Practical Considerations

A classic tale from the state of Maine goes something like this. The residents of a small Maine community notice a tourist from New York. He comes to an intersection at the east end of the town, gazes at a complicated set of road signs, and then drives back toward the west end of town. Baffled by an equally complicated set of road signs, he turns around and drives east again. This continues for a while. Finally he pulls up to the general store and asks, “How do you get to Nesowadnehunk?” After pondering this for a moment, one of the locals replies, “You can't get there from here.”

The conclusions of Chapter 11 may have left the reader somewhat discouraged. The inalienability of labor is a fundamental physical fact, and few of us would want to live in a society that pretended otherwise. Workers' control may thus appear infeasible, at least beyond the narrow niches where it is currently found, despite the normative arguments in its favor. But all is not gloomy, because some of the consequences of inalienability can be remedied through policy measures. Capital market imperfections can be corrected to some degree. Collective-choice problems can be mitigated through sensible institutional design. The appropriation and free-rider problems hindering employee buyouts of capitalist firms can also be overcome to some extent.