These are the slides, with some minor additions and editing, for a talk On Property Theory given at the University of Missouri at Kansas City Economic Department November 17, 2014.
Property and Production
November 1, 2014 by
This is the 30th anniversary of the publication of this paper, Property and Production, which laid out the whole property-theoretic analysis of production. I would not change a word today.
Zagreb Talk Sept 2014
September 21, 2014 by
These are the slides and a video of a talk in Zagreb Sept. 8, 2014 on green issues and ESOPs.
Three Themes about the Mondragon cooperatives
January 1, 2014 by
This is a preprint of a paper developing three themes, capital structure, active learning, and spinoffs, with special attention to the Mondragon cooperatives.
On Property Theory
November 25, 2013 by
This paper is an introduction to property theory including the invisible hand mechanism which handles the initiation and termination of property rights in an on-going private property market economy. The Fundamental Theorem is that when Hume’s conditions of no involuntary transfers and no breached contracts are fulfilled, then the Lockean principle of people getting the fruits of their labor, i.e., imputing legal responsibility in accordance with de facto responsibility is satisfied. The major application is to the current system of a private property market economy based on the renting of persons, i.e., the employment contract.
This is a reprint of the paper in the Journal of Economic Issues in Sept. 2014.
Making Enterprises and Markets Responsible
March 26, 2013 by
This is a paper written to further Richard Cornuelle’s abiding vision of a more responsible economy and posted here to invite comment. The basic idea is revisit the whole idea of a market economy dominated by absentee-owned and publicly traded corporations (“Wall Street Capitalism”) that disconnect companies (“the Mother of all disconnects”) from the natural desires of the people working in the companies to improve their communities.
Kantian Personhood Principle
January 17, 2013 by
This paper formulates the labor theory of property and democratic theory in the context of the Kantian personhood principle to treat other persons always as ends in themselves and never simply as means.
Wall Street Capitalism as “The Model” for Market Economies
December 13, 2012 by
This paper addresses the way the American “Wall Street Capitalism” embodies the irresponsible disconnect between action and the results that markets (unlike governments) are supposed to prevent. This paper is in the Slovene journal Theory and Practice that dates back to 1964.
Marxism as a Capitalist Tool
December 13, 2012 by
The Great Debate between capitalism and socialism is now in the dustbin of intellectual history, but Marxism still plays an important role in sustaining the misframing of the questions so that the defenders of the present employment system do not have to face the real questions that separate that system from a system of economic democracy. In that sense, Marxism has become the ultimate capitalist tool.
The Market Mechanism of Appropriation
December 12, 2012 by
This is a non-mathematical treatment of the fundamental theorem about the laissez faire mechanism for property appropriation.