DEMOCRATIC ECONOMIC PLANNING.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hahnel, Robin.

Series:

Routledge frontiers of political economy.

Routledge frontiers of political economy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economic policy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (373 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

[S.l.] : ROUTLEDGE, 2021.

Summary:

Democratic Economic Planning presents a concrete proposal for how to organize, carry out, and integrate comprehensive annual economic planning, investment planning, and long-run development planning so as to maximize popular participation, distribute the burdens and benefits of economic activity fairly, achieve environmental sustainability, and use scarce productive resources efficiently. The participatory planning procedures proposed provide workers in self-managed councils and consumers in neighbourhood councils with autonomy over their own activities while ensuring that they use scarce productive resources in socially responsible ways without subjecting them to competitive market forces. Certain mathematical and economic skills are required to fully understand and evaluate the planning procedures discussed and evaluated in technical sections in a number of chapters. These sections are necessary to advance the theory of democratic planning, and should be of primary interest to readers who have those skills. However, the book is written so that the main argument can be followed without fully digesting the more technical sections. Democratic Economic Planning is written for dreamers who are disenamored with the economics of competition and greed want to know how a system of equitable cooperation can be organized; and also for sceptics who demand "hard proof" that an economy without markets and private enterprise is possible.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Series

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Preface

The authors

About the main author

Intellectual challenges

Intended audiences and readers' guide

About the contributors

Introduction

Semantics

Political context

Socialist planning in the history of economic thought

First socialist calculation debate

Post-World War II debate

Post-Soviet debate

Part I Preliminaries

Introduction to Part I

1 Defining goals

Efficiency

Economic self-management

Economic justice

Environmental sustainability

Solidarity

Variety

2 Social democratic capitalism

Better than neoliberal capitalism, but not good enough

Why not private enterprise?

Private enterprise is incompatible with economic justice

Why not markets?

Markets are inefficient

Externalities are pervasive

Markets are often not competitive

Markets often fail to equilibrate

Practical problems with policy correctives

Labor markets are unfair

Markets subvert democracy

Markets undermine the ties that bind us

Conclusion

Part I: conclusion

Part II Central planning

Introduction to Part II

3 Central planning: how to do it

A multi-good, one-year model

A multi-good, multi-year model

Information issues in central planning

Finding the social welfare function

Responding to the tacit knowledge critique

Material balances

Trial prices

Trial quantities

Gradient procedures

4 Central planning: why not to do it

Central planning: an information game of cat and mouse

Central planning obstructs worker self-management

Part II: conclusion

Part III A participatory economy

Introduction: answer to Auntie Tina

5 A participatory economy in brief

Social ownership

Major institutions

Worker councils

Balanced jobs.

Neighborhood consumer councils

Federations

Income based on effort and need

Participatory planning

The challenge

The annual planning procedure in brief

A participatory economy and self-management

6 Digging deeper into a participatory economy

Indigenous cultures and the natural commons

Socialism and the productive commons

A productive commons for modern times

Outside stakeholders

Birth and death of worker councils

Objections to balanced jobs

Incentives

Fairness, trust, and solidarity

Measuring effort and sacrifice

Capping average effort ratings

Motivational efficiency

Allocative efficiency

Dynamic efficiency

Consumption

Allowances

Saving and borrowing

Councils and federations

Councils

Governance of federations

Assessments for public goods

7 The participatory annual planning procedure

Who says no?

Treatment of capital goods during annual planning

Public goods

Pollution

The pollution demand revealing mechanism

Overcoming perverse incentives

Multiple victims

Misrepresentation

An important caveat

Welfare theoretic analysis

A heuristic model

Consumer councils

A formal model

Comparing assumptions

What participatory planning is not

Participatory planning is not central planning

Participatory planning is not one big meeting

Participatory planning is not a Walrasian auctioneer

Appendix on efficient levels of emissions

8 Dispelling common confusions

The size 6 purple women's high-heeled shoe with a yellow toe problem

Post-plan adjustments

If it looks like a market, and smells like a market . . .

9 Computer simulations of participatory planning

Purpose

Platforms

The algorithm

Practicality: how many iterations will it take?.

Threshold

Price adjustment rule

Initial prices

Changing exponents in production and well-being functions

Tracking when different thresholds are achieved

Robustness: sensitivity to relaxing assumptions

Intervention by IFB personnel

Benefits of human intervention

Dangers of human intervention

Future simulation research

Conclusion: a practical possibility?

10 Reproductive labor

Conceptualizing reproductive activity

Different kinds of reproductive labor

Assumptions about education and healthcare

The public vs. private choice

Reproductive labor in the participatory economy

Women's caucuses

Balance jobs for caring labor

Anti-discrimination legislation

Affirmative action

Reproductive activity in households

In-home domestic labor

In-home caring labor

In-home socialization labor

Part III: conclusion

Dangers to be avoided

Unique features of participatory planning

Part IV Investment planning

Introduction to Part IV

11 Aggregate investment planning

A one-good, three-year model

An omniscient investment planner

Reality vs. theory

Missing information

Missing people

Inherently undemocratic

Participatory aggregate investment planning

Challenges

The investment planning procedure

Sequencing investment and annual planning

Welfare gains from updating investment plans

12 Comprehensive investment planning

Producing the efficient amounts of different capital goods

Allocating user rights for different capital goods efficiently

Part IV: conclusion

Participants in aggregate investment planning

Participants in detailed investment planning

Part V Long-run development planning

Introduction to Part V

13 Participatory educational planning

What does education planning decide?

"Producing" education.

Benefits of education

Investing the efficient amount in education

A note on time frames

Participants

Education planning proposal

14 Participatory environmental planning

Unique features of environmental planning

What does environmental planning decide?

Investing the efficient amount to protect the environment

Environmental planning proposal

15 Participatory international economic planning

International context

Goals

Issues to keep in mind

Three rules to guide trade policy

Evaluating comparative advantages

Achieving efficient trade during annual planning

International financial investment

What does participatory international economic planning decide?

An efficient transformation of comparative advantages

Participants in participatory strategic international economic planning

Does size matter?

Appendix on investment in infrastructure

Investing the efficient amount in infrastructure

Part V: conclusion

Education planning

Environmental planning

International economic planning

The socialist calculation debate a century later

Reconciling democratic planning and autonomy

Opportunity costs, social costs, and social rates of return

A level playing field for public and private consumption

Externalities extinguished!

Income distribution and incentives

Addressing concerns about impracticality

Integrating long-run and short-run plans

Reproductive labor

Looking forward

A bridge too far?

Appendix: other democratic planning proposals

1 Community-based economics

2 The "Scottish" model

3 Multi-level democratic iterative coordination

4 Negotiated coordination

5 Amazon socialism

Epilogue on prices in socialism

Index.

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-00-317370-5

1-000-39207-4

1-003-17370-5

1-000-39211-2

9781003173700

OCLC:

1255229316