ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the question whether the enterprise can be made a legitimate government on the paternalist basis. A legitimate government is a government that rules in the interest of its subjects. The enterprise is necessarily a governmental institution exercising vital authority over men. In the newly nationalized industries in France, government and worker have clashed head on in a fight between the demands of economic performance and security. The old colonial system subordinated to its economic ends the fact that a colony is a political institution exercising governmental authority over people. Management has an objective function, grounded in the necessity of the enterprise, which makes it impossible for it to rule in the interests of the members, however "interest" is defined. The idea of worker ownership applies to the enterprise the concepts of a sovereign political body that is an end in itself.
