%0 Journal Article
%T New Approaches in the Theory of Economic Democracy
%A Arman Arayik Grigoryan
%J The International Journal of Applied Economics and Finance
%D 2007
%I Asian Network for Scientific Information
%X In the 20th century, while political democracy triumphed economic democracy failed both as an idea and in practice. A case for reviving the idea of economic democracy is made in terms of protecting political democracy. Economic democracy has conventionally been understood as a matter of bringing economic power under the control of collective political power. The idea is here reformulated as a matter of redistributing economic power between persons, of giving people a share in economic power directly rather than through elected representatives. Political democracy is assumed, which is to say that political power is under the control of the middle class. The question then is under what conditions the middle class might want and think it could use political power to redistribute economic power. The findings are that there is in advanced capitalist democracies considerable scope for the redistribution of economic power between the rich and the middle class. As for the empowerment of the poor, however, anti-poverty policies beyond the containment of poverty are unlikely to emerge today in countries where that did not happen under earlier historical conditions.
%K Economic democracy
%K economic power
%K political democracy
%K inequality
%K redistribution
%K poverty
%U http://docsdrive.com/pdfs/ansinet/ijaef/2007/1-15.pdf