Submitted 1 year ago by jlou@mastodon.social to workreform@lemmy.world
"Inalienable Rights: Part I The Basic Argument" for Employer-Employee System and for Workplace Democracy
https://www.ellerman.org/inalienable-rights-part-i-the-basic-argument/
This article discusses how the contemporary system of labor relations treats employees as things rather than persons thus denying their humanity, and violating rights they have because of their personhood. Instead, work should be democratically controlled by the people doing it
My understanding of Ellerman is that he has tended to attach to leftist criticisms of liberalism abstractions that produce no particular further clarity.
Ellerman's approach actually clarifies how the system of property and contract works under capitalism and avoids some basic mistakes that are pervasive in Marxism and neoclassical economics. Furthermore, his argument is significantly stronger and more decisive than established leftist criticisms. It establishes that wage labor violates workers' rights even if it is voluntary.
What specific point in the article did you disagree with?
Mostly, Ellerman’s approach is weighty and unwieldy, by capturing or complicating constructs that leftists have identified as unnecessary, unrobust, and outright fictitious.
Most leftists have no need for recovering natural rights, nor even have need of natural rights.
Workers might simply rebel against the exploiters, because workers have no wish and no need for being exploited.
CuddlyCassowary@lemmy.world 1 year ago
So we treat people like things, and companies as people. Fanfuckingtastic.
unfreeradical@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Simply, owners demand for themselves more than they pretend to allow for workers.
CuddlyCassowary@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I was mostly referring to the Citizens United legislation, but yeah, your point still stands!