David P Ellerman - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Books by David P Ellerman

SpringerNature Business & Economics

The American Employee Stock Ownership Plan or ESOP is a leveraged buyout mechanism so that the em... more The American Employee Stock Ownership Plan or ESOP is a leveraged buyout mechanism so that the employees in a company can, in effect, do a leveraged buyout of part or eventually all of their own company. ESOP is one of the most successful and unifying models for employee ownership in the world. Europe, however, lacks a generic model that could help the fragmented attempts at promoting employee ownership. The method used in the paper is a qualitative analysis of the US ESOP. We find that there are certain central features to the US model that should be maintained in the European attempts, and that there are certain flawed features that should be replaced by a better legal-organizational structure. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the main features of the US ESOP model and to define a technical description of the European ESOP, which builds on the good features of the US model and improves the flawed features. The paper also introduces the Slovenian pilot implementation of the European ESOP. The implication of the paper is to provide clarity on the structural features of the dominant employee ownership models, and to inform policy makers promoting employee ownership in Europe.

This book is a collection of chapters. some unpublisbed and some revised versions of publisbed ar... more This book is a collection of chapters. some unpublisbed and some revised
versions of publisbed articles that focus on a common theme. But that common theme is best seen as a "cluster concept" involving such ideas as the following:
• diversity.
• the logic of commitment in organizations,
• parallel experimentation,
• contestation,
• indirect methods of autonomy-respecting help.
• the "how" of social learning .in development assistance,
• localisrn,
• pragmatism and piecemeal social change,
• democratic decision-making.
Stated negatively, the chapters argue against the following:
• monocentric modes of organization,
• experimet1tation that assumes ODe knows where the "Truth" lies,
• views based on authoritative and bureaucratic diktat or socinl conformity to
"correct" views instead of views born out of wntestation and debate,
• modes of "help" the overide or undercut autonomy,
• "globalization" as a euphemism for hegemonic or imperialistic investment and control in developing or transition economies,
• organizations based on the logic of exit,
• big bangery, shock therapy. or engineered social change,
• autocratic-techoocratic decision-making based on the logically fallacious
methodologies of cost-benefit analysis and the social wealt:h maximization school of juridical thought.

Real estate appraisal is more of a practical art than a theoretical science. Appraisers use a nu... more Real estate appraisal is more of a practical art than a theoretical science. Appraisers use a number of time-honored formulas without great attention to the theoretical derivation of the formulas. While this "cookbook" approach may work as a matter of everyday practice, it leaves much to be desired from a pedagogical viewpoint. When valuation formulas do have a derivation from a certain set of assumptions, then it is quite inappropriate—particularly for the technically-oriented student—for the formulas to be taught as "recipes" established by some authority and simply to be memorized and used.

There are a number of reasonably complex formulas that are used in the income approach to real estate appraisal, particularly as developed in the United States. The necessary assumptions and the proofs of these formulas are usually to be found only in a few scarce journal articles in the United States or in out-of-print books. Hence we have attempted to give here, all in one place, fresh algebraic derivations of the major formulas to make them available to technically adept students and practitioners.

The topic of internal rates of return or IRR's is also covered largely because IRR's are often misunderstood and improperly applied in the real estate appraisal profession as well as in other areas of business. The point is that appraisers should rely on net present values, not IRR's, when giving advice about the selection of investment projects.

This is the main book for my work in political economy. The first half states the arguments in t... more This is the main book for my work in political economy. The first half states the arguments in terms for the general intelligent reader, and the second half focuses on precisely where conventional economics gets it wrong (with only minimal math).

Essays on the topics I worked on up to 1990.

This book goes into the theory behind the democratic firm with an aim to assist in using this mod... more This book goes into the theory behind the democratic firm with an aim to assist in using this model for the privatizations in the post-socialist transitions.

Papers by David P Ellerman

Social Science Research Network, 2015

Social Science Research Network, 2009

Social Science Research Network, 2004

International Economic Journal, Jun 1, 2005

Birkhäuser Boston eBooks, 2003

Social Science Research Network, 2014

Development in Practice, Aug 1, 2002

arXiv (Cornell University), Feb 11, 2009

arXiv (Cornell University), May 29, 2013

arXiv (Cornell University), May 9, 2014

SpringerNature Business & Economics

Essays on the topics I worked on up to 1990.

Social Science Research Network, 2015

Social Science Research Network, 2009

Social Science Research Network, 2004

International Economic Journal, Jun 1, 2005

Birkhäuser Boston eBooks, 2003

Social Science Research Network, 2014

Development in Practice, Aug 1, 2002

arXiv (Cornell University), Feb 11, 2009

arXiv (Cornell University), May 29, 2013

arXiv (Cornell University), May 9, 2014

Social Science Research Network, 2009

ABSTRACT

SpringerBriefs in philosophy, 2021

Springer eBooks, 2021

The system of (involuntarily or voluntarily) owning workers was abolished in the mid-nineteenth c... more The system of (involuntarily or voluntarily) owning workers was abolished in the mid-nineteenth century, but it was replaced by the system of voluntarily renting, hiring, or employing workers. That system of renting human beings lasted far beyond its institutional ‘shelf-life’ in the twentieth century due to the perception that ‘The Alternative’ was the Marx-inspired system of socialism or communism based on state employment. In that sense, Marxian socialism was the silent helper to the (private) human rental system, the ultimate capitalist tool. This chapter goes over the intellectual and other deficits of Marxism (e.g., the labor theory of value) and gives at least six ‘huge favors’ that Marxism did for the human rental system.

Springer eBooks, 2021

Neoclassical economic theory pays indirect homage to the imputation principle of jurisprudence by... more Neoclassical economic theory pays indirect homage to the imputation principle of jurisprudence by giving a metaphorical interpretation of the factor payments according to marginal productivity (MP) in competitive equilibrium so that “each factor gets what it produces.” This chapter does not make the usual criticism for MP theory being unrealistic, hard to measure, involving idealized informational assumptions, and the like. Again, the real problems lie largely at the level of jurisprudence. Instead of the employer, employees, and input suppliers being in some sort of metaphorical partnership, each getting a share of the product, the actual property rights are that the employer legally appropriates 100% of the assets and liabilities created in production (so the employees qua employees get 0% of that production vector like the other mere suppliers of inputs). The metaphorical MP theory also treats all causally efficacious (or ‘productive’) factors as if they were responsible agents like persons, but the actual juridical principle only imputes legal responsibility to persons as was repeatedly pointed out by the legally-trained Austrian Friedrich von Wieser in the late nineteenth century. And the usual scalar notion of marginal productivity suggests an immaculate or ‘virgin-birth’ notion of production where each unit of a factor produces its marginal product without the use of other factors.

This is an essay in what might be called "mathematical metaphysics." There is a fundamental duali... more This is an essay in what might be called "mathematical metaphysics." There is a fundamental duality that runs through mathematics and the natural sciences. The duality starts at the logical level; it is represented by the Boolean logic of subsets and the logic of partitions since subsets and partitions are category-theoretic dual concepts. In more basic terms, it starts with the duality between the elements (Its) of subsets and the distinctions (Dits, i.e., ordered pairs of elements in different blocks) of a partition. Mathematically, the Its & Dits duality is fully developed in category theory as the reversethe-arrows duality. The quantitative versions of subsets and partitions are developed as probability theory and information theory (based on logical entropy). Classical physics was based on a common-sense view of reality as definite all the way down. In contrast, quantum physics embodies (objective) indefiniteness. And finally, there are the two fundamental dual mechanisms at work in biology, the selectionist mechanism and the generative mechanism, two mechanisms that embody the fundamental duality.

This paper tries to elucidate the paradoxical aspects of quantum mechanics (QM) by using a simpli... more This paper tries to elucidate the paradoxical aspects of quantum mechanics (QM) by using a simplified pedagogical model of QM based on the support sets of the state vectors, by assuming an ontology of superposition-as-objective indefiniteness, and by not giving any ontological interpretation to the computational device of the wave function. The resulting realistic interpretation is the literal or objective indefiniteness interpretation. It has already been promoted by many quantum physicists using various terminologies, and it is assumed, at least implicitly, by any non-philosophical working quantum physicist who acknowledges that a particle in a superposition state for an observable does not have a definite value for that observable prior to a measurement.

Where does the Born Rule come from? We ask what is the simplest extension of probability theory w... more Where does the Born Rule come from? We ask what is the simplest extension of probability theory where the Born rule appears. This is answered by showing that the Born Rule first appears as the square of the (normalized) vector components of the notion of superposition events in the enriched probability theory. The Superposition Principle requires the states to be represented as (normalized) vectors in a vector space with positive, negative, or complex components-so the rule of getting probabilities as the (absolute) squares of normalized vector components generalizes from the simple case in the enriched probability theory.

The Born Rule plays a critical role in quantum mechanics (QM) since it supplies the link between ... more The Born Rule plays a critical role in quantum mechanics (QM) since it supplies the link between the mathematical formalism and experimental results in terms of probabilities. The Born Rule does not occur in ordinary probability theory. Where then does it come from? This has been a topic of considerable controversy in the literature. We take the approach of asking what is the simplest extension of ordinary probability theory where the Born rule appears. This is answered by showing that the Born Rule appears by adding the notion of superposition events (in addition to the ordinary discrete events) to finite probability theory. Hence the rule does not need any physics-based derivation. It is simply a feature of the mathematics of superposition when only superposition events are added to ordinary probability theory.

Conventional classical liberalism takes consent not only as a necessary condition but sometimes a... more Conventional classical liberalism takes consent not only as a necessary condition but sometimes as a sufficient condition for the legitimacy of an institution or practice. This chapter reviews the acceptance of contractual slavery or servitude from ancient times down to and including the modern era. The case against the sufficiency of consent is based on the notion of inalienable rights, rights that may not be alienated even with consent. The intellectual history of inalienable rights arguments against voluntary slavery or servitude are also reviewed and restated in modern terms. The conclusion is that any institution or practice, e.g., human trafficking, that, in effect, treats a person as a non-person, as only a means instead of as an end-in-themselves, is illegitimate-even with consent.

This paper argues that the use of hired labor in non-worker cooperatives violates the moral stand... more This paper argues that the use of hired labor in non-worker cooperatives violates the moral standards that should be exemplified in cooperatives. All cooperatives (as opposed to conventional corporations) allocate membership rights as personal rights (rather than property rights) to those who patronize the cooperatives-which is evidenced by the one-person one-vote rule. However, most cooperative organizations today do not meet original cooperative standards; 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 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.

With the collapse of communism, the most common political beliefs today are some form of liberali... more With the collapse of communism, the most common political beliefs today are some form of liberalism, or classical liberalism as it is called in America. Classical liberalism has the common foundation that a necessary condition for the legitimacy of any institution is that it is based on consent. But there are two distinct wings of classical liberalism where the differentiating criterion is whether or not consent (always fully informed) is also sufficient for legitimacy. The more libertarian wing takes consent as being essentially sufficient while the democratic wing embodies a notion of inalienable rights that descends from the Enlightenment in the abolitionist and democratic movements which would outlaw or abolish certain contracts even with consent. The distinction between these two classical liberal traditions is almost completely neglected and ignored in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to document those two wings of classical liberalism and to deduce their quite different implications for the nature of the firm.

This paper presents a new 'partitional' approach to understanding or interpreting standard quantu... more This paper presents a new 'partitional' approach to understanding or interpreting standard quantum mechanics (QM). The mathematical formalism of QM is significantly different from that of classical physics. Where did that distinctive QM formalism come from? Our thesis is that the mathematics (not the physics) of QM is the Hilbert space version of the math of partitions on a set and, conversely, the math of partitions is a skeletonized set level version of the math of QM. Since at the set level, partitions are the mathematical tool to represent distinctions and indistinctions (or definiteness and indefiniteness), this approach shows how to interpret the key non-classical QM notion of superposition in terms of (objective) indefiniteness between definite alternatives. Hence this partitional approach substantiates what might be called the Objective Indefiniteness Interpretation of QM.

Finite probability theory is enriched by introducing the mathematical notion (no physics involved... more Finite probability theory is enriched by introducing the mathematical notion (no physics involved) of a superposition event ΣS-in addition to the usual discrete event S (subset of the outcome space U = (u1, ..., un)). Mathematically, the two types of events are distinguished using n × n density matrices. The density matrix ρ (S) for a discrete event is diagonal and the density matrix ρ (ΣS) is obtained as an outer product |s⟩ ⟨s| of a normalized vector |s⟩ ∈ R n. Probabilities are defined using density matrices as Pr (T |ρ) = tr [PT ρ] where T ⊆ U and PT is the diagonal projection matrix with diagonal entries χT (ui). Then for the singleton {ui} ⊆ U , the probability of the outcome ui conditioned by the superposition event ΣS is Pr ({ui} |ΣS) = ⟨ui|s⟩ 2 , the Born Rule. Thus the Born Rule arises naturally from the mathematics of superposition when superposition events are added to ordinary finite probability theory. No further explanation is required when the mathematics uses C n instead of R n except that the square ⟨ui|s⟩ 2 is the absolute square |⟨ui|s⟩| 2 .

With the collapse of communism, the most common political beliefs today are some form of liberali... more With the collapse of communism, the most common political beliefs today are some form of liberalism, or classical liberalism as it is called in America. Classical liberalism has the common foundation that a necessary condition for the legitimacy of any institution is that it is based on consent. But there are two distinct wings of classical liberalism where the differentiating criterion is whether or not consent is also sufficient for legitimacy. The more libertarian wing takes consent as being essentially sufficient while the democratic wing embodies a notion of inalienable rights that descends from the Enlightenment in the abolitionist and democratic movements which would outlaw or abolish certain contracts even with consent. The purpose of this paper is to document those two wings of classical liberalism and to deduce their quite different implications for the nature of the firm. Contractual perpetual servitude Democratic classical liberalism Application to the firm Factual inalienability in the long-term or short-term The firm and the human rental contract Reaction of conventional classical liberalism to inalienable rights theory The firm without human rentals References 1. Conventional classical liberalism (often referred to as "libertarianism") takes (informed and knowledgeable) consent to also be sufficient for legitimacy, in contrast to:

This paper presents a new 'partitional' approach to understanding or interpreting standard quantu... more This paper presents a new 'partitional' approach to understanding or interpreting standard quantum mechanics (QM). The thesis is that the mathematics (not the physics) of QM is the Hilbert space version of the math of partitions on a set and, conversely, the math of partitions is a skeletonized set level version of the math of QM. Since at the set level, partitions are the mathematical tool to represent distinctions and indistinctions (or de…niteness and inde…niteness), this approach shows how to interpret the key non-classical QM notion of superposition in terms of (objective) inde…niteness between de…nite alternatives (as opposed to seeing it as the sum of 'waves'). Hence this partitional approach substantiates what might be called the Objective Inde…niteness Interpretation or what Abner Shimony called the Literal Interpretation of QM.

In finite probability theory, events are subsets of the outcome set. Subsets can be represented b... more In finite probability theory, events are subsets of the outcome set. Subsets can be represented by 1-dimensional column vectors. By extending the representation of events to two dimensional matrices, we can introduce "superposition events." Probabilities are introduced for classical events, superposition events, and their mixtures by using density matrices. Then probabilities for experiments or 'measurements' of all these events can be determined in a manner exactly like in quantum mechanics (QM) using density matrices. Moreover the transformation of the density matrices induced by the experiments or 'measurements' is the Lüders mixture operation as in QM. And finally by moving the machinery into the n-dimensional vector space over Z_2, different basis sets become different outcome sets. That 'non-commutative' extension of finite probability theory yields the pedagogical model of quantum mechanics over Z_2 that can model many characteristic non-classical results of QM.

Corporations have been getting a bad rap lately. Many blame "corporations" for a litany of ills t... more Corporations have been getting a bad rap lately. Many blame "corporations" for a litany of ills that, upon closer examination, should be blamed on another institution. Our goal is to analyze a miscellany of fallacies concerning the Citizens United case, corporate personhood, the stakeholder theory, the affected interests principle, and finally ending with the deeper fallacies concerning the rights of capital that are embedded in the conventional economic theories of capital and corporate finance. In the last analysis, there is another institution that arguably is more at the root of the problems in the current economic system, namely the renting of human beings in the employment relation.

The defining properties of a bifunctor are verified in the case of the mapping cs Het : Mor(X) x... more The defining properties of a bifunctor are verified in the case of the
mapping cs Het : Mor(X) x Mor(A) -------> Set .

This paper is only a collection of likenesses and representative quotations from thinkers about i... more This paper is only a collection of likenesses and representative quotations from thinkers about inalienability and inalienable rights starting from Antiquity down to the present. The point is that one can get a decent grasp of the theory of inalienability just by reading the quotations and seeing the common golden thread. Sufficient bibliographical references are given so that students can use the quotes with proper references.

This is a collection of likenesses or pictures and some representative quotations of a number of ... more 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. The same information is available on the Facebook page: Abolish Human Rentals.

Classical liberalism tends to respond to the criticism of any voluntary market contract by promot... more Classical liberalism tends to respond to the criticism of any voluntary market contract by promoting a wider choice of options and increased information and bargaining power so that no one would seem to be 'forced' or 'tricked' into an 'unconscionable' contract. Hence, at first glance, the strict logic of the classical liberal free market philosophy would seem to mitigate against ever abolishing any mutually voluntary contract between knowledgeable and consenting adults. Yet the modern liberal democratic societies have abolished (i.e., treated as invalid) at least three types of historical contracts: the voluntary slavery contract, the coverture marriage contract, and an undemocratic constitution to establish an autocratic government. Thus, the rights associated with those contracts are considered as inalienable. This paper analyzes these three contracts and shows that there is indeed a deeper classical liberal tradition of jurisprudence that rules out those contracts. The 'problem' is that the same principles imply the abolition of the employment contract-which is the foundation for the economic system that is often (but superficially) identified with classical liberalism itself.

The development of the new logic of partitions (= equivalence relations) dual to the usual Boolea... more The development of the new logic of partitions (= equivalence relations) dual to the usual Boolean logic of subsets, and its quantitative version as the new logical theory of information provide the basic mathematical concepts to describe distinctions/indistinctions, definite-ness/indefiniteness, and distinguishability/indistinguishability. They throw some new light on the objective indefiniteness or literal interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM) advocated by Abner Shimony. This paper shows how the mathematics of QM is the math of indefiniteness and thus, literally and realistically interpreted, it describes an objectively indefinite reality at the quantum level. In particular, the mathematics of wave propagation is shown to also be the math of the evolution of indefinite states that do not change the degree of indistinctness between states. This corrects the historical wrong turn of seeing QM as "wave mechanics" rather than the mechanics of particles with indefinite/definite properties. For example, the so-called "wave-particle duality' for particles is the juxtaposition of the evolution of a particle having an indefinite position ("wave-like" behavior) with a particle having a definite position (particle-like behavior).

This is a talk given at the University of Salerno Italy on the logic of partitions, dual to the u... more This is a talk given at the University of Salerno Italy on the logic of partitions, dual to the usual Boolean logic of subsets (usually presented in only the special case of propositional logic) and its quantitative version, the logical theory of information based on logical entropy (which is contrasted with the usual notion of Shannon entropy).

This is a talk given at the University of Salerno Italy on how to interpret the math of quantum m... more This is a talk given at the University of Salerno Italy on how to interpret the math of quantum mechanics as the Hilbert space version of the set-level math of partitions (or equivalence relations). That in turn implies that the characteristic features of quantum level reality is objective indefiniteness--since that is what is described mathematically by partitions.

This was a talk about how to interpret the math of quantum mechanics as the Hilbert space version... more This was a talk about how to interpret the math of quantum mechanics as the Hilbert space version of the math of set-level partitions (or equivalence relations). That then implies that quantum level reality should be characterized by the concepts of partition math, namely indefiniteness and definiteness.

The employer-employee relationship is usually described by various euphemisms such as hiring, emp... more The employer-employee relationship is usually described by various euphemisms such as hiring, employing, giving a job to, place-holding etc.. But from the economic viewpoint, it is the renting of a person similar to renting a car (called 'hire-cars' in the UK) or an apartment, i.e., buying the flows of services of an entity instead of buying the entity itself. This terminology is not controversial. As the first American Economics Nobel winner, Paul Samuelson, put it: Since slavery was abolished, human earning power is forbidden by law to be capitalized. A man is not even free to sell himself: he must rent himself at a wage. [Samuelson (his emphasis)]

#elements ("size of subset") #dits ("size of partition").

These are the slides for a talk connecting the feminist critique of the coverture marriage contra... more These are the slides for a talk connecting the feminist critique of the coverture marriage contract and the neo-abolitionist critique of the employment contract.