Part II: THE PROCESS OF SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC PLANNING
Chapter 5: Globalization of Planned Economy
5.1. Non-bureaucratic planning
In that respect, it is similar to the system of the former Yugoslavia, which was called "self-managed socialism." However, in the case of the former Yugoslavia, the emphasis was on "autonomous management," in which the workers themselves managed and operated each production enterprise, and overall planning was only of secondary interest, which in effect brought about a certain degree of competitiveness with the independent accounting of individual production enterprises, indicating a move closer to a market economy.
In contrast, the autonomous joint planning envisaged in a sustainable planned economy places emphasis on "joint management," in which the production enterprises jointly formulate and implement the overall plan.
The formulation body for such joint plans by production enterprises is envisaged to be a representative body such as the "Economic Planning Conference" (hereafter abbreviated as the Planning Conference), which is made up of planners from each production enterprise.
Since the plan will be based on environmental sustainability, the Planning Conference will have the advanced function of environmental economic analysis necessary for economic planning, and will take the lead in formulating the plan. Therefore, this institution will not have bureaucrats like administrative agencies, but instead will have ecological economists as full-time employees.
An ecological economist is a specialist who performs economic analysis and predictions from an environmental perspective, a new profession that can only come into existence when economics and environmental studies are combined. In other words, an ecologist + economist = an ecolonomist.
Even under a capitalist economy, a new field known as "environmental economics" has emerged, but it remains a peripheral area within capitalist economics, which is absolutely premised on a market economy. However, in a sustainable planned economy, environmental economics will become a key knowledge, and corresponding practical jobs will also be created.
This may raise concerns that ecolonomists will become quasi-bureaucratic figures who drive the Planning Conference, but their role is strictly limited to research and analysis that contributes to economic planning, and the actual formulation of plans is submitted to public discussion and passed at the Planning Conference's deliberations, so this body can be said to be closer to a parliament than to an administrative body like the State Planning Commission of the former Soviet Union.
Compared to Soviet-style state planning, such voluntary joint plans are expected to be much more realistic plans that reflect flexible and analytical knowledge based on judgments at the production site.
Furthermore, since a sustainable planned economy is based on the sustainability of the global environment, ultimately it will not be complete unless it is implemented on a global scale. Such a global economic plan must also be envisioned as a system in which each production sector's worldwide federations independently formulate and manage the plan.
👉The table of contents so far is here.
👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism.
