ABSTRACT
The rights required for democracy on a large scale make relatively autonomous organizations simultaneously possible and necessary. In a democratic country the autonomy of private business firms is on a rather different footing from the autonomy of the other kinds of organizations, and particularly their nearest analogues, political, governmental, and trade union organizations. For the political rights necessary to the democratic process directly require a substantial measure of independence for organizations that facilitate the exercise of these rights, such as political parties, interest groups, lobbies, newspapers and magazines. For the justification of private property as a natural, inalienable, or fundamental right provides scant justification for the existing ownership and control of large corporations. Insofar as a right to property is justified by the principle that one is entitled to use the products of one s own labor as one chooses, then surely the privileged position of stockholders is unjustified.
