Futures of Socialism by Grace Blakeley

Author:Grace Blakeley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books

Democratic planning: an oxymoron?

When the left speaks of democratic planning it is referencing a new kind of state – one that expresses the public will, encourages the widest popular involvement and actively develops the popular capacity to participate, as opposed to reducing people to commodified workers, data points or passive citizens.

‘Planning’ seems an inoffensive notion in itself: households plan, corporations plan and even neoliberal states plan. But introducing the kind of extensive planning we are proposing here calls forth familiar misgivings, fears and antagonisms. These cannot be dismissed by simply blaming corporate and media bias or the legacy of Cold War propaganda. The prejudices of powerful states have a material basis not only in failed experiments elsewhere, but also in their relations with socialist nations that may indeed be bureaucratic, arbitrary, wasteful and inflexible.

Adding the adjective ‘democratic’ doesn’t solve this dilemma. And though international examples may include suggestive policies and structures, the sober truth is that there are no fully convincing models on offer. This leaves us tirelessly repeating our critiques of capitalism – yet, essential as this is, it is not enough.

What we can do is start with an unambiguous commitment to assure others that we are not advocating an all-powerful state and that we value the liberal freedoms won historically: the expansion of the vote to all adults, free speech, the right to assembly, protection against arbitrary arrest, state transparency. We should insist that taking these principles seriously demands an extensive redistribution of income and wealth, so that everyone, in substance not just in formal status, has an equal chance to participate.

In emphasising the democratic side of planning, it is absolutely crucial to address specific mechanisms and institutions as a way to facilitate new levels of popular participation. These would include new central capacities, as well as a range of decentralised planning bodies such as those referenced earlier: regional research centres, locally elected environmental and job development boards, workplace and neighbourhood committees and sectoral councils.

The health crisis has notably highlighted the necessity for workplace control by those who do the work. Provisions to promote worker autonomy should extend to workers using their direct knowledge to act as guardians of the public interest, and where necessary to act as whistleblowers, under protection of their unions, to expose shortcuts and ‘savings’ that affect product and service safety and quality.

Unions have of late come more widely to appreciate the importance of getting the public on side for support towards winning their collective bargaining battles.

But something more is needed: a step towards unions formally linking up with the public in broader political demands. This could, for example, mean fighting within the state, to establish joint worker–community councils to monitor and modify strategies on an ongoing basis. In the private sector, it could mean workplace conversion committees and workplace sectoral councils presenting their own plans for a just transition.

Three points are critical here. First, widespread worker participation demands widespread unionisation. Second, such local and sectoral participation cannot be developed and sustained without involving and transforming subnational government, to link national and local planning.

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