Work and Democracy Reconsidered

The author argues that the principles that should shape the organization of work and social cooperation in the context of a legitimate political distribution are the three fundamental dimensions of individual freedom and development at the basis of the most advanced contemporary constitutions: namely a. the right to personal freedom, b. participation in the democratic formation of political will, and c. participation in social cooperation based on a fair distribution of the costs and benefits of such cooperation (social justice). The issue of work can be approached therefore from the standpoint of liberalism, of democratic principles, and of a socialist idea of social justice. Starting from these assumptions the author discusses how the Honnethian democratic perspective and the socialist perspective address some central aspects of the issue of labour, namely three main aspects: the right to work; the organization of labour; the just division of labour.