Building a Living Democracy
Beyond Socialism and Capitalism
by Gar Alperovitz
Sojourner, April 1990

Page 5 of 9
Planning

Implicit in all of the above is another element of a solution. If, on the one hand, a major objective is the steady build-up of local structures embodying the principle of community and, on the other, the provision of a degree of direct individual economic security so that there can be true individual independence and hence, substantive liberty as a necessary condition of democratic participation, there must be a way to insure that this happens. This requires some form of planning.

Neither progressives nor conservatives like the idea of planning. In practice planning has often been bureaucratic and inefficient, perpetuating "top-down" elite management. However, it is all but impossible to imagine a way to ensure the stability of diverse communities unless there is some overall capacity to deal with the economic problems this entails. There is also no way to insure some degree of individual economic security without a similar capacity.

The crucial issues are whether planning can be made truly accountable and reasonably efficient (not as compared with an absolute ideal, but with the inefficiencies of real world capitalism and socialism)--playing a supportive rather than a domineering role.

A far more balanced appraisal of the pluses and minuses of planned and market systems is needed than that which is conveyed in most accounts. For instance, it is difficult to reconcile conventional criticisms of planning and nationalized industries with the successes of the Soviet space program both on its own terms and in comparison to the American record. Again, to choose an example on the other side of the ledger, the disastrous productivity experience of private American steel companies during the 1970s and early 1980s must be included in any serious assessment.

Above all, it is important to recognize that the United States is not a poor Eastern European country struggling to establish its industrial base and to inaugurate its first true consumer era. For all its difficulties, the United States and other major Western nations stand on the threshold of a truly post-industrial new century--a period when social, individual, and ecological goals can and should take far greater precedence over an all-out effort to achieve ever greater production and consumption.

It is also important to understand that a vision that accords importance to ideals both of community and of liberty does not require a totalist form of planning, and should not urge such planning. What is required, first, is sufficient predictability to give stability to local community structures and to allow the long term build-up of a new culture of community:

In any community of, say, 100,000 people, there are now roughly 45,000 full-time jobs. Children, the elderly, young people in school, people at home taking care of children and the elderly, those in hospitals, etc., make up the rest. If, say, 15-17,000 jobs can be assured, then the people employed--through multiplier effects--can also give substantial stability to up to twice as many others if, studies suggest, this is a conscious goal of policy. When a certain percentage of jobs are stabilized, paychecks "recirculate" as people pay for groceries, houses, teachers, doctors,--and these people in turn pay for (and give work to) still others.

In a non-totalist form of planning, various strategies of economic targeting could help achieve a capacity to stabilize one-fourth to one-third of local community jobs. We know, for instance, that when a state university or state capital is located in one area, this helps stabilize the local economy. Again, retirement income (in part Social Security payments) helps in others. In the future, a public decision to build mass-transit systems, solar collectors, and recycling equipment as part of an overall plan for ecological balance could produce contracts and jobs which, in turn, could be targeted for community-stabilizing purposes. Further possibilities include licensing some firms (and the provision or withdrawal of tax benefits) to help provide greater stability to local communities.

Today tax and other government programs often encourage companies to relocate, leaving behind deteriorating houses, schools, roads, and hospitals, and the social disaster of community decay. The policy of "throwaway cities" is wasteful--and entails the new expense of having to rebuild the same costly facilities elsewhere. Partial planning of key sectors could reverse this, saving both money and community.

The spirit of such an approach is well conveyed by one of the very few conservatives who has confronted the general issue squarely--and confronted, too, the dangers to liberty that can occur when community decay is allowed to fester. Reflecting on the demagogic rise of fascist and other authoritarian leaders in thet 20th century, sociologist Robert Nisbet warns: "The longing for community which now exists [is] perhaps the most menacing fact of the Western World....Conservatives who aimlessly oppose planning, whether national or local, are their own worst enemies. What is needed, however, is planning that contents itself with the setting of human life, not human life itself."

A form of "planning" is also needed if the notion of a guaranteed right of employment for each individual is to be meaningful. There is no other way to assure that actual jobs exist when they are needed. (One aspect of such planning, long urged here and abroad, involves establishing an inventory of future plans for the construction of needed school, road, bridge, rail, water and other projects to be taken down "off the shelf" in time of need.)

Similarly, if ecological goals are important, there must be a systematic way to assure new jobs, for instance, for coal miners who would otherwise be thrown out of work when strict provisions aimed at curbing acid rain are established. The same is true in connection with conversion from military production. In these and other cases several goals--ecological balance, movement towards a fully peace-oriented economy, individual equity, a secure basis for individual liberty, and the ability to maintain community stability--all require a meaningful planning capacity if we are to move beyond rhetorical hope to realistic structure as the basis of a new vision.