The Kantian Person/Thing Principle in Political Economy
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The Kantian Person/Thing Principle in Political Economy
https://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/KantianPrinciple-JEI.pdf
This article presents a rights-based deontological theory of corporate governance inspired by aspects of Immanuel Kant's thought.
This paper argues that there is an inalienable right to workplace democracy/workers' self-management where inalienable means a right that cannot be given up even with consent. It discusses how the employer-employee contract inherently treats employees as things and how this can only be remedied by transitioning to a system based on workers' control over production.