For a left-wing with a plan : Indybay
For a left wing with a plan
by Justus Henze, Rabea Berfelde, Samia Mohammed, & Eva Völpel
[This article posted on May 30, 2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, http://www.linksnet.de]
Many on the left agree that capitalism must be overcome. But what concrete economic alternative can we as socialists offer that does justice to the complexity of modern societies? For some time now, left-wing groups and actors have been discussing this question more intensively again and are gradually rediscovering a supposedly outdated idea: democratic socialist economic planning.
Economic planning is becoming increasingly urgent in view of the scope of capitalist crises. The global scale and existential dimension of the ecological crisis call for an alternative mechanism of economic coordination. The idea of democratic economic planning marks the search for a form of coordination that does not individualize uncertainty and offers more opportunities for everyone to shape their own lives than a market-based economy.
Extensive planning already takes place in today’s market economy, but under capitalist auspices. Companies use complex planning infrastructures to reduce internal risks. And states must also plan continuously to create the conditions for neoliberal capitalist economic activity. This shows that the dichotomy between market and plan is ideological.
Various actors are currently putting planning issues back on the agenda. However, the “planned economy debate 2.0” has so far been primarily an academic, and in some cases popular scientific, discussion that has not been taken up in many progressive circles. It also has gaps, for example in its treatment of the experience of real socialism and the development of concrete transformation strategies. We want to broaden and deepen the discussion—and propose a decidedly democratic and socialist concept of planning.
No planning is not a solution either
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The multiple crises of our time require a fundamental restructuring of the economy and society, but this cannot and will not succeed under capitalist conditions, with atomistic economic competition and the pressure to make profits. Instead of reducing CO2 emissions and the drastic destruction of resources and biodiversity, old production models are being clung to. Social and ecological costs are being externalized on a large scale and on a global level. The capitalist mode of production exacerbates the ecological crisis and the crisis of social reproduction, fueling social inequality, nationalism, and racism. In short, it undermines our livelihoods and democracy.
In the wake of an escalating climate and biodiversity crisis, growing geopolitical tensions, and unbridled financial markets, we will also be confronted with economic and financial crises, price shocks, and income losses, as well as increasing water shortages and extreme weather events in this country. For these reasons alone, forward-looking and socially just preventive or emergency measures that go beyond dysfunctional market control are becoming increasingly important for the survival of society—and, for many people, more plausible. At the same time, we are seeing how, in the wake of increasing geopolitical confrontations and global economic competition, government planning and control are increasingly on the political agenda. In its competition with state-capitalist China, the US is relying on far-reaching market interventions to establish and expand strategically important industries and infrastructures. Targeted state intervention and planning are being used to stabilize the economic hegemony of the capitalist West. With the possible emergence of green capitalism as a new regime of accumulation, these policies will increase, and economic planning within capitalism is likely to gain in importance.
Capitalism is the market, everything else is planning—this stubborn prejudice has long since become untenable. However, state intervention policies in capitalism are not a positive frame of reference for a socialist concept of control, regulation, and, above all, economic planning. But they can open up spaces in which these approaches become conceivable and discussable again, and shake the powerful cipher of the superiority of the invisible hand of the market.
Economic Planning 2.0 – the academic debate
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The assumption that planning is completely alien to capitalism was prominently challenged in 2019 in the book “The People’s Republic of Walmart. How the World’s Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundations for Socialism.” Authors Phillips and Rozworksi show that, in addition to states, multinational corporations also use extensive internal planning processes: Logistical processes are optimized with the help of technology in order to minimize risks within supply chains and thus maximize profits. So if planning was not only carried out in the GDR, but also at the headquarters of Amazon, Walmart, and other companies, then the question arises: Who plans which parameters and in whose interest?
Following Phillips and Rozworski, one strand of the new debate on democratic economic planning deals with digital technologies, algorithms, and artificial intelligence, seeking new solutions to the classic problem of socialist calculation (Groos 2021; Morozov 2019). Georg Jochum and Simon Schaupp (2019, 99) argue that the potential appropriation of the new “control forces” makes “radically democratic deliberation on complex economic issues technically possible.”
The “first” debate on economic planning became known as the Socialist or Economic Calculation Debate and was conducted between liberal and socialist economists in the 1920s to 1940s. While socialists such as Otto Neurath argued for the superiority and rationality of socialist economics, representatives of the Austrian school such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich August von Hayek upheld the coordination mechanism of the market over the allegedly dysfunctional socialist planned economic calculation.
A new strand of debate is challenging this assertion that democratically organized socialist economic planning is fundamentally and practically impossible. Here, concrete economic models are being developed that aim to spell out the extent to which a planned mode of production is technically feasible in complex societies (Hahnel 2021; Cockshott/Cottrell 1993). Within the model discussion, approaches are increasingly emerging that explicitly outline visions of an eco-socialist future (Durand et al. 2023; Vettese/Pendergrass 2022). It is hoped that a planned reduction in economic growth, combined with a focus on satisfying needs in the public interest, could usher in socialist and socio-ecological transformation.
There are a number of approaches and struggles in the here and now that deal specifically with the question of the paths and possibilities of transformation—with how a democratization of economic planning can not only be demanded but also politically enforced. In France, the left-wing alliance NUPES has placed ecological planning at the center of its political program. In Germany, the referendum Deutsche Wohnen & Co enteignen (Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co) caused a sensation in Berlin. This is only the best-known example of numerous initiatives advocating the remunicipalization and democratization of privatized services. Herein lie points of departure for linking concepts of democratically planned public services with the question of ownership and popularizing these discussions.
Towards an emancipatory concept of planning
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If we revisit debates on socialist planned economies and uncover their potential for a freer and more equal future for all, we should go beyond a mere discussion of feasibility: Admittedly, we still need to answer the question of the extent to which a functional economic system without markets and price signals would be conceivable and feasible today. However, we must also consider the political modalities and conditions of economic planning.
Given current planning practices, this form of coordination does not appear to be a step toward a socialist future: capitalist planning, whether by the state or the private sector, is organized top-down and subject to the goals of profit maximization and capital accumulation. So what form of planning are we talking about when we refer positively to economic planning and develop concrete proposals for it?
In our view, two elements in particular emerge from the planning debate that characterize an emancipatory concept of planning. They enable a critical examination of the authoritarian forms of economic planning in real socialism and distinguish themselves from technocratic planning as well as from planning mobilized in the interests of capital.
1 // Left-wing economic planning must be radically democratic and based on a substantial form of collective democratic organization of the economy. Detaching the planning debate from pure feasibility speculation already contributes to its politicization. If we focus on the question of the subjects of planning—that is, who plans?—we can discuss what comprehensive participation and democratic control at different levels of the economy should look like. A look back can help to define this aspiration more precisely: the political demand for collective control of economic processes reflects the historical goal of the labor movement to regulate production collectively and according to its own needs. Today, we must imagine concrete forms of implementing and institutionalizing these demands and update them in light of new technological, social, and political developments.
2 // Left-wing economic planning must be in line with socialist tradition. This is because the democratization of the planning process must necessarily be linked to the question of who has power over the means of social production, i.e., who controls them? Who owns them? After all, the economic coordination mechanism and ownership structures are mutually dependent; private ownership of the means of production prevents effective, democratic economic planning in line with the needs of all. This reveals a connection to the revived debate on democratic economic planning and to the current discussions on socialization, which concern the collective appropriation of infrastructure such as housing, energy, and public services—with the aim of removing them from the pressure to make a profit and managing them in the future in the public interest.
These examples already show that a substantially socialist and democratic concept of planning can today break down the historical narrowing of socialization to companies and sectors of industrial production. Emancipatory economic planning can challenge the capitalist separation of the spheres of production and reproduction and the associated patriarchal division of labor and gender order. For the goal is collective reproduction and a good life for all. We therefore understand democratic economic planning not only as the extension of democracy to the sphere of production, but also as the collective design of care infrastructures, their democratic transformation, and the redistribution of the workloads involved.
A progressive concept of planning and the demands associated with it is therefore about the whole, about a comprehensive transformation of conditions. This horizon is important so that we can base our analysis and politics in the here and now on concrete projects and options for action without falling into the trap of reformism. Developing a decidedly democratic and socialist concept of planning seems to us to be a necessary preliminary and ongoing task in order to advance the current debate on democratic economic planning. At the same time, there is plenty of room within these guidelines for debate and a more precise definition of what emancipatory planning could mean.
The time is ripe
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We also want to strengthen the debate on economic planning and socialist economics because we believe that the economic demands of the social left in recent years (or even decades) have shown glaring programmatic gaps. In the wake of the collapse of real socialism and the consolidation of neoliberalism, many leftists in parliament and in movements have either retreated to criticizing political economy or committed themselves to reformist left-wing Keynesianism, with a slightly more expansive fiscal policy here and a little stronger redistribution there. In some cases, the Left Party in state parliaments and governments even actively participated in privatizations or policies to strengthen Germany as a business location. The solution to the crisis of left-wing economic policy cannot, obviously, consist simply in developing an even “better” bourgeois economy—otherwise, it is not socialist but social democratic policy, which unsuccessfully attempts to mitigate the distortions of capitalist accumulation.
But even the social left, which is not organized in parties, persists in denouncing what it is fighting against and what needs to be abolished, instead of jointly imagining what could replace capitalism. This is an echo of the widespread “prohibition of images” in critical social science, i.e., the dogma of not drawing utopian counter-images to capitalism (cf. Adamczak 2020). This has not only prevented the joint development of concrete utopias, but has also led to a lack of orientation and strategy in movements and struggles. What is missing, then, is a convincing socialist economic concept that places the social left in clear antagonism to the prevailing conditions and points beyond capitalism. We believe that the combination of socialization and democratic planning can provide the compass for an anti-capitalist counterproject and thus for a socialist economy. The time is ripe for this.
For a left with a plan
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A contemporary understanding of economic planning would have to combine this concrete vision of the future with answers to how and why it would improve the everyday lives of the heterogeneous working class: their working conditions, their health, housing, and energy supply, the compatibility of work and family life, etc. It is about a left-wing understanding of needs and the satisfaction of needs that does not focus solely on the production of goods and that recognizes planetary boundaries. No one can develop such ideas alone; we must advance our program as the social left collectively and in a critical and supportive exchange. The concept and program of democratic economic planning, which aims to survive in the political arena, must also arise from work and intervention in political practice and be open to questioning by it.
We therefore call on all our comrades, comrades, acquaintances, and friends to engage more intensively with questions of democratic economic planning in the course of this year and to contribute to the planning debate. Let us rediscover economic planning as a demand and goal of the socialist movements and make it the subject of a broader debate. Let us turn our attention more to models and ideas of socialist economic planning. Let us dare even more to design a fundamentally different, liberated society, and let us present a convincing socialist economic model that also provides answers to the big questions.
Published in: “Zukunft mit Plan” (A Future with a Plan) – LuXemburg 1/2024, 14ff.
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[1] This issue of the magazine LuXemburg is intended to kick off a planning debate in 2024. We are pleased that contributions to the planning debate have already been announced in Prokla. Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaften (Prokla. Journal for Critical Social Sciences) and hope for further critical and supportive contributions.