This paper, written upon request for the UNDP volume on Capacity for Development and in time for a big conference in Mexico on the topic, is a good brief summary of my then forthcoming book, Helping People Help Themselves –even if I was screwed out of a sizable honorarium by one of the editors, Malik.
Labor theory of property and Marginal productivity theory
April 17, 2016 by
This is a reprint from the journal Economic Thought of a paper on the labor theory of property and the neoclassial theory of marginal productivity.
Neoclassical Economics as the New Social Engineering
February 29, 2016 by
This is a paper on the role of neoclassical economics in the disastrous “Big Bang” or “shock therapy” advice given by Western academics and Western advisory agencies to the post-socialist countries. It is part of the Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics.
Does Classical Liberalism Imply Democracy?
December 9, 2015 by
This paper, written for a classical liberal audience, goes into the fault line running down the middle of the doctrine: does classical liberalism imply democracy? The libertarian wing, represented concretely today in the startup or charter cities initiatives, only requires consent (and exit) so the consent could be to a non-democratic pact of subjection. The democratic form of classical liberalism is represented by the mature James M. Buchanan who held that a liberal social order required people to be principals in their organizations who could only delegate but not alienate their rights of self-governance. That distinction is traced back to the Reformation inalienability of conscience that descends through the Enlightenment to modern times in the abolitionist and democratic movements.
PBS Making Sen$e blog: The case for employee-owned companies
November 26, 2015 by
This is the “justice in production” argument in a nutshell posted on the PBS Making Sen$e website.
1991 clippings on work in Slovenia
July 16, 2015 by
Here are a few newspaper and magazine clippings from my efforts in Slovenia in 1990-91 to get a worker-ownership privatization law drafted and passed.
Talks and Publications in 2014
January 29, 2015 by
This is my 2014 yearly update on talks and publications (snarky emails and FB comments not included).
Talk on Alienation versus Delegation at Troy University
November 20, 2014 by
These are the slides for a talk on Alienation versus Delegation at a conference on Philanthropy and the Economic Way of Thinking at Troy University, Troy, Alabama November 7, 2014.
Talk on property theory at UMKC, Nov. 2014
November 20, 2014 by
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.