional scheme (Elster 1993) or the property regime in a too radical fashion (Frye 2020; cf. O’Shea 2020b). Others could, perhaps, be sceptical about bestowing them with great constitutional powers unless there are appropriate checks and balances constraining them.…”

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confidence: 99%

An Egalitarian Case for Class-Specific Political Institutions

Harting

2023

Political Theory

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Political theorists concerned with ways to counteract the oligarchic tendencies of representative government have recently paid more attention to the employment of “class-specific institutions” (CSIs)—that is, political institutions that formally exclude wealthy elites from decision-making power. This article disputes a general objection levelled against the justifiability of CSIs, according to which their democratic credentials are outweighed by their explicit transgression of formal political equality—what I call the political equality objection. I claim that, although CSIs do not satisfy political equality fully, their exclusionary thrust is inter alia justified in virtue of the fact that they unfold against the background of badly ordered, class-divided societies. Parallel to recent arguments in nonideal theory arguing for the priority of the right to resist economic oppression over the protection of private property rights, access to the empowering properties of CSIs should take priority over the full satisfaction of formal political equality. Yet, I also claim that the justification of CSIs depends on their orientation toward overcoming class divisions because, otherwise, we might end up wrongly naturalizing those divisions—a conclusion that needs to be avoided to reply to the political equality objection. The result is, I believe, a convincing egalitarian case for the democratic justifiability of CSIs.

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An Egalitarian Case for Class-Specific Political Institutions

Harting

2023

Political Theory

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“…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).…”

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Domination at Work: Resisting the Radical Diagnosis

Frye

2023

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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Political theorists and philosophers have converged mainly on the following claim: workers face the threat of domination in the workplace. While many propose reforms to capitalism to address this domination, a growing chorus of radical Republicans argue that domination at work results from the capitalist distribution of ownership. In this paper, I argue that this focus on ownership is a mistake. Instead, I contend we ought to direct our attention to the role that managerial discretion plays in the firm's structure. My intention in advancing these two claims is to carve out space for a position that acknowledges the domination of workers, but does so in a way that is compatible with private ownership in the means of production.

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