The New Planned Economy
The New Planned Economy
How artificial intelligence and advances in information technology eliminate the arguments against a planned economy.
Reminder: The words marked in red are links leading to corresponding critique articles.
Socialism is the logical consequence of the existing contradictions because only a logical planning and control of production can eliminate the dominant contradictions – that’s clear.
The contradiction between capital and labor, between production and consumption, is the fundamental contradiction of this system, expressed in increasing wars, social impoverishment, and environmental destruction.
The “Free Trade” is, due to its unplanned and anarchic nature (monopolies), the instrument through which the owners and capitalists can appropriate their wealth.
It provides the possibility of unlimited growth, which always serves the profit interests of shareholders and managers.
Thus, free market economy functions as a stage of competition, through which companies can triumph over others.
The “competition,” often still referred to as “free competition” in bourgeois discourse, in the era of monopolies is no longer true.
Competition only exists among small and medium-sized enterprises, which, once they reach a certain size, are eliminated by dominant monopolies, simply because these have enough political capital to secure better conditions for themselves on the market.
Who exactly dominates the market is still irrelevant, because the mechanisms of wage labor and surplus value extraction remain unchanged.
From this “competition” arises the constant need to reduce costs and increase revenues in order to keep up with rival companies.
If market behavior were not regulated at all, the wage pressure of corporations with their political influence would have already reintroduced slavery, as cost-cutting measures would be unavoidable.
The regulation, which manifests in the “social market economy” especially through the establishment of some social rights, is not a sign of goodwill from domestic rulers, but a way to adapt reproduction costs to the domestic development level.
If the domestic development level and the condition of wage earners are in too great contradiction, there is a risk that the workers will become aware of their role and start to resist – which is why minimum wages, legal insurances, and social welfare exist – “look how well we have it.”
The increase in the development level is not really beneficial for domestic capitalists, because then they have to export the truly dirty jobs.
Fortunately, they have enough power through their military to ensure that the states from which they source cheap labor do not rebel against their exploitation – otherwise, they face the same fate as Nicaragua, Chile, Iran (Mossadegh), Congo, or half the world – mass murder, coups, and fascism against enemies of domestic capitalist interests.
Michael Parenti said it correctly 30 years ago:
“The third world is not poor; you don’t go to poor countries to make money. There are very few poor countries in this world; most countries are rich! The Philippines are rich! Brazil is rich! Mexico is rich! Chile is rich! Only the people are poor! But billions can be made there, carved out and taken away. There have been billions for 400 years! The capitalist European and North American powers have carved out and taken the timber, flax, hemp, cocoa, rum, tin, copper, iron, rubber, slaves, and cheap labor from these countries. These countries are not underdeveloped; they are overexploited!”