Workplace cooperatives and public services

How can the desirability of more generous provision of public services be reconciled with the desire for democratic governance of work? I’m sure this has been a central point of discussion in the socialist literature. But I’d like to develop this theme from the transcendental semiotics perspective.

According to modern monetary theory, the government can always create “full employment” through direct provision. Mitchell calls this the “job guarantee.” But there is a competing thread of values that says that the employment contract is invalid because it treats people as things, and that persons have an inalienable right and responsibility to self-governance that extends to the workplace. On the surface, these values seem to be at odds. Can we have socialism without bureaucracy?

One way to reconcile these goals would be for the government to provide contracts for specific services but not to directly employ service providers. Workplace cooperatives could be directly specified in the contract or favored in the tax code. But this solution seems close to neoliberalism. (i.e. Reinventing Government’s aphorism “Government should steer, not row, the boat”). It also seems to require a higher level of bureaucracy to specify and monitor contract compliance. Would these higher-level bureaucrats be employees of the state?

James Bernard Murphy points out that that technical breakout of tasks does not require assignment of people to these tasks. So can the roles within this process be specified without assuming that the role must be filled by a specific person? Can the design of a public service, including how it is to be specified and monitored, be “open” (i.e. not bureaucratic?)