Monday, October 13, 2008

Inequality in a Democratic Organization

Page 231 talks about the problem of dealing with Inequality in Democratic Organizations, where members of the organizations are considered to be equal in the eyes of the organization. One way to prevent an entrenchment of power by one person is by offering the role of director or other high position to people on a rotational basis.

The problem of inequality in a democracy is not likely to disappear if there is a free market associated with the democracy, since capitalism always results in an unequal distribution of wealth among the citizens. Most of the nations of the world are turning towards capitalism for their economic structure (over 95% of the world's countries have a capitalist economy now, including Russia and China), and in every country with a capitalist economy, the gap between the rich and poor is steadily increasing, which does not brood well for equality between citizens.

1 comment:

CommBuzz said...

I think the term democracy is manifest uniquely in each organization or environment. Although capitalism can be thought of as form of economic democracy, as you well point out, it does not mean financial equality. In the arena of politics how does democracy square with the millions spent on high power lobbyists, by special interest groups? As the book points out, democracy in organization takes many forms - at some places it's merely a label that management imposes on the staff, at others, it's a meaningful form of participation. Unfortunatelly at the large companies where I've worked the "rules" for democracy have been strictly prescribed.