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Class Power and Participatory Equality: Attitudes towards Economic Democracy in Denmark and Sweden*
Author(s) -
Madsen Henrik Jess
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
scandinavian political studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9477
pISSN - 0080-6757
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9477.1980.tb00250.x
Subject(s) - appeal , citizen journalism , democracy , wage , power (physics) , capital (architecture) , economics , labour economics , political science , sociology , political economy , law , geography , politics , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics
Proposals for capital sharing (i.e. the spreading of ownership rights to productive assets), also known as ‘economic democracy’, have been advanced by the trade unions in both Denmark and Sweden. In view of their redistributive intent, these schemes have met surprisingly little enthusiastic response in traditional labor constituencies. The article makes an attempt to explain why . An examination of wage earner attitudes (which goes into greater detail for Denmark) shows that the presently entertained proposals appeal in a cross‐cutting manner to conflictual notions of class power and participatory opportunity. The result is a fragmentation of wage earner support.