Since the demise of the USSR, the mantle of the largest planned
economies in the world has been taken up by the likes of Walmart,
Amazon and other multinational corporations
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.