Featured | Democratic Firms
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Is “Capitalism” a Misnomer? On Marx’s “capitalism” and Knight’s “civilization”
June 11, 2024 By admin
This is an open access article from the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought.
The name “capitalism” derives from Marx’s false analogy between medieval land ownership and the “ownership of the means of production.” However, unlike medieval land, capital goods can be rented out, e.g., by Frank Knight’s entrepreneur, and then the capital owner does not hold those management or product rights. What then is the characteristic institution in our civilization? It is the voluntary renting of workers. What then is the relationship between Classical Liberalism, the dominant philosophy behind Economics, and a lifetime labor contract? Frank Knight had plenty to say against the doctrine of inalienable rights which disallows such contracts.
![](https://ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/FrontCover-98x150.png)
The Kantian Person/Thing Principle in Political Economy
June 1, 2024 By admin
This is Chapter 4 in my book: Ellerman, David. 1995. Intellectual Trespassing as a Way of Life: Essays in Philosophy, Economics, and Mathematics. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Ethical theories can be broadly grouped into utilitarian theories and rights-based theories. Modern economics is so thoroughly utilitarian that most economists would be hard-pressed to cite the application of a rights-based argument to economic institutions. Yet the normative principles outlined in the first two chapters, the labor theory of property and the de facto theory of inalienability, are squarely within the rights-based tradition. The democratic principle of self-determination is also a closely allied rights-based theory [see Ellerman 1992].
Featured | Development
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Marcora Law for Europe
January 19, 2022 By admin
There is a time-tested solution in Spain and Italy that provides liquidity to such enterprises in a democratic manner by establishing employee ownership schemes. The new source of liquidity is allowing unemployed workers to capitalize part of their unemployment insurance to invest in a new or existing enterprise where they will have a job.
![](https://ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Wall-E-2-fat-humans-1024x426-1-150x62.jpg)
Comments on Universal Basic Income
June 1, 2020 By admin
This is a draft paper called “UBI: A Bad Idea Whose Time has Come?”. The income supplements supplied due to the coronavirus pandemic have put the UBI back on the policy agenda, so it is appropriate to re-examine the idea. Click here to download the paper.
Featured | Property Theory
![](https://ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/MarxKnight-150x89.png)
Is “Capitalism” a Misnomer? On Marx’s “capitalism” and Knight’s “civilization”
June 11, 2024 By admin
This is an open access article from the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought.
The name “capitalism” derives from Marx’s false analogy between medieval land ownership and the “ownership of the means of production.” However, unlike medieval land, capital goods can be rented out, e.g., by Frank Knight’s entrepreneur, and then the capital owner does not hold those management or product rights. What then is the characteristic institution in our civilization? It is the voluntary renting of workers. What then is the relationship between Classical Liberalism, the dominant philosophy behind Economics, and a lifetime labor contract? Frank Knight had plenty to say against the doctrine of inalienable rights which disallows such contracts.
![](https://ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/FrontCover-98x150.png)
The Kantian Person/Thing Principle in Political Economy
June 1, 2024 By admin
This is Chapter 4 in my book: Ellerman, David. 1995. Intellectual Trespassing as a Way of Life: Essays in Philosophy, Economics, and Mathematics. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Ethical theories can be broadly grouped into utilitarian theories and rights-based theories. Modern economics is so thoroughly utilitarian that most economists would be hard-pressed to cite the application of a rights-based argument to economic institutions. Yet the normative principles outlined in the first two chapters, the labor theory of property and the de facto theory of inalienability, are squarely within the rights-based tradition. The democratic principle of self-determination is also a closely allied rights-based theory [see Ellerman 1992].
Featured | Quantum Mechanics
![](https://ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/figure15-150x62.png)
A Basic Duality in the Exact Sciences: Application to QM
May 12, 2024 By admin
This approach to interpreting quantum mechanics is not another jury-rigged or ad-hoc attempt at the interpretation of quantum mechanics but is a natural application of the fundamental duality running throughout the exact sciences.
![](https://ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/fig4-two-processes-eps-converted-to-150x35.png)
A Pedagogical Model of Quantum Mechanics Over Sets
April 9, 2024 By admin
The new approach to quantum mechanics (QM) is that the mathematics of QM is the linearization of the mathematics of partitions (or equivalence relations) on a set. This paper develops those ideas using vector spaces over the field Z2 = {0.1} as a pedagogical or toy model of (finite-dimensional, non-relativistic) QM.
Featured | Mathematics
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Keiretsu, Proportional Representation, and Input-Output Theory
June 1, 2024 By admin
This is Chapter 9 in my book: Ellerman, David. 1995. Intellectual Trespassing as a Way of Life: Essays in Philosophy, Economics, and Mathematics. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
This essay grew out of an attempt to model mathematically the possible cross-ownership arrangements that might arise between privatizing firms in the former Yugoslavia [see Ellerman 1991]. The cross-ownership arrangements resemble the groups of Japanese companies called keiretsu. There is cross ownership between the companies in the group as well as some ownership outside the group that is traded on the stock market. In spite of the partial outside ownership, the keiretsu often behave as “self-owning” groups. If firm A owns shares in B, then the management in A usually signs over its proxy on shares in B to the management in firm B. And the management in B does likewise with respect to the managers in A. Thus within certain constraints, each firm can act like a “self-owning” firm, not totally unlike the self-managing firms of the former Yugoslavia.