ABSTRACT
The collapse of communism may have cast a pall upon the attractions of central planning and state ownership of production, but it has not silenced the call for economic democracy. Advocates have argued that political justice cannot be fully achieved without democratizing the economy. For certain advocates, such as Michael Walzer and council communists, economic democracy is a necessary ingredient in economic freedom, without which economic oppression prevails. Moreover, for them and others, democratizing the economy is just as necessary to curtail economic inequality. Economic democracy fares no better as a remedy to the subordination of individuals to other particular economic agents. Since economic democracy by itself does not eliminate economic disadvantage, it can hardly prevent the subordination of politics to privileged groups that rests upon economic inequality. Since economic democracy concerns the pursuit of particular ends generic to civil society, it does not involve properly political action.
