If you begin with the assumption that democracy is self-corrupting, then yeah, you'll arrive at this conclusion. But I don't think that's true, so I don't agree.
I begin with the assumption that democracy in the present-state of education and awareness is self-corrupting.
You're upset that it's all politics? Guess what? It's already politics.
And my issue is that it might not present a monumental improvement over the present state.
Its autocracy. What I'm saying is that it should be democratic. That involves people making decisions and consulting other people and trying to convince them of things. That's called being empowered. Right now workers cannot do that. At all. Their voice means nothing, it's the capitalist's way or the highway.
They can vote for a political party to enact social and political reforms that are in the voters' best interests.
Oh wait, that doesn't happen. What would make a workplace democracy any different? The politically-superior candidate will take leadership run a similarly-corrupt process. Granted, the democracy will make things a bit better on average, but the "politics" problem persists.
Your defense of this "managerial aristocracy" is identical to the defense of the political aristocracy: the masses are just too stupid and unspecialized to be able to run things.
In such a less-diplomatic fashion of putting it, essentially yes. Leadership and management is no less a skill than bridge construction or software engineering. You can't have people vote on how to build a bridge; you can't have people vote on how to best run things. And if you do, you'll need someone to "explain things", which provides the ripe opportunity for politics, which would just be handing over power to the politically-suave individuals.
I take the classic democratic answer: if they're fit for the job, then that will be made clear. If they're not, then they're not. People who care will elect people who are capable. And before you go on about demagoguery and "leading the masses astray" (something else which assumes that regular everyday people are just too stupid to make their own decisions or know what's best for them),
My point is that the people would be
just as "stupid" as right now when it comes to things. Do we currently elect people who are capable? Not to the degree you're implying would happen with this.
Workplace democracy won't solve things. Well-educated and socially-aware workers AND/WITH workplace democracy will solve things.
remember that there is no way for these supposed tyrants to gain undue power and influence, because there is no money or private property. They have the power of their individual persona, nothing more than that.
Money is power. The point of money is to get your own way and to get to do things that you want. Which these people, having obtained power, can do. The leader doesn't need to own the mansion he lives in.
So they may not have the money or property that a capitalist exploiter would have, but they could engage in the same activities and leisure as the same exploiter would.
With great power comes great responsibility. It is better for that power to be spread amongst the most number of people possible.
And power is diluted in many ways in a democratic system. First through voter misdirection and manipulation. Second through voter apathy. Third through limitation of voter choices. And so on.
Now, can we abandon the 18th century arguments?
Look, I'm not saying it would make things worse. I'm saying that it would barely make things better. It
is a requisite for improving things in the future, but it is not the solution in and of itself.
In a poor attempt at an analogy, building a space shuttle isn't enough to get us into space. We also need rocket fuel. Building the space shuttle is an essential step in the process, but having built it will not get us any kilometres closer to being in space.