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.

Chapter 6.1.

👉The table of contents so far is here.

Chapter 6: Planned Economy and Political Systems

6.1. Economic Systems and Political Systems

The task of the part II of this series is to clarify the process of a sustainable planned economy, and in this chapter we will look at the political institutions that guarantee the planned economy system in the superstructure.

In general, it is not clear that there is a logically necessary relationship between economic systems and political systems. However, it is possible to find a loose, but logical, correspondence.

For example, because capitalism aims for a free economy, it is most effective when combined with a liberal political system that keeps economic regulations to a minimum, especially a parliamentary system. This is because the parliamentary system is a representative system of money politics in which large sums of money are spent on elections for public office, making it easy for capital to establish a patronage relationship in which it retains the total interest of the business community through the political parties and politicians who serve as its guarantors.

On the other hand, a socialist economic system based on an administrative command economy like that of the former Soviet Union naturally requires a government and a planned administrative agency to act as the economic command center, and is therefore linked to a fairly centralized state system. In this respect, a parliamentary system, which is a meeting point of various political parties, is difficult to fit into this system.

In contrast, the new planned economy is not an administrative command type, but is based on autonomous joint planning by the target corporations of the planned economy themselves, making planned administrative agencies unnecessary. From this point on, one issue is whether the institution of the state itself should also be unnecessary.

The key here is the abolition of the monetary system. If a state that has lost its currency authority to issue official currency is no longer a state, then a communist planned economy that is not based on a monetary economy will be incompatible with the state system.

However, the abolition of the state is not necessarily unique to planned economies, and if one takes the most radical approach to free market economics, which retains the monetary economy but abolishes the state's currency authority and purifies it into a private currency system, then at least in theory, "capitalism without the state" will be possible.

In reality, however, it is difficult to imagine that a private currency without any state authority could circulate steadily with the safety of transactions guaranteed, so "capitalism without a state" will likely remain nothing more than an armchair theory.

Ultimately, an autonomous planned economic system without a planned administrative agency will have a new political system that is not based on a state system as its superstructure, and the World Commonwealth will be the global framework for this.

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface  page1

Part I: PRINCIPLES OF SUSTAINABLE PLANNED ECONOMY

Chapter 1: What is a planned economy?

 1.1. Planned economy and market economy  page2
 1.2. Planned economy and exchange economy  page3
 1.3. Marx's theory of planned economy  page4

Chapter 2: Criticism of the Soviet-style planned economy  

 2.1. Ambiguous beginning  page5

 2.2. State-planned economy  page6

 2.3. Intrinsic deficiencies  page7

 2.4. Policy deficiencies  page8

Chapter 3: The Relationship between the Environment and the Economy

 3.1. Environmental criteria and the planned economy  page8a
 3.2. Science and forecasting  page9
 3.3. Role of environmental ethics  page10
 3.4. Limitations of Classical Environmental Economics  page11
 3.5. Environment planned economy model  page12
 3.6. Dialectic between Environment and Economy  page13
 3.7. Economic Theory of Non-monetized Economy  page14

Chapter 4: Standard Principles of Planning

 4.1. Overview  page15
 4.2. Environmental Balance -part 1- : Mitigation vs. Control  page16
 4.3. Environmental Balance -part 2- : Mathematical Models   page17
 4.4. Material Balance -part1- :Supply-Demand Adjustment  page18
 4.5. Material Balance -part2- :Local production for local consumption  page19
 4.6. Material Balance -part3- :Mathematical Models  page20
 4.7. Disciplining principle of the free production domain  page21

Part II: THE PROCESS OF SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC PLANNING

Chapter 5: Globalization of Planned Economy

 5.1. Non-bureaucratic planning  page21a
 5.2. Global Planned Economy  page22
 5.3. From trade to economic cooperation  page23
 5.4. The World Economic Planning Organization  page24
 5.5. The Council for Grand-Zonal Economic Cooperation  page25

Chapter 6: Planned Economy and Political Systems

 6.1. Economic Systems and Political Systems  page26
 6.2. Political and economic bicameral system  page27
 6.3. The role of the World Commonwealth  page28

To be continued.

Chapter 5.5.

Chapter 5: Globalization of Planned Economy

5.5. The Council for Grand-Zonal Economic Cooperation

Since the World Commonwealth is not an integrated entity like a single nation state, world economic planning encompasses economic coordination among the five Grand-Zones, which are the regional groupings of the Zones that constitute the World Commonwealth. Such Grand-Zonal economic cooperation is extremely important in a sustainable planned economy as an alternative to capitalist commercial trade.

In essence, a sustainable planned economy is a global economic system based on a world economic plan, in which individual Zonal planned economies and cross-Zonal economic cooperation are organically interrelated.

In that sense, Grand-Zones are important units as economic cooperation spheres, and a working organization such as the Council for Grand-Zonal Economic Cooperation must be established, separate from the World Economic Planning Organization, to handle such inter-Zonal economic cooperation and maintain constant economic cooperation relationships.

To give a specific example, in the case of automobiles, the central Zone within each Grand-Zone produces them according to the guidelines set out in the world economic plan, and they are shared within the Grand-Zone. As a result, automobile manufacturers will no longer compete with each other for global market share, and production activities will be completed within each Grand-Zone.

However, this is not a rigid rule, and in places like Africa where there are no independent automobile manufacturers - although of course the possibility of developing independent manufacturers is greater than under a capitalist economy - the existence of cooperative relationships beyond Grand-Zonal boundaries, such as sourcing from neighboring Europe, is not denied.

Another important role of the Grand-Zones will be economic cooperation in the field of food and agriculture. Communist food production is based on each Zone being self-sufficient, without relying on trade, and in reality communism makes this possible, but the state of agricultural development and production volume are also affected by geographical conditions and weather, and imbalances cannot be completely avoided, so cooperative relationships in which  Grand-Zones that share a common food culture can share scarce products are essential.

A World Food and Agriculture Organization will be established as a specialized agency to coordinate such cooperative relationships globally. This will take over the work of the current UN agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), but this agency will remain a coordinating body, and the actual practical aspects of cooperation will be carried out by Food and Agriculture Councils established in each Grand-Zone.

👉The table of contents so far is here.

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

Chapter 5.4.

Chapter 5: Globalization of Planned Economy

5.4. The World Economic Planning Organization

The practical organization for the global planned economy is the World Economic Planning Organization. This organization is equivalent to the headquarters of the Economic Planning Conferences, which are the planning organizations for each Zone of the World Commonwealth. When the global planned economy is finally established, it will be a systematic organization in which the economic plans of each Zone are formulated within the overall framework of the world economic plan formulated by this organization.

This World Economic Planning Organization is positioned as a specialized organization of the World Commonwealth, but it is not a bureaucratic administrative organization like the current UN organizations, but a deliberative organization that formulates joint plans for production enterprises themselves, just like the Economic Planning Conference of each Zone. 

Its structure is also similar to the Economic Planning Conferences of each Zone. In other words, the executive body (The Senior Board of Directors) that is responsible for the decision-making of the World Economic Planning Organization is mainly composed of representatives of the production business associations, which is the global associations of production business organizations in the environmentally burdensome industrial sector that is the target of the planned economy.

There is no organization equivalent to a production business association in a capitalist economy, but if we were to cite existing analogues, we could imagine international industry associations such as the World Steel Association or the Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs d'Automobiles, etc.

Under a capitalist system, such international industry associations are merely organizations representing the international interests of each industry, and coordinating production activities themselves would be considered an international cartel and would be prohibited. However, in a global planned economy, production business associations are not simply industry associations, but is truly the leading organization of the global planned economy.

The world economic plan that the production business associations formulate after deliberation through the World Economic Planning Organization must then be deliberated at the General Assembly of the World Commonwealth (the World Commons' Convention), the representative and decision-making body of the people of the World Commonwealth. As a result, the adopted world economic plan binds each Zone with normativeness equivalent to a treaty and becomes the standard guideline for economic planning at the Zonal level.

👉The table of contents so far is here.

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

Chapter 5.3.

Chapter 5: Globalization of Planned Economy

5.3. From trade to economic cooperation

When a global sustainable planned economy is realized, the biggest change that will occur in the world economy will be the disappearance of the economic activity known as trade, whether it is "free trade" or "protectionist trade." This is in a parallel relationship with the disappearance of commerce at the "single country" level. This is a natural fact, given that trade means commercial activity that crosses the borders of sea and land.

However, even if trade disappears, it does not mean that there will be a shift to a completely self-sufficient system at the "single country" level. The overseas procurement of goods that are difficult to produce in one's own country, including food, will continue. However, this will no longer be done in the commercial form of trade, but in the form of free economic cooperation.

It is important to note that the economic cooperation referred to here is not a donating economic act implemented as "assistance" to "developing countries" as in the case of economic cooperation under capitalist economies, but rather is, in principle, an everyday reciprocal economic act.

An imperfect precedent for such an attempt was the economic cooperation system (COMECON) of the socialist economic bloc centered on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but this adopted a uniform division of labor system, which led to bias in the industrial structure of the member countries. Economic cooperation in a sustainable planned economy is flexible inter-regional cooperation that does not rely on such a uniform division of labor.

In fact, the world economic plan mentioned in the previous section is itself a general guideline for economic cooperation, but concrete economic cooperation is carried out at the level of neighboring economic cooperation bloc, taking into account geographical proximity. As will be discussed again in the next chapter, the Great-Zone bloc that divides the world into five functions as an economic cooperation bloc. 

Among this economic cooperation, food is directly linked to human life and death and is heavily dependent on natural conditions, so it is necessary to draw up a plan for it separately from regular economic plans, but actual economic cooperation will still be carried out on the Great-Zonal level.

Furthermore, as part of economic cooperation, there is the issue of transnational management of natural resources that serve as energy sources. As discussed in my On Communism, natural resources will not be left to nationalism, but will be placed under transnational management as unowned property that belongs to no one, with a World Natural Resources Organization being set up as the management body, and sustainable joint mining will be carried out. The world economic plan will also encompass a plan for the distribution of these resources.

👉The table of contents so far is here.

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