E-Democratic Economic Planning
Free market? Regulated market? Central planning? AI planning? Decentralised planning? In economic debate, there appears to be similar arguments for each that keep popping up from time to time. Broadly speaking, I’d generalise the most common theoretical claims as follows:
Free Markets
+ (A) Way of indicating levels of demand, incentivises meeting those levels better
- (B) Can incentivise meaningless consumer goods above essentials for the needy, can lead to overproduction, can’t make long-term plans easily
Regulated Markets
+ (C) Can merge the indications of the market with ability to coordinate with long-term initiatives or act in crisis
- (D) Can distort the market, can also have similar disadvantages as free markets
Central Planning
+ (E) Easy to track and coordinate, can more easily work toward long-term targets
- (F) Often commanded from above, without representation or knowledge of democratic interests, difficult to adjust swiftly in cases of crisis
AI Planning
+ (G) Can consider more factors (arguably more objectively) and plan more efficient than humans could
- (H) Currently unrealistic, unsure yet if / how it would work
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Decentralised Planning
+ (I) Localises supply chains, can allow more democratic input
- (J) Difficult to coordinate large projects, disadvantages certain areas / communities, can be inefficient
So to take a look more specifically at A, C, E, G and I (the advantageous qualities), we can see:
- (K) What is supplied to the population should be indicated by popular, democratic demand (A/I)
- (L) We should be able to consider interests of past and future alongside just the present (C/E)
- (M) The system should utilise available resources efficiently (A/E/G)
- (N) We should be able to keep track of how much we’re using and where we got the resources from (E/I)
- (O) Supply chains should be shorter and more direct if they can be (I)
- (P) Humans can mess up, so we shouldn’t leave it to just a few of them (A/G)
Which is why I would like to present people from all over the political spectrum with the idea of e-Democratic Planning. Essentially the idea would be to have the citizens communicating immediately and easily to industry what it is they want (O), so as to advise those industries in what they should concentrate on producing for that particular period, perhaps through one central process (N). This way, production would be directed towards whatever it is the consumers may demand (K), and also gives them a clue on how most efficiently to allocate their resources to what people actually want, and avoid waste (M) if consumption habits change swiftly and unexpectedly. As well as just indicating with their consumption habits though, it would allow consumers to more specifically identify their priorities, for example, in wanting to not consume something unless they are reassure it’s sustainably or ethically produced, and that there is a safeguard in place for the future (L). And its tally would represent all consumers instead of just a small sample or guesswork (P).
Democratic Planning has been thought of before, but for logistical reasons it would only have been possible on a very decentralised scale, which evidently causes its own problems and inefficiencies (J). We are no longer held to these logistical reasons, however; e-Democratic Planning has never been implemented, because the technology that now allows for its existence is quite new. Now, with the internet and newer technologies like blockchain, people from all over the world can send information securely, easily and immediately straight to where that information needs to go, and can even incorporate smart contracts and so forth where necessary. This, in turn, would allow e-Democratic Planning to become a reality for the very first time with unprecedented ease (H). It would do what the market is trying to show (i.e consumer demands), but more directly, and hence without some of the negatives, such as the impacts of commodity fetishism, large-scale waste, or miscalculation of certain industries (B/D). It would do what planning is trying to show (i.e. showing a big picture of what is used and how, and allowing indication of long-term or additional interests and values), but more informedly, and hence without the same guesswork or hierarchical implications (D/F). If production were to be organised through this system, I can imagine that distribution and exchange could be operated similarly.
I am a communist / collective property advocate myself, so I would personally envision this used accordingly, but I bet any pro-capitalists out there could find some way to reconvene a similar e-Democratic model to a system retaining private enterprise and competition (maybe the ever changing shopping list database thingy would make the consumers anonymous and be open for capitalists to peruse and bid for roles in production as per who has the best prototype or version or something, idk), as could any welfare capitalism advocates allow for government agencies to contribute to this list too.
