Planning the economy works– but under capitalism it’s for the shareholders’ benefit

“On the Barricades” s05e01

Huge corporations like Walmart and Amazon are a capitalist success story in the use of union-crushing and other means to maximally exploit their employees and enrich a layer of shareholders. And yet another key to these corporations’ success is internal planning– in fact their business model exemplifies a planned economy, one that is larger than the economy of some nations, such as that of the former Soviet Union. And yet, time and time again we’re told that a planned economy can’t work, and that competition and free-market principles are proven. Contrary to this propaganda we find, within capitalism, the foundations for socialism. This is the argument of the book, “The People’s Republic of Walmart,” by Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski, on which Boyan and Maria center this week’s show.

In this first episode of a new season of “On the Barricades,” hosts Boyan Stanislavski and Maria Cernat discuss myths about the free market, comparing the principles in theory and in actual implementation under capitalism; then, the real problems of the ‘planned economy’ in the case of Soviet war-communism. What are the strengths of the Chinese economy – in which the commanding heights of the economy, the sectors and enterprises that determine the economy’s form, are within the domain of state planning – in comparison to the Soviet Union? And what can leftists learn from these historical and contemporary lessons in political economy?