The following call for papers aims to bring together researchers working on democratic economic planning from a post-capitalist perspective, as part of the XIIIth conference of the Association française d’économie politique (AFEP) on the theme “Is planning possible in the face of crises?” to be held in Montpellier, France from July 2 to 5, 2024. This call is made by Planning for Entropy, a Research group of the Research Centre on Social Innovations and Transformations at Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada. This group takes part in a field of research in resurgence over the decade: postcapitalist political economy studies. This field concerns all research on the political and economic functioning of a society that deliberately evolves outside the institutions of capitalism.
Several recent publications focus on updating comprehensive and coherent post-capitalist models (Hahnel 2021; Adaman and Devine 2022a, 2022b; Cockshott et al. 2022; Dapprich 2022; Sandström 2020) and their critique (Burczak 2022; Benanav 2022; Isikara and Nagin 2022). Unsurprisingly, technological (Gmeier and Harper 2022; Groos 2021; Grünberg 2023; Hickel 2023; Pałka 2020; Philips and Rozworski 2019; Samothrakis 2021, 2024) and ecological (Sorg 2023; Alexander and Gleeson 2022; Foster 2023; Hart-Landsberg 2023; Isikara and Nagin 2023; Shmeltzer and Hofferberth 2023; Saito, 2023, 2024) concerns are now central to the debate. In addition to this, international issues (Archambault and Pretz 2022; Hickel and Sullivan 2023) and gender (Quick 2022; Bauhart 2022) are debated. New models are also appearing (Saros 2014; Laibman 2015, 2022; Harnecker and Bartolomé 2019; Sutterlütti and Meretz 2023), drawing on previous models and proposing to overcome their limitations and contradictions. In 2023 alone, three renowned publications in their field, Monthly Review, Competition and Change and Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, published special issues on democratic economic planning.
Communications on postcapitalist democratic planning will be grouped into five panels focusing on distinct issues:
- The format of democratic economic planning proposals.
This panel will address the question of the form of post-capitalist proposals. For several decades, the usual form of proposals has been the coherent political-economic abstract model: a structure of interrelated economic and political institutions that responds to the major needs of collective life. Should we move beyond this form to a more agile and adaptable proposal, like the modules’ approach currently in discussion?
- The role of prices and money after capitalism
This panel aims to tackle the difficult question of the role of prices. Models from the 1990s use some form of indicative prices. Two severe criticisms of this choice have emerged. The first considers that reducing decision-making to a single indicator is a serious problem from an ecological point of view and that multifactor accounting should be at the heart of decision-making. The second considers that any price, any use of money itself, will destroy the bonds of solidarity on which a post-capitalist approach must be based.
- Democratic economic planning and respecting planetary boundaries
This panel seeks to answer the question: how can we conceive of planetary boundaries and build an economic and political system that fully integrates them? Democratic planning models devised in the 1990s often reduce the environment to its impact on human communities or leave the issue to open political debate to be resolved on a case-by-case basis. Can we overcome this dichotomy and improve the integration of self-limitation within these models?
- Social reproduction and post-capitalism
This panel aims to resolve a contradiction confronted by postcapitalist thought. Should we think of a political and economic organization specific to social reproduction, at the risk of exceptionalizing it? Or should we try to integrate these tasks as closely as possible with other economic responsibilities, at the risk of forgetting their particularities?
- Prefiguration, community economics and democratic planning
This panel aims to think about the place from which post-capitalism is envisioned. Instead of being rooted in theoretical debate, we’ll be looking at how the experiences of communities trying to live here and now in resistance to globalized capitalism can inspire us to build a society that will go beyond this system.
Submission and logistics
Please submit your proposals by April 15th, 2024, at 5 PM EDT to the following email address: plandemconf@gmail.com
Proposals should be 500 words or less and include the names and affiliations of presenters and the panel you wish to participate in. They must also be submitted via the https://afep2024.sciencesconf.org platform.
Financing
This symposium has been the subject of a Connection grant application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. If this grant is awarded, presenters may be reimbursed for their participation, travel and accommodation expenses. Unfortunately, we will only receive the grant decision after the conference. Presenters must therefore be in a position to ensure their own participation if the grant is not awarded. Funding will be awarded in the following order of priority:
- Graduate students or practitioners;
- Post-docs;
- Professors without financial support from their institution;
- Professors with financial support from their institution.
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