Return of Planning
* Book (French): Le Retour du Planning - Jacques Sapir
URL = https://cerclearistote.com/fr/product/112
Description
From Google translate:
"So-called indicative planning is back on the scene. This is the result of the Covid-19 epidemic, but it is also essential with the need for an energy transition that will profoundly change our economies. We see that it is no longer time to rely on the market to face the various uncertainties, whether pandemic or climatic.
This book therefore traces its origins, in the din and the suffering of the First World War. He follows its development in France, but also in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. He traces its development in countries as different as India, Japan, or post-war France. Planning was a tool of development but also of sovereignty. This book therefore recalls its undeniable successes, but also the crises that led to its abandonment in the 1990s. He wonders about what, nowadays, makes it necessary and possible again, as well as about its delicate articulation with the European Union."
In the original French:
"La planification dite indicative revient sur le devant de la scène. C’est le résultat de l’épidémie de la Covid-19, mais elle s’impose aussi avec la nécessité d’une transition énergétique qui va modifier en profondeur nos économies. On constate qu’il n’est plus temps de s’en remettre au marché pour affronter les diverses incertitudes, qu’elles soient pandémiques ou climatiques.
Ce livre en retrace donc l’origine, dans le fracas et les souffrances de la 1ère Guerre Mondiale. Il en suit le développement en France, mais aussi en Allemagne, au Royaume-Uni et aux États-Unis. Il en retrace l’épanouissement dans des pays aussi différent que l’Inde, le Japon, ou la France de l’après-guerre.
La planification fut un outil de développement mais aussi de souveraineté. Ce livre en rappelle donc les incontestables succès, mais aussi les crises qui conduisirent, dans les années 1990, à son abandon. Il s’interroge sur ce qui, de nos jours, la rend à nouveau nécessaire et possible, tout comme sur sa délicate articulation avec l’Union européenne."
Discussion
Christoph Sorg et al. :
"The long decade since the North Atlantic Financial Crisis, increasing awareness of approaching ecological disaster and the COVID-19 pandemic have clearly illustrated the multiple contradictions of capitalist market societies in the age of late neoliberalism. The parallel crises of finance, social reproduction, democracy, geopolitics, and the social metabolism have given rise to notions of a ‘polycrisis’, meaning a series of heavily interrelated crises whose collective impact is larger than the sum of its parts (Tooze, 2022). It is thus not surprising that new academic and political debates have started to discuss economic and social alternatives to financialization, neoliberalism, and capitalism more generally (Adamczak, 2021; Adler, 2019; Arruzza et al., 2019; Fraser, 2020; Hahnel and Wright, 2016; Hester and Srnicek, 2023; Malleson, 2023; Mazzucato, 2021). Some of these centre on contested techno-politics in the age of digitalization (Rifkin, 2014; Srnicek and Williams, 2015). Others have suggested varieties of Green New Deals (Klein, 2019; Riexinger et al., 2021; The Red Nation, 2021) or post-growth economies (Hickel 2020; Kallis, 2018; Raworth 2017; Schmelzer et al., 2022) as a solution to impending ecological disaster.
Most recently, this turn towards broader discussions of alternative futures has frequently been complemented by a controversial but increasingly popular topic: democratic planning as an alternative to market-based allocation (e.g. Durand et al., 2023; Foster, 2023; Groos, 2021; Groos and Sorg, 2025; Hahnel, 2021; Jones, 2020; Laibman and Campbell, 2022; Morozov, 2019; Pahl et al., 2024; Sorg; 2023a, 2023b; Beckmann et al., 2024). The special issue ‘Rethinking Economic Planning’ contributes to this emerging literature on economic planning in the age of digitalization and climate crisis. This introduction will first situate the new planning debate in the context of the historical socialist calculation debate. We will then provide an overview of the current literature on democratic economic planning, elaborate on the contributions of this special issue and its individual papers against this background, and summarize the six texts. We close with a brief section on gaps in the debate."
(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10245294241273954)