David Ellerman

The Purpose of this Website is to present for comment and discussion a selection of my published and draft papers and essays on topics in development, political economy (including economics), legal theory, philosophy, and mathematics. Most of the writings are related to:

mathematics (logic and category theory),
development assistance (including World Bank memos),
property theory,
worker ownership and economic democracy,
democratic theory, and
various philosophical topics.

Please send comments to david@ellerman.removethis.org

David P. Ellerman works in the fields of economics and political economy, social theory and philosophy, and in mathematics. His undergraduate degree was in philosophy at M.I.T. ('65), and he has Masters degrees in Philosophy of Science ('67) and in Economics ('68), and a doctorate in Mathematics ('71) all from Boston University. He has been in and out of teaching in economics, mathematics, accounting, computer science, and operations research departments in various universities (1970-90), founded and managed a consulting firm in East Europe (1990-2), and worked in the World Bank from 1992 to 2003 where he was an economic advisor to the Chief Economist (Joseph Stiglitz and Nicholas Stern). Now he is a visiting scholar at the University of California in Riverside.

He has published numerous articles in various fields (see Curriculum Vitae) and five books. The published and draft papers and book manuscripts available on this site are classified in the categories below. See also his working papers on the SSRN site at:

http://ssrn.com/author=294049

Vlasta's home page is at: http://www.ellerman.org/vlasta

Topics of Papers (click on topic)

Books include:

Helping People Help Themselves: From the World Bank to an Alternative Philosophy of Development Assistance. University of Michigan Press, 2005. Click here for a description and detailed table of contents. Paperback version pictured at left is now published and available at better bookstores online. Indian (South Asian) version published by Tulika Press.

Intellectual Trespassing as a Way of Life: Essays in Philosophy, Economics, and Mathematics. Rowman & Littlefield Inc. 1995. Click title for Table of Contents. Available for $8.00 at: www.basementbooks.com

Property and Contract in Economics: The Case for Economic Democracy. Cambridge MA: Basil Blackwell Inc. 1992. Out of print with rights reverted to author. Click on title above for more details and to download for free a searchable pdf file of the book or a scanned copy of the published book as a 3 meg pdf file.

DWOF-cover The Democratic Worker-Owned Firm. 1990, London: Unwin Hyman Limited (HarperCollins Academic). Out of print. Click here for revised English text of Chinese edition as a Word file.

EAPT-dover Economics, Accounting, and Property Theory. Lexington: Lexington Books, 1982. See papers on double-entry bookkeeping for the basic ideas. Click on the title to download the book.

Some books by others include:

Bill Greider's new book: The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003) makes significant use of the arguments against the employment or master-servant relation presented in my book: Property and Contract in Economics: The Case for Economic Democracy (Cambridge MA: Blackwell, 1992). A selection from Greider's book is given here. For further information about or purchase of his book, see his website: www.williamgreider.com . My book is long out-of-print but the rights have reverted to me so you can download it for free here.

Downloadable Math Books and Paper by Others on Math Page