David Patterson Ellerman (born 14 March 1943 in Fayette, Missouri) is a philosopher and author who works in the fields of economics and political economy, social theory and philosophy, quantum mechanics, and in mathematics.
He has written extensively on workplace democracy based on a modern treatment of the labor theory of property and the theory of inalienable rights as rights based on de facto inalienable capacities.
[1][2] His PhD thesis was titled Sheaves Of Relational Structures And Ultraproducts, and was advised by Rohit Jivanlal Parikh.
[2][3] After his PhD, Ellerman remained teaching at Boston University in the mathematics and then the economic department until 1976.
[4] From 1992 until 2003, he worked at the World Bank as an economics advisor to the Chief Economist (Joseph Stiglitz and Nicholas Stern).