👉The table of contents so far is here.
PART 3: PRODUCTION, LABOR, AND CONSUMPTION UNDER A SUSTAINABLE PLANNED ECONOMY
Chapter 11: Planned Economy and Corporate Forms
11.1. Socially owned enterprise
In modern times, major production activities are carried out systematically and continuously through enterprises that aggregate labor and material resources. This remains true in planned economies, but the corporate form is determined by the mode of production.
Under the capitalist mode of production, the typical corporate form is the joint-stock company, which can easily raise investment funds from the private sector. On the other hand, under the socialist mode of production based on the Soviet-style administratively planned economy, the typical corporate form is the state-owned enterprise, which is directly invested in and operated by the state.
In contrast, under the communist mode of production, which is based on a joint economic plan formulated autonomously by production enterprises, the typical corporate form is a public enterprise, neither a joint-stock company nor a state-owned enterprise.
In this regard, Marx defined a communist society as "a society consisting of cooperatives of free and equal producers acting consciously according to a rational joint plan."
According to this definition, production activities in the communist society envisioned by Marx would be carried out through a corporate form called production cooperatives. In fact, Marx's planned economy was envisioned as being based on the joint planning of such cooperative enterprises.
However, this definition and conception seem a little too idealistic. Large-scale, intensive production activities are required in today's core industrial sectors, and in order to implement a planned economy that incorporates environmental sustainability, it is considered essential to utilize corporate entities larger than cooperatives in sectors with high environmental burden to which a planned economy is applied.
If we were to design a production enterprise that corresponds to the production activities of core industrial sectors while utilizing Marx's concept, a form such as joint production cooperative could be envisioned, but such a joint enterprise would raise concerns about integrated governance and would remain merely a model.
As a more realistic corporate form, a communist public enterprise can be defined as a socially owned enterprise, in that it is owned neither by investor shareholders like in a joint-stock company nor by the state like in a state-owned enterprise, but rather belong to society as a social commons. Here, we will refer to their legal name as "production business organization."
The fields in which these production business organization produce are limited to sectors with high environmental burden to which the planned economy applies. In other words, the operating bodies of the planned economy are production business organization, which are socially owned enterprise.
👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism.
