A Rejoinder to Robert Dahl

Extract

Exchanges of this sort typically consist of each side claiming the other has misunderstood its own position. Keeping to this tradition, I will begin by arguing that Professor Dahl has misconstrued my critique of his proof. But toward the end I will do something different and suggest another argument advocates of workplace democracy could pursue that avoids the pitfalls of the parallel case.

In his reply Professor Dahl ascribes to me a libertarian position which I explicitly reject. He says that I view consent to authoritarian rule at work as a freely made choice involving absolutely no coercion. But, Professor Dahl counters, this assumption is obviously false for most workers in our economy, who find themselves in a weak bargaining position for want of capital or valuable skills. They are not in a position to negotiate political equality at work, and so we cannot interpret their submission to employers as a valid act of consent. In my terminology, their subjection option is hollow and thus irrelevant to the parallel case upon which the proof rests. As Professor Dahl sees it, I am a kind of uncompassionate conservative, enjoying a privileged occupational life but unconcerned about the plight of those less fortunate than myself.

But Professor Dahl can only arrive at this conclusion by ignoring the fourth section of my paper, on the exploitation objection. There I go even farther than he does in granting the hollowness of the subjection option.