The article tries to answer an old question of economic theory and institutional economics: How do trade unions fit into a market economy? Are they a constitutive element of the market order or: are they a source of irritation and disruption?

The following article gathers notes and comments on industrial democracy, its terminology, history and current developments. Industrial democracy is an enigmatic term whose spectrum of meanings is explored in the first section. The Anglo-Saxon terminology, going back to S. and B. Webb will be...