Abstract

This essay examines a new way to exercise democratic control over the market. Instead of a democratic government interfering with a market’s outcomes (e.g. via taxes or minimum wages), we may also “democratize” the market by requiring that all relevant group agents who participate in that market (notably: firms) be democratically governed. This is what I call an agent-democratic market. The purpose of this essay is to argue for the claim that agent-democratic markets are a normatively viable way to democratize the market – and potentially constitute a genuine alternative to the standard approach of subjecting market outcomes to democratic control.