Chapter 7.4.

👉The table of contents so far is here.

Chapter 7: Economic Planning and Energy Supply

7.4. Planned management of energy consumption

Energy supply planning in a sustainable planned economy also affects the way end users consume energy. Naturally, consumers cannot consume as much as they want without limit, as is the case in a capitalist economy.

In particular, the consumption of electricity, which is the most important secondary energy source, is subject to a strict planned supply system, in which case there are total control methods such as planned blackouts with advance notice, and individual regulation methods such as limit systems.

Planned blackouts may be unavoidable as an emergency measure in the event of a major disaster, but adopting such a total control supply system on a daily basis is unnecessary in situations where the power supply system is well established.

Therefore, a limit system is selected, but its application method differs between general households and large consumers such as business entities. For large consumers, daily limits will be set through individual agreements with the Electric Power Organization, but for ordinary households, rather than through individual agreements, if the daily upper limit set out in the terms and conditions that are notified to them in advance is exceeded, a warning will be given in advance and the power will be automatically cut off.

In fact, in the future when a sustainable planned economy is established, it is predicted that the technological innovation that supports such strict limit systems will progress, and measuring devices that will allow end-users to accurately grasp their electricity usage in real time and that will issue warnings if the limit is approached will be widespread among ordinary households, and a strict limit system is unlikely to be as cumbersome as is currently assumed.

A similar limit system will also be introduced for gas, but a sustainable planned economy will not allow bias in the composition of energy consumption, such as all-electric or all-gas, and will take into account the balance of energy consumption. For this reason, it is desirable for electricity and gas supply to be carried out comprehensively through an integrated public business organization (the Electric Power and Gas Organization).

However, no matter how well planned this mass energy supply system is, it will not be sufficient for environmental sustainability, so the spread of energy self-sufficiency systems must also be considered. Specifically, this would include having private power generation equipment on hand at all times, and in rural communities reviving or using in combination traditional means of ignition such as wood fires.

👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism.

Chapter 7.3.

👉The table of contents so far is here.

Chapter 7: Economic Planning and Energy Supply

7.3. Energy Business Entities

The nature of the energy business entity responsible for energy production and supply to households, corporations, and other energy consumers is not unrelated to the mode of production in general, but it does not necessarily have an inevitable relationship with it.

In other words, even in the capitalist mode of production, due to the policy of public ownership of natural resources, energy enterprises often take the form of public enterprises such as state-owned enterprises (especially resource enterprises such as oil companies), and although they are stock companies, they sometimes take the form of officially recognized monopolies that are guaranteed the privileges of a monopoly by the state. The state has also taken the form of a recognized monopoly.

However, recent so-called neo-liberal ideology extends to the liberalization of energy production and supply, and in particular, there is a growing trend toward privatization and competition in the electric power industry.

In contrast, energy enterprises in a sustainable planned economy, where supply planning is based on transnational management of energy, are based on socially owned public enterprises. Specifically, it will take the form of a production business organization, which will be discussed later.

For example, in the case of electricity, it is the Electric Power Organization. Such an entity will not be divided by region, but will be established as a unified entity on an all-Zonal basis. However, regional offices will be established in each of the several regional jurisdictions to ensure a certain degree of decentralized management.

In addition, primary energy sources such as oil to be managed by the private sector will not be imported commercially, but will be planned and supplied according to the supply quotas of each Zone, so an entity that will serve as a unified receiving window is necessary.

In this regard, as an entity under the direct control of the Energy Planning Council, which is a subordinate body of the Economic Planning Conference and consists of energy business entities, the Natural Resource Liaison Organization, which will serve as a comprehensive receiving window for supplied resources, will be established  and will be in charge of everything from the negotiation of supply quotas to marine transportation. The Energy Planning Council will be in charge of the secondary supply of the received resources within the Zone.

A sustainable planned economy that does not use nuclear power generation also includes the historic and time-consuming energy disposal process of phasing out nuclear power generation. Such a nuclear phase-out plan will be implemented on a global scale, and for the time being, a specialized entity such as the Nuclear Phase-Out Organization will be established separately from the Electric Power Organization in the Zone.

👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism.

Chapter 7.2.

👉The table of contents so far is here.

Chapter 7: Economic Planning and Energy Supply

7.2. Energy supply planning

In the previous section, we pointed out that the starting point of the economic planning process under a communist planned economy is the energy plan. Let us now look back at the principles of a sustainable planned economy described in Chapter 4.

A sustainable planned economy already includes environmental assessment, and therefore must be combined with not only a "material balance" aimed at adjusting the quantity of production, but also a qualitative "environmental balance" that includes the selection of energy resources that are compatible with environmental sustainability and the regulation of production methods and product structure.

In particular, an energy plan is necessary as a prerequisite for this "environmental balance." In that case, there is a technical problem of whether to separate the energy plan from the main economic plan and incorporate it independently, or to incorporate it as a prerequisite part of the economic plan.

The integrated type seems appropriate in order to emphasize that the energy plan is not an external regulation of the economic plan, but an internal premise for the entire economic plan; however, in any case, such an energy plan is a guideline that is applied to production companies with the same normative power as the economic plan itself, and is not simply a programmatic set out of the basic principles of energy policy.

Furthermore, because energy supply is closely related to the system of global joint management of energy sources, it must also be linked to energy resource management plans at the global level, and a "single-nation energy plan" cannot exist here.

In terms of content, the plan is based on the conservation of non-renewable energy sources such as oil and the active use of renewable energy, with environmentally sustainable total quantity restrictions on electricity, which accounts for the largest proportion of all secondary energy sources in advanced industrial society, being an important pillar of the energy plan.

Incidentally, with regard to power generation, nuclear power has been proven to be unparalleled in its environmental destruction in the event of an accident, so it cannot be evaluated as a qualitatively safe and sustainable energy source, and is therefore excluded from the sustainable energy plan.

The body that formulates such energy plans is also not a government agency, but the Economic Planning Conference, which is made up of production companies, but the original energy plan is formulated by the Energy Planning Council, a subordinate organ of the council made up of energy-related business entities such as oil refining and electricity.

👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism.

Chapter 7.1.

👉The table of contents so far is here.

Chapter 7: Economic Planning and Energy Supply

7.1. Transnational Management of Energy Sources

The fact that advanced industrial societies are based on energy as a physical foundation remains the same regardless of the mode of production. However, the ideas and methods of energy supply are closely related to the mode of production.

In capitalist industrial societies, energy is merely a means of material production activity. In other words, "production comes first," and attempts are made to supply energy commensurate with the anticipated material production activity. Moreover, these production activities are not based on an overall plan, but are competing business plans aimed at the pursuit of profits by individual capitalist enterprises, so setting limits on energy supply is avoided.

The idea of ​​a communist sustainable planned economy is the opposite. That is, "energy comes first," and production activities are carried out within the framework of an energy supply plan that takes environmental sustainability into consideration. In other words, the starting point of the economic planning process under a sustainable planned economy is energy planning.

Energy is produced from energy sources (here, this refers to energy sources in the narrow sense, i.e., primary energy sources), so the premise of a sustainable energy plan must be sustainable energy source management, that is, sustainable natural resource management.

In capitalist society, the idea of ​​"energy source management" does not even exist in the first place, and energy sources are permanently subject to development until they reach their limit of depletion, and at best development is only indirectly controlled by the governments and state-run development companies of countries with natural resource deposits.

In recent years, even such indirect control has relaxed, and resources have even become the subject of speculation. The result is economic instability due to fluctuating prices of oil and other energy sources, and the waste and depletion of resources.

A sustainable planned economy is linked to the transnational management of energy resources, which is the polar opposite of this "energy anarchy." Transnational management of energy resources means breaking away from the international common sense of "resource nationalism" that states that energy sources such as oil belong to the country that reserves them, and instead regarding energy sources as ownerless property, placing them under the joint management of all humanity.

Simply put, this means that "natural resources belong to no one." However, in order to make the transnational management of natural resources more than just an idea, but actually possible, it is necessary to build an effective joint management system that is based on the premise of a global planned economy.

👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism.

Chapter 6.4.

👉The table of contents so far is here.

Chapter 6: Planned economy and political system

6.4. Constituent units of the World Commonwealth

At the end of this chapter, we will summarize the outline of the planned economy system in the World Commonwealth as a whole. As already mentioned, the World Commonwealth is not a centralized single sovereign entity like a world government, but has a decentralized structure.

The basic constituent unit of the World Commonwealth is the Zone, which is a political unit equivalent to a traditional country, and is also a planned economic entity within the framework of the world economic plan. For example, the Zone of the Germany is both a political unit of Germany and a planned economic entity within the Germany domain.

At the level of these Zones, an Economic Planning Conference is established as a single economic planning organization, and economic plans within each Zone are formulated in line with the economic plan set by the World Economic Planning Organization. There is no complete hierarchical command relationship between the WEPO and the Zonal Economic Planning Conference, but the latter is like a trustee of the former.

A global planned economy not only involves planning of vertical relationships, but also economic cooperation as horizontal connections, and it is rational for such economic cooperation to be carried out on the basis of interrelated regions that bring together neighboring Zones that share geographical and cultural commonalities.

Grand-Zones are interrelated regional cooperation bodies for such neighboring Zones. Grand-Zones themselves are not planned economic entities, but mutual economic cooperation entities that supplement planned economies, and so do not have their own economic planning institutions.

There are various ways to divide Grand-Zones, but I have long proposed dividing the world into five: Pan-African-South Atlantic Zone, Pan-European-Siberian Zone, Pan-American-Caribbean Zone, Pan-Eastern Asia-Oceania Zone, and Pan-Western Asia-Indian Ocean Zone (see my article).

Such economic cooperation bodies among linked regions still exist today, but they often morph into economic competition between the regions and, in the worst cases, turn into exclusive economic blocs that can lead to international war. On the other hand, multinational capital that runs rampant globally across borders is incompatible with this kind of linked regional economic cooperation.

A Grand-Zone in a global planned economy is not a competitive unit, nor is it a sphere ​​of international industrial division like the former Comecon led by the former Soviet Union. Rather, it can be said to be a unit unique to a global planned economy that specializes in mutually complementary economic cooperation.

👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism.

Chapter 6.3.

👉The table of contents so far is here.

Chapter 6: Planned economy and political system

6.3. The role of the World Commonwealth

We argued that the World Commonwealth would not have a bicameral political and economic system, and that the World Economic Planning Organization would be a subordinate organ of the World Commonwealth General Assembly. If so, what role would the World Commonwealth with a unified political and economic structure play in the planned economy system?

In this respect, the former Soviet Union's administratively-command planned economy was operated as a planned economy for the single sovereign state of the Soviet Union, although it was a federation of several constituent republics, and its goal was the economic development of the the Soviet Union alone. As a result, the idea of ​​a global planned economy that transcends a single country never emerged.

In contrast, the new planned economy will be implemented on a global scale, as it is a sustainable planned economy that prioritizes the conservation of the global environment above all else. For this reason, the ultimate plan will need to be carried out in a coordinated manner at a level that encompasses the entire world. The World Commonwealth is the body that can provide such coordination.

At this point, one may ask whether it would be more effective to establish a full-fledged world government organization such as a "World Federation" in order to implement such a global planned economy. A "World Federation" is indeed a political organization that would unify the world, and there have long been movements that advocate it, primarily from the perspective of world peace.

In fact, the word commonwealth in the World Commonwealth written in English also has the political meaning of "federation,” and one existing system is the Commonwealth of Nations, an association of nation states made up of the United Kingdom and its former colonies.

However, in a new planned economy that is not based on administrative command but on voluntary joint planning by corporations, just as the framework of the nation state is unnecessary, a federal framework such as a "World Federation" is also unnecessary, and a system such as a "World Federation" does not seem appropriate as a political system that guarantees a global planned economy in a superstructure.

Commonwealth is etymologically a compound word of two words, common + wealth, and the economic implication of "world common wealth" is also recognized. The idea of ​​the World Commonwealth is envisioned as a politically and economically integrated entity involved in the planned production and distribution of this global wealth common to all of humanity.

👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism.

Chapter 6.2.

👉The table of contents so far is here.

Chapter 6: Planned economy and political system

6.2. Political and economic bicameral system

In the relationship between planned economy and political system, the nature of the representative system becomes an issue. In this regard, in an administrative command-type planned economy like the former Soviet Union, economic planning was the task of administrative agencies, so a planning administrative agency like the former Soviet Union's State Planning Commission is sufficient, and the issue of representative system is not very important.

The issue of democratic supervision arises as to how a representative body can supervise such an administrative agency with great authority, but this is a question of administrative supervision rather than the representative system itself.

In a new planned economy centered on the autonomous joint planning of enterprises, however, the system and composition of the representative body that formulates such joint plans become important issues.

The most radical system would be to unify them into a single representative body for enterprises. For example, a representative body composed of delegates for each industry. This is a structure close to a functional representative system.

In particular, Marx's theory of communist society, based on the definition of "a society consisting of cooperatives of free and equal producers acting consciously according to a rational joint plan," would lead to a system in which production cooperatives (business entities) themselves have their own representative bodies.

According to Marx, in a communist society, (1) there would be no governing function, (2) the allocation of general functions would be a practical matter that would not result in any control, and (3) elections would lose their current political character. And under communist collective ownership, the so-called will of the people would disappear, giving way to the practical will of the cooperatives. The image is a system in which cooperatives would join together and govern directly.

However, since economic planning alone requires a great deal of deliberation and coordination, it would be more reasonable to set up a separate representative body to share the functions of deliberating other general policies. In that sense, it would be better for the economic planning body to be established and operated as a corporate representative body separate from the general representative body, and for the general representative body to only give approval to the economic plan formulated by the economic planning body.

This dual representative body of planning (economy)/general (politics) - a political and economic bicameral - would be established as a set at the level of the zones that make up the World Commonwealth However, even though it is a political and economic bicameral system, the relationship between the two will not be completely equal, and the Commons' Convention, which is the political house, will have a senate-like position, so to speak, and will hold the final power to approve plans.

The bicameral structure will not apply to economic planning body at the World Commonwealth level (World Economic Planning Organization), and it will be positioned more as one of the bodies directly under the General Assembly of the World Commonwealth (World Commons' Convention). This is because, in the case of the World Commonwealth, political integration is emphasized. However, even in this case, the World Economic Planning Organization will not be a bureaucratic body, but a deliberative body made up of the world federation of production organizations.

Furthermore, the Grand-Zones, which are wide regional entities within the World Commonwealth, will not have their own economic planning bodies, as their main task will be interregional economic cooperation within the framework of the world economic plan, rather than economic planning itself.