the heart of the transition to post-capitalism - in the heart of the disconnection against capitalism - there must be (let's not mince words) a further report to the planning. If that word scares you, it immediately evokes the Soviet bloc and Bolshevism, it shows how much you are brainwashed by the surrounding debate. But that's normal: a half-century "reactionary rhetoric" (to quote the economist Albert Hirschman American) has convinced even the left-wing circles that oppose capitalism and planning. In fact, they interpenetrate: the logic of capitalism is already in itself a logical planning. Understanding this, it opens a vast intellectual horizons of social progress because we then realized that the real debate is not between "capitalism" and "interventionism" but between on the one hand, planning undemocratic (where capitalism and Bolshevism rub) and on the other hand, democratic planning.
Capitalism, therefore, is a logical planning undemocratic. Unacceptable!, Neoliberals argue that monopolized the word "liberal" as if they could make their mark ... Ineligible, because capitalism is a market economy and the market economy is a central element of democracy! Surely two lies that need wring the neck.
First, there are non-capitalist market economies, we can also call "economies with markets" (in the words of Thierry Verhelst): even the supposedly more primitive societies contain sites of exchange between equivalents, based on a social division of labor, with or without the intermediary of a currency. Barter, LETS, the "melting coins" that are experienced in some alternative economic communities - all this is the economy (or with) market (s). Those who want to confuse the market economy and capitalism are those who find clear (most often without even having thought) that the land, money and labor are commodities that can result in market transactions. "Land market, capital market, capital market, labor market" when you encounter these terms, you are not simply dealing with someone who defends the idea of market economy, you face someone who adheres to a capitalist economy market. It is a very special market economy in which it is believed, for the purpose of profit-maximizing capital (market financial, capital market), both the land (land market) that human labor (labor market) must be the subject of market transactions. Capitalism is what some call a market economy private enterprise: it is a special way to use the logic of the market to serve the interests of capital owners. Certainly, they will then perhaps the interests of "workers" and "consumers" - but that does not mean at all that the only way to serve our interests as workers or consumers or to organize our economy mode capitalist. Capitalism is not "the" model of market economy.
It follows naturally that there may be non-capitalist democracies, capitalism is by no means a necessity of democracy - even if one accepts that the market economy is, in turn, a necessity of democracy. But even this, is this the case? Not at all. Read for example the work of Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel (I wrote about in one of the boxes in my note "Transition ecological and economic transition") on participatory economics or "participativa" - in English: Participatory Economy or "ParEcon" (See especially their website). Both authors have, for over thirty years, developed a coherent model of an economy without markets, where production decisions, consumption and allocation of resources and work effort would be taken democratically in a series of citizen committees at multiple levels of power. It is therefore a model of democratic planning "from below" without any centralized state, and without mechanisms of market competition or sale and resale of human labor, and also without any employer or managerial hierarchy within production entities. (Please, do not raise your eyes to heaven, do not yell at the ridiculous utopia before making the effort to read and study quietly the work in question. I am currently with a group of fifteen students at the Catholic University of Leuven, Master of Economics. The discussions between us are lively and full of healthy controversy, but a wealth encouraging for democratic deliberation.)
What these works on show democratic participatory planning, even beyond the flaws and imperfections inherent in any construction of alternatives is that models of democracy fully non-market exist, they are logically consistent and can be desirable depending on the assumptions that one makes about the nature of democracy and also about human nature. The market economy is not a necessary element of any democracy. Moreover, Albert and Hahnel are radically liberal. These are, as they say in the jargon, "left-libertarians," or even "anarcho-syndicalist" - where the word "union" does not include partners, opponents of the FEB and all but UWE groups for citizens to deliberate on economic priorities, and where the word "anarchy" does not refer to bombing TGV routes but the demand for a radically new governance "from below" ( bottom-up), especially in the worlds of work and production.
Ah yes, the squeak neoliberal (or conquered the socialist market economy, or the environmentalist sentenced to "social democracy Green), but you've just used the word that kills planning. We are democrats and we therefore oppose any planning - we are in favor of individual freedom, personal initiative, self-regulation, not statism and authoritarianism. Eternal old song ... And how neoliberal and clones from the center-left they perform their hocus-pocus ideological? Specifically by continuing to confuse capitalism and market economy, and making us believe that capitalism is "the" documentation of the market economy, is the opposite of "planning". Nothing is more incorrect.
the 1950s, the American economist John Kenneth Galbraith showed that American capitalism, renowned for its supposed free enterprise, with the USSR was the system most world leaders, including infiltrated by the "military industrial complex" which served as his right arm the government to allocate resources to the private sector public considered appropriate. The Bush era (2001-2009) has not denied this prophecy, quite the contrary - even within an administration that proclaimed itself constantly as a promoter of "free enterprise". In their remarkable new book on neo-liberalism, entitled New because of the world, Christian and Pierre Laval Dardot showed (on the basis, inter alia, the approach of "governmentality" in Michel Foucault) that the confusion between capitalism and market economy, carefully fostered by neoliberal think tanks (such as at home, Institut Jean Gol, ITIN, or McKinsey Institute Hayek), hides a disturbing reality: capitalism has nothing to do with promoting freedom and autonomy, or even nothing to do with "market", but everything to do with the appointment in the private sector in public decision logic. In view of what? Planning for a "rational" economic activities and political decisions to create the conditions for profit maximization of economic and financial capital. We need a very powerful to create such conditions. Neoliberalism, which is the promotion of capitalism as mechanism for collective planning, is a successful form of statism.
Why do they want to promote neoliberal capitalism as a mechanism for planning? Because they do not believe that democracy - in any case, participatory democracy that is less easy to define and to co-opt that representative democracy - the right tool for governance. What then is the right tool, in their eyes? The "free market" as they say in chorus? No way! The free market capitalist, yes - but it means above all that the class of "supervisors" (managers and policy makers) should be co-opted into a logical That will make him take the "good" decisions - those that allow shareholders to have a play area as wide as possible to multiply and increase itself. And why this veneration of capital? Because the neoliberal is absolutely convinced that only the holder of economic and financial capital (either an individual or a pension fund) has the "incentives" that will lead it to invest its capital in "good" places - for contribute to a common good that defines not anymore, or that best defines conveniently vague ideas by: creating growth, provide jobs, ensure the competitiveness of our businesses, ... Moreover, these goals are often lies in front (because growth often does not create jobs, and capital in search of competitiveness is not at all interested in the job), they are too vague because not subject to democratic deliberation of citizens: for growth, for what and for whom? Jobs, yes, but where and under what conditions? Competitiveness at the expense of who and what public choice in health, education, etc..? No need for such discussions, we say our planners capitalists: let capital move, ask the state to create the legal and regulatory of mobility (with, why not a little social ecology and for good measure), and we will automatically produce "good" results. Worse, corporate democracy undermines the efficient allocation of capital, and democracy in general - when given "too much" space - slows or prevents the efficient reallocation to occur.
The paradox, of course, is that the glorification of free enterprise and free markets - on a background of capitalism, insist upon it - is actually an apology for scheduling a specific type. Allergy entrepreneurs to participatory democracy watch they want central planning, even authoritarian, internally. And advocating neoliberal representative democracy shows that it is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as a target easily manipulated, so cooptable again in a process of central planning - but apparently not planning authoritarian, since ' just hold out the "risks" of a state too "interventionist" policies for self-censor ... and implement the "right" intervention without consulting the citizens too.
While the picture I painted here is perhaps a bit too dark. There are companies where experiments democratic place, and where planning is replaced capitalist (often only partially) through a democratic planning. And there are politicians who wish to retrieve a latitude of choice in the "market pressure". But overall in terms of overall logic , it seems obvious that capitalism is now seen by many "decision makers" (that is to say, business leaders and members government) and by many economists as a tool for planning effective collective. The problem is that - as I tried to show schematically - It is an undemocratic tool. The market only records the requests and expectations of those who can afford to buy one euro, one vote, and capitalism gives priority to an even less democratic principle: a European capital, one vote. If you still have the illusion that the dilution of capital on equity markets provides a "shareholder democracy", I suggest you read the powerful works of the French economist Frederic Lordon .
What is at issue, this is not the principle of planning! For even the capitalism we have seen, is a logical planning highlighted as "rational" by economists, policy makers and economic decision makers. No, what is at stake is the choice of a planning method that is democratic: not centralized, not related to the most influential actors of capitalism, not simply rooted in a representative democracy. We need to think thoroughly and patiently to democratic participatory planning methods, example by following and extending creatively tracks Albert and Hahnel which I briefly above (but not sacrosanct and may be modified, rejected, replaced by others, etc..). That, to me, one of the key issues of post-capitalism.
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PS. One commentator tells me that my articles are too long. I apologize. I try to be shorter in the future, if possible - but argue against the prevailing dogmas often requires even more space and nuance than defend ... Thank you anyway to all those who, despite the length of posts, taking the time to read and internalize. Cheers critical citizenship!
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