People's Republic of Walmart

£7.50

People's Republic of Walmart

How the World’s Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism

Economic theory and philosophy Economics of industrial organization Economic systems and structures

Authors: Leigh Phillips, Michal Rozworski

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Collection: Jacobin

Language: English

Published by: Verso

Published on: 5th March 2019

Format: LCP-protected ePub

Size: 349 Kb

ISBN: 9781786635174


Introduction

For the left and the right, major multinational companies are held up as the ultimate expressions of free-market capitalism. Their remarkable success appears to vindicate the old idea that modern society is too complex to be subjected to a plan. And yet, as Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski argue, much of the economy of the West is centrally planned at present. Not only is planning on vast scales possible, we already have it and it works. The real question is whether planning can be democratic. Can it be transformed to work for us?

Book Description

An engaging, polemical romp through economic theory, computational complexity, and the history of planning, The People’s Republic of Walmart revives the conversation about how society can extend democratic decision-making to all economic matters. With the advances in information technology in recent decades and the emergence of globe-straddling collective enterprises, democratic planning in the interest of all humanity is more important and closer to attainment than ever before.

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