Review of Ferreras, Battilana & Méda, Democratize Work: The Case for Reorganizing the Economy (University of Chicago Press, 2022)

Epub ahead of publication, Constellations, DOI:10.1111/1467-8675.12689

This publication is one of the major outputs of an intellectual movement that arose in the first year of the Covid crisis and now involves academics across the world. Early in 2020, three leading theorists of work, Isabelle Ferreras, Julie Battilana, and Dominique Méda, submitted an op-ed to the French newspaper Le Monde to highlight the significance of work as the pandemic was revealing it. Soon, the three scholars were joined by female colleagues equally concerned with the role of work in the transformation of societies. The manifesto that came out from their discussions was published in France in 2020 and was circulated and endorsed by hundreds and very rapidly by thousands of like-minded scholars around the world. This book is the translation into English of the French manifesto, preceded by an introduction that explains how the movement for democratizing work came about and what its central demands are, followed by 12 short chapters from the initial group of collaborators.

The manifesto’s underlying goal is to seize the moment opened by the pandemic crisis and transform the latter’s destabilizing impact on institutions and citizenries into an opportunity to “radically reorganise the economy.” The authors claim it is time to address the structural injustices and dysfunctions of the global economic system, in particular its staggering levels of inequality and the climate emergency. The key proposal put forward by the manifesto is that the twin exigencies of social justice and environmental action can be best achieved through a democratization of work. The manifesto’s main propositions are thus encapsulated in four key verbs: work, democratize, decommodify, and decarbonize.

In the introduction, Julie Battilana emphasizes the links between the three “levers”: to decarbonize the economy, economic power must be wrested from corporations, and the interests of all must be considered, which means democratizing work; and work can only be sustainable and equitable if it is no longer governed solely by profitability considerations, which means that work needs to be at least partly decommodified.

Following the introduction and the manifesto, the first, longer chapter by Isabelle Ferreras focuses on the democratization of work. The Covid crisis has highlighted the enormous power asymmetry in the organization of capitalist economies, between those who work and those who own the means of production. To characterize this classical imbalance, Ferreras describes work efforts as being themselves a form of investment, one however that is entirely different from financial investment for the purpose of higher returns. Working people “invest” their own person in their work through their dedication and the mobilization of their cognitive, emotional, and physical resources. These efforts in turn help fulfill the needs of all. Work is thus anything but a commodity. Yet it is those who invest financial capital, as opposed to their own selves, who hold the largest share, and in many jurisdictions the whole share, of executive power. The interests of owners and investors take systematic precedence over those of workers and of communities, and the former’s voices systematically overrule those of the latter. During the Covid crisis, the disconnect between the rights of the economy’s key constituents became particularly blatant for workers deemed “essential,” who were often people enjoying the least voice and benefiting from the least protection: women, racialized groups, and undocumented migrants. The conclusion Ferreras draws, which she expounded extensively in earlier landmark publications, is that the investment workers make through their work should translate into political rights to the same extent as capital investment does. Historically, the institution that has realized the imperative of democracy has been the representation of citizens’ interests in chambers that reflect different constituencies. Correspondingly, full representation of workers’ interests ought to occur through “chambers” of their elected representatives sitting alongside the boards defending the interests of capital owners. The manifesto extends the argument and proposes that institutionalized workplace democracy, generalized across entire value chains, would be a major step toward a redemocratization of society at large, and thereby an essential condition for social justice and decisive environmental action. Besides the conceptual shift of no longer thinking of labor as a commodity, in opposition notably to neoclassical economic theory, decommodification thus implies also the practical attempt, realized for instance in collective bargaining, of no longer defining the terms and conditions attached to work solely through market mechanisms. In turn, the link Ferreras establishes between democratization of work and decarbonization of the economy is twofold. First, decarbonization will require low-tech, labor-intensive solutions, which in many cases will not correspond to the demands of high-return capital investment but can be embraced by democratized firms. Second, the democratization of firms extends naturally into a democratization of economic decisions beyond firms, to include all stakeholders, which allows environmental concerns to be seriously considered.

In the concluding chapter, Dominique Méda presents parallel arguments, but with the urgency of the environmental situation rather than inequality between capital and labor as her starting point. A radical ecological “upshift” will not be accomplished if economic power remains in the hands of corporations and economic activity continues to be driven exclusively by the logic of profitability. The interests of communities, and of humanity at large, need to dictate economic thinking. Furthermore, environmental remediation demands that polluting and nonnecessary sectors are wound down. Only through democratic processes can economic reorganization ensure that workers engaged in these sectors see their interests protected and accept the transition. Conversely, effective ecological remediation requires massive work efforts, in housing and infrastructure for instance. Democratically organized work can ensure that the work necessary for the ecological transition is directed where it is needed, not where the return on investment is maximized. The necessity to decarbonize therefore also hangs on the democratization of economic activity.

The rest of the book is organized as a string of short interventions by other contributors. Each intervention draws on the author’s expertise, focuses on a particular point in the manifesto, encapsulated in a particular citation, and explicitly echoes the texts surrounding it. The book is thus organized as a polyphonic ensemble, demonstrating and encouraging discussion and participation. It is not a standard academic book, but more like a snapshot of the intellectual and political movement started by the three main editors and their colleagues, relayed across many countries through conferences, interviews, and publications, a movement that is ongoing and thriving (see the list of signatures, publications, and events at democratizingwork.org).

Hélène Landemore focuses on democratizing work and highlights the reasons, especially instrumental reasons, why such a transformation matters. Democratizing work helps to make society more democratic as a whole. This is important not just for correcting different forms of social injustice but also for ensuring that ecological transition is fair as well as more efficient, as such an approach mobilizes the participation and knowledge of all. Lisa Herzog picks up this thread and emphasizes how social justice and political participation rely on epistemic justice, ensuring that the voice of each is heard properly. Imge Kaya-Sabanci shines a light on the disproportionate toll economic and environmental crises take on groups who are undervalued, notably women. Workplace democracy from this point of view is a key institutional measure to combat structural gender inequalities. Adelle Blankett highlights how extending democratic participation across all of society means focusing in particular on the status of informal workers, whose precarious conditions and lack of voice at work often reflect their lower social standing, especially if they are migrants. Blankett cites the example of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s involvement with the sanitation workers in Memphis as a historical model for how to link the struggle for the recognition of the dignity of everyone with the recognition of the dignity of their work and the significance of their work contributions. Sara Lafuente takes up a theme discussed throughout the book, namely, that a full democratization of work means it has to occur across entire value chains, and therefore has to be transnational. She highlights the role of trade unions and notes the serious limitations of existing transnational legal frameworks in Europe. Julia Cagé emphasizes the importance of decommodifying the work of journalism for truly democratic societies. Drawing on her paradigm-setting research, Pavlina Tcherneva rehearses the main features of job guarantee schemes, showing the different ways in which they can achieve a decommodification of work and bring about an organization of the economy that is fairer and more adept at meeting the huge challenges of ecological remediation. Echoing the concerns of Blankett and Lafuente, Neera Chandhoke highlights the tension between formal and informal, organized and unorganized work, and the plight of migrant workers, including in their own country, as in India. The call for a democratization of work should begin with full recognition of all those who produce value. Flávia Máximo follows the same concern and emphasizes the weight of silence and invisibility shrouding the bodies of marginalized workers. The structural invisibility of those bodies makes the call for the institutionalization of democracy an ambivalent one, as the boundary between formal and informal work has been one of the structural causes for the subjection of marginalized groups. Simply calling for the erasure of this boundary does not do justice to how ingrained hierarchies in labor statuses have been to date and how much they currently organize global and national value chains. Alyssa Battistoni’s text anticipates Dominique Méda’s last chapter, listing the main ways in which work, democratization, and decommodification are involved in ecological transition.

With the pandemic now in its fourth year, a vicious war in Europe, major economic disruptions globally, and the attacks on democratic values and institutions in many countries, the health crisis has been relegated from a hegemonic headline to almost a side issue. This book, which was conceived in 2020, reflects the sense of shock and unpreparedness the world was feeling at the start and at the height of the pandemic, as cities shut down, countries closed their borders, and all economies were heavily disrupted. Some of the formulations in the book already seem eerily outdated, as the world seems to have moved on. Yet many of the crises feeding newspaper headlines are just different symptomatic effects of a systemic unraveling. This small book is a vigorous call to intellectual and political action to avert the worst outcomes of this unraveling. The principles and proposals it lays out offer genuine options for an intelligent response to future catastrophes.