Radical labour republicanism: A defence

‘Labour republicanism’ harnesses the ideal of freedom as nondomination to explain and challenge the injustices marring current workplace relations. Central to its challenge is a call for institutionalizing worker voice, with some also calling for workplace democratization and reorganizing capitalist enterprises along cooperative lines. Labour republicanism, in turn, has been criticized, most notably by the ‘commercial republican’ Robert S. Taylor. Taylor contends that contrary to its intentions, labour republicanism, or, more particularly, ‘radical labour republicanism’, would perpetuate domination by undermining freedom of occupational choice; enabling tyrannical workplace majority rule; concentrating too much power in state agents; and encouraging revolutionary violence and violent reaction from capitalist interests. To counter workplace domination, we should not institutionalize worker voice, but instead augment workers’ exit options through instituting a market-friendly property-owning democracy. This paper argues that Taylor errs in his claims against radical labour republicanism on account of distorting its implications for occupational choice and obscuring how freedom-as-nondomination preserving principles are built into its conception of democratic workplaces and the cooperative economy. He also errs in thinking property-owning democracy would not itself be vulnerable to violent reaction from capitalist interests.