The people's republic of Walmart : how the world's biggest corporations are laying the foundation for socialism

by (Journalist) Leigh Phillips

Other authorsMichal Rozworski (Author.)
Paper Book, 2019

Description

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? 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.… (more)

Status

Available

Call number

335

Publication

London ; New York : Verso, 2019.

User reviews

LibraryThing member MarthaJeanne
The book starts out well. The first chapters are quite interesting. But eventually the authors become more interested in their ideology than in how to make planning work. Their plan for a better future is based on

taxing the rich
lots of nuclear energy and hydroelectric energy
no fossil fuels
global
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planning

Even they admit that this not going to suddenly just happen. I'm not sure how they get the view that nuclear and hydroelectric energy are cheap and clean and carbon neutral. This does not agree with other opinions I have read. Nuclear isn't viable until uranium mining is cleaned up and long term storage of radioactive materials has been solved. Hydroelectricity in its current form is very disruptive of the river ecosystems. Sunken forests also release large amounts of CO2 and methane. Just calling these technologies clean and ignoring the problems involved is irresponsible.

What would be interesting would be a study of what could actually work now. This book doesn't do it.
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Language

ISBN

178663516X / 9781786635167
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