> There are, of course, still economists who think that the socialist calculation debate is not over. Yet I think it is quite clear that planning is all around us under capitalism. The planned economy works in theory, but more importantly, it works in practice. The current planning in companies like Walmart and Amazon shows the potential for a new classless society, a society of abundance and leisure.
> For now, planning works, but it works for them, for the rich capitalists and their profits, not for us and our needs. The next step is for us workers to organize and take the companies into our hands. And to lay the foundations for a society oriented towards need rather than profit.
I am not an economist, but I worked on the infrastructure of the EU subsidies to the agricultural sector and it's all planned economy in everything but the name.
The only (major) difference is that EU manages the agricultural industry with subsidies, and not direct orders. That is, you can not survive as independent farmer. You only survive as a part of a larger scheme of things where you get a subsidy for planting potatoes, a subsidy to reduce milk production, a subsidy to keep reserve in a barn that you built by obtaining a subsidy.
I think mixed economies probably work best with some central planning and some free enterprise. Like if you look at China when they sent full communist around the 1960s it was a disaster economically, but the situation from around the 1980s on when they still had central planning for things like rail and education but allowed capitalist enterprise to run along side has worked pretty well economically.
4 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 20.4 ms ] thread> For now, planning works, but it works for them, for the rich capitalists and their profits, not for us and our needs. The next step is for us workers to organize and take the companies into our hands. And to lay the foundations for a society oriented towards need rather than profit.
I am not an economist, but I worked on the infrastructure of the EU subsidies to the agricultural sector and it's all planned economy in everything but the name.
The only (major) difference is that EU manages the agricultural industry with subsidies, and not direct orders. That is, you can not survive as independent farmer. You only survive as a part of a larger scheme of things where you get a subsidy for planting potatoes, a subsidy to reduce milk production, a subsidy to keep reserve in a barn that you built by obtaining a subsidy.
See this for a starter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy