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. The main point of the talk was that “Marx, Lenin, and the Russian Revolution” had set back the Left for a century and a half, and that the Left had to rebuild on an entirely different basis such as the inalienable rights critique of the human rental contract, the labor or natural rights theory of property critique of the employer appropriating 100% of the positive and negative fruits of the labor of the employees, and democratic theory applied to the workplace. The speech can be viewed here on Youtube. Needless to say, a ‘few’ of the people in the audience were rather upset by the talk. The published paper is: Ellerman, David. 2020. “Towards Abolishing the Institution of Renting Persons: A Different Path for the Left.” Real-World Economics Review 93 (Sept.): 90–95.
Towards Abolishing the Renting of Persons
September 30, 2020 by