Why agonistic workplace democracy?

Deliberative democratic theory has defended workplace democratization to render business decision-making more politically legitimate and of better epistemic quality. By disestablishing top-down hierarchical management in favor of a rational exchange of arguments over the common good of the firm, deliberative democrats hope to include rank-and-file workers in business decision-making. However, the actual implementation of workplace democracy involves much more conflict and non-deliberative tactics of opposition. Especially the division between managers and workers persistently troubles democratic workplaces. I argue that implementing workplace democracy via consensus-oriented procedures risks encouraging ‘deliberative domination’, a condition where privileged workers use their organizational and social privileges to consistently overrule others. To avoid deliberative domination, we must pursue agonistic workplace democracy. The latter envisions workplace democracy as a struggle between opposing stakeholders over company strategy. Rather than requiring democratic workplaces to pursue a rational consensus among stakeholders, workplace democracy must facilitate power-sharing between fundamentally disagreeing stakeholders.