Chapter 1: What is a planned economy?
1.3. Marx's theory of planned economy
Planned economic theory is still often associated with Marxism, but in reality, no full-fledged planned economic theory can be found in Marx's economic theory. This is because the overwhelming focus of Marx's economic theory, exemplified by his major work Capital, was placed on the critical analysis of the capitalist economic system.
However, Marx was definitely a supporter of planned economy. This can be gleaned from the few words that Marx left behind. For example, in the first chapter of the first volume of Capital he wrote: "The process of social life, that is, the material production process, is only unveiled when it is placed under conscious and planned control as the product of freely socialized man." This a reference to the outline of a planned economy.
More specifically, in his late essay The French Civil War he wrote: "If the cooperative federations should coordinate the whole production according to a common plan and thus bring it under their own control, and thus put an end to the constant anarchy and periodic convulsions which are the fate of capitalist production. If so, what could it be other than communism?" This is also a clearer reference to communism = planned economy.
What is important about this latter statement is that the planned economy that Marx envisioned was based on "joint planning of cooperative federations." In this respect, it is completely different from the so-called administrative command economy, which is based on economic planning by state planning agencies, such as the Soviet-style planned economy.
Marx originally defined a communist society as "a society consisting of cooperatives of free and equal producers who act consciously according to a rational collective plan."
Although Marx drew a clear line from the theory of abolition of the state, the communist economic society that Marx envisioned would not be led by a state administrative organ, but its basic unit would be cooperative enterprises, and the economic plan also becomes a concept that is formulated and implemented as an autonomous "joint plan" by the cooperative enterprises themselves.
How, then, was the monetized economy perceived in Marx's theory of economic planning? Marx avoided to make this point explicit. However, it is thought that he did not envision a monetary economy, the modern form of an exchange economy, based on his statement, "In a cooperative society based on the sharing of the means of production, producers do not exchange their products," which appears in his late article "Critique of the Gotha Platform.
Thus, the outline of Marx's theory of planned economy can be summarized as non-state and non-monetary, and such a theoretical framework can even be said to be rather antagonistic to the Soviet-style planned economy led by the state and based on a monetized economy that had professed Marxism.
Since the Soviet Union advocated the systemic doctrine of "Marxism-Leninism" by linking Marx and Lenin, a syllogistic evaluation of the former Soviet Union became entrenched worldwide, saying that all the old Soviet systems had their origins in Marx, and therefore the failure of the former Soviet Union meant the failure of Marxian theory.
However, all of the old Soviet systems, including the State Planning Committee, were designed during the era of Lenin and Stalin, and it would be more accurate to separate them from Marx and call them "Leninism-Stalinism." When conceiving a new planned economy, a way of thinking that does not directly link Marx and the Soviet Union is especially necessary.
👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism.
