Liberal thought is based on the fundamental question of consent versus coercion. The autocracies and slavery systems of the past were based on coercion whereas today’s democracy in the political sphere and employment system in the economy are based on consent. This paper retrieves an almost forgotten contractarian tradition, dating from at least the Middle Ages, that based political autocracy and economic slavery on explicit or implicit voluntary contracts. Hence the democratic and antislavery movements had to hammer out arguments not simply in favor of consent and against coercion, but arguments based on the distinction between contracts to alienate (translatio) sovereignty versus contracts to only delegate (concessio) self-governance rights.
Translatio versus Concessio: Retrieving the debate about contracts of alienation with an application to today’s employment contract
The Democratic Firm: An Argument based on Ordinary Jurisprudence
This is an article in the Journal of Business Ethics treating a more fundamental topic than the usual fare on business ethics.
Brookings Conf. Paper on Workplace Democracy
This is a paper on workplace democracy and the corporate governance debate which was prepared for a 1998 conference at the Brookings Institution. For some reason, it was never published.
Corporate Democracy Movement
This article argues for democratizing the corporation and is oriented towards an industrial relations / labor union audience.
Book review on plywood coops
This book on the plywood coops is written by an academic economist who is sympathetic to worker cooperatives, but just repeats the standard criticisms as if he were unaware of the solutions and counterarguments. Hence I wrote the review to once again point out the solutions and counterarguments.
Mondragon Business Planning with Labor as a Fixed Cost
This is an old 1984 study of the 286-paged business planning manual, Plan de Gestion Anual de la Empresa (Annual Management Plan for the Enterprise) of the Empresarial Division of the Caja Laboral Popular, the bank in the Mondragon system of cooperatives. The remarkable thing about the Mondragon method of business planning is that they started with the number of members working in the cooperative and then planned production and sales to keep them on the job during the year.
On Rawls and Nussbaum
This paper was delivered at a 2008 conference in Leuven on Martha Nussbaum’s book Frontiers of Justice. The paper was to be published in the conference proceedings, but somehow that never happened.
Four Enterprise Creation Schemes: Putting Jane Jacobs to Work
This note presents policy ideas about entrepreneurship and enterprise creation derived from or, at least, inspired by Jane Jacobs’ writings.
Zagreb Lecture Slides
These are the slides from a lecture given at the Heinrich Boll Foundation in Zagreb in September 2012.
Workplace: Forgotten Topic in Democratic Theory?
This paper explores the theme of workplace democracy as promoting human development by looking particularly at John Stuart Mill and John Dewey.