his paper, published as an editorial in the Journal for Participation and Employee Ownership collects together extensive quotations and extracts from 19th and 20th century thinkers who were little-known for being supporters of workplace democracy.
The “Ownership of the Firm” is a Myth (1975)
November 26, 2020 by
This paper was originally published in a journal: Ellerman, David. 1975. “The ‘Ownership of the Firm’ Is a Myth.” Administration and Society 7 (1 May): 27–42, and then we immediately reprinted in a collection of essays: Ellerman, David. 1975. “The ‘Ownership of the Firm’ Is a Myth.” In Organizational Democracy : Participation and Self-Management, edited by David Garson and Michael P. Smith. Beverly Hills CA: Sage Publications.
Towards Abolishing the Renting of Persons
September 30, 2020 by
This paper is a write-up of a speech given in 2017 at a centennial ‘celebration’ of the 1917 Russian Revolution at the Haus der Kunst in Munich.
Conceptual Errors in the Arrow-Debreu Model
July 15, 2020 by
The highly mathematical nature of the Arrow-Debreu and other similar models of general equilibrium hide rather than elucidate the nature of equilibrium in a private property market economy where all factors of production may be purchased or rented.
Fallacies of Corporate Analysis
November 13, 2019 by
Our goal is to analyze a miscellany of fallacies concerning the Citizens United case, corporate personhood, the stakeholder theory, the affected interests principle, and finally ending with the deeper fallacies concerning the rights of capital that are embedded in the conventional economic theories of capital and corporate finance.
The Case for Workplace Democracy
October 21, 2019 by
“In Chapter 11, David Ellerman offers a theoretical justification for a form of workplace democracy. He argues that a philosophical defence of workers’ control of workplaces and the products of their labour is possible outside of the lineage of Marxist and communist theory.” [Editor’s introduction] Amen
Lord Eustace Percy’s “Unknown State” Lecture
May 2, 2018 by
Lord Eustace Percy was a Conservative public servant but was better known as a serious thinker, indeed, as the “Minister of Thinking.” There is a remarkable and much-quoted passage in his 1944 Riddell Lecture The Unknown State.
A Theory of Inalienability: Towards a Theory of Classical Liberal Jurisprudence
December 18, 2017 by
This is a draft paper that presents some of the arguments I have been making for years in a framework analogous to Type I and Type II error in statistics–which seems to clarify the arguments. Historically, the sophisticated arguments for slavery and autocratic government were consent-based in terms of implicit or explicit contracts. And the legalized oppression of married women was based on the coverture marriage contract. Hence the critiques developed in the abolitionist, democratic, and feminist movements were not simply arguments for consent as opposed to coercion, but arguments against certain voluntary contracts, e.g., in the form of inalienable rights arguments.
Talk: Neo-abolitionism and Marxism
November 28, 2017 by
These are the slides for a talk given in Munich in November 2017 at a conference on the Russian Revolution. The basic argument is that much of what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century still sounds radical today. The reason is that Marx, Lenin, and the Russian Revolution set back the Left for a century and a half.
Talk: A Tale of Two Invalid Contracts: Coverture and Employment
November 28, 2017 by
These are the slides for a talk that focuses on the parallel inalienable rights arguments against the now-outlawed coverture marriage contract and the yet-to-be-outlawed employment contract.