Myth and Metaphor in Orthodox Economics

June 1, 2024 by

This is Chapter 2 from: Ellerman, David. 1995. Intellectual Trespassing as a Way of Life: Essays in Philosophy, Economics, and Mathematics. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Discussion of the fundamental questions of political economy is today almost completely clouded and distorted by a number of basic myths and metaphors.  Deconstruction is necessary before constructive discussions can begin.  The myths and metaphors are concerned with basic conceptions about property and contract, not with prices and markets.  As layer upon layer of distortions are removed, new facts and new perspectives on old facts will emerge.  These facts have fairly direct normative implications, but the disagreements and controversies are about the facts, not about norms or prescriptions.

Filed Under: Classical Liberalism, Democratic Firm, Inalienable Rights, Property Theory Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Worker Cooperatives and other so-called “Cooperatives”

March 30, 2024 by

Most cooperative organizations today do not exemplify any cooperative activity; non-worker cooperatives do not represent any cooperative activity of the members since the only joint activity of the organization is carried out by employees. The idea that cooperatives are democratically governed does not apply to non-worker cooperatives (based on the employment relation) since the members are not choosing the managers or governors of their own activity but of the activity of the people working in the cooperative.

Filed Under: Democratic Firm Tagged With: , ,

Classical Liberalism and Workplace Democracy

November 20, 2019 by

This is a paper coauthored by Tej Gonza for the European Liberal Forum, the foundation associated with the Lib-Dem parties of the EU in the EU Parliament. It explores the support for workplace democracy given by democratic classical liberals such as Tocqueville, Mill, Dewey, and Buchanan.

Filed Under: Classical Liberalism, Democratic Firm, Main Blog Tagged With: , ,

Interview at Norwegian Thinktank Manifest (English trans.)

November 22, 2018 by

English translation of June 2018 interview at Oslo think-tank Manifest.

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Some Less Well-Known Supporters of Workplace Democracy

August 11, 2018 by

This is a collection of likenesses or pictures and some representative quotations of a number of less well-known supporters (all dead white men) of workplace democracy.

Filed Under: Democratic Firm, Inalienable Rights, Main Blog Tagged With: , ,

New Work for the Visible Hand of Business

January 1, 2018 by

This is an essay about the late Richard Cornuelle’s essay “New work for invisible hands” in a commemorative volume of Conversations on Philanthropy.

Filed Under: Democratic Firm, Main Blog Tagged With: , ,

A Theory of Inalienability: Towards a Theory of Classical Liberal Jurisprudence

December 18, 2017 by

This is a draft paper that presents some of the arguments I have been making for years in a framework analogous to Type I and Type II error in statistics–which seems to clarify the arguments. Historically, the sophisticated arguments for slavery and autocratic government were consent-based in terms of implicit or explicit contracts. And the legalized oppression of married women was based on the coverture marriage contract. Hence the critiques developed in the abolitionist, democratic, and feminist movements were not simply arguments for consent as opposed to coercion, but arguments against certain voluntary contracts, e.g., in the form of inalienable rights arguments.

Filed Under: Democratic Firm, Inalienable Rights, Property Theory Tagged With: , , , ,

Talk: Neo-abolitionism and Marxism

November 28, 2017 by

These are the slides for a talk given in Munich in November 2017 at a conference on the Russian Revolution. The basic argument is that much of what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century still sounds radical today. The reason is that Marx, Lenin, and the Russian Revolution set back the Left for a century and a half.

Filed Under: Democratic Firm, Inalienable Rights, Main Blog, Property Theory Tagged With: , , , , ,

Review-Essay on Elizabeth Anderson’s “Private Government” book

October 23, 2017 by

In her recent book Private Government [2017], Elizabeth Anderson makes a powerful but pragmatic case against the abuses experienced by employees in conventional corporations. The purpose of this review-essay is to contrast Anderson’s pragmatic critique of many abuses in the employment relation with a principled critique of the employment relationship itself.

Filed Under: Democratic Firm, Inalienable Rights, Main Blog, Property Theory Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Listen Libertarians! A Review of John Tomasi’s “Free Market Fairness”

September 18, 2017 by

John Tomasi’s 2012 book, Free Market Fairness, has been well received. On the dust jacket, Tyler Cowen proclaims it “one of the very best philosophical treatments of libertarian thought, ever” and Deirdre McCloskey calls it a “long and friendly conversation between Friedrich Hayek and John Rawls — a conversation which, astonishingly, reaches agreement.”

Filed Under: Democratic Firm, Inalienable Rights, Property Theory Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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