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New Journal Article: ‘Postcapitalist Retail and Accounting’ by O’Brien & Sandström
Anders Sandström & I have written a new paper and submitted it to an academic journal. The version presented here is a preprint copy. This material will form the basis of a chapter in our upcoming book detailing a postcapitalist economy. Postcapitalist Retail and Accounting: Personal Consumption Planning in the Participatory Economy – Ferdia O’Brien…
Re-launching in Early 2023 (as Bright Age Beyond)
A quick update. I have been focusing on book writing and research, and my policy work with DiEM25. I will update you on that another time. Though I have continued conducting interviews, I haven’t uploaded any material in 5 months. Nor have I uploaded any model summaries and such. That will change soon because After…
Firestorm Books Event: Discussion with Prof. Robin Hahnel on A Participatory Economy
On Thursday 13th October (19:00 ET) I joined Prof. Robin Hahnel to discuss his latest book A Participatory Economy, released 4th October 2022. Democratic Economic Planning (2021) is an excellent book and a milestone in the post-capitalism literature, but too technical for some readers. This new book – A Participatory Economy – is an accessible…
Philipp Dapprich Interview on Democratic Central Planning Part 2 – Simulations, Opportunity Cost, Environment, Multiple Techniques, Computation
Editors note: Discussion includes using choice of production technique in central planning, opportunity cost, labour cost, calculating environmental costs (such as GHG emissions), agent-based modelling, consumer modelling, simulation results, computational complexity, research to be done. [After The Oligarchy] Hello fellow democrats, futurists, and problem solvers, this is After The Oligarchy. Today I’m speaking with Dr.…
Philipp Dapprich Interview on Democratic Central Planning – Part 1 – Opportunity Cost, Environment, Capital Goods
Editor’s Note: In this interview, Dr. Philipp Dapprich talks to After the Oligarchy about his work on refining the model of economic planning first proposed by Cockshott and Cottrell in Towards a New Socialism (1993). Discussion includes opportunity cost, labour cost, calculating opportunity cost in central planning, calculating environmental costs (such as GHG emissions), calculating…
Robin Hahnel Interview on Participatory Economics – Part 6 – Monopoly & Essential Sectors
Editor’s Note: discussion topics include monopoly & oligopoly, how to regulate monopoly in capitalism, how to regulate monopoly in parecon, how to organise strategic & essential sectors (like health) in parecon. [After The Oligarchy] Hello fellow democrats, futurists, and problem solvers, this is After The Oligarchy. Today I’m speaking with Professor Robin Hahnel. Robin Hahnel…
Robin Hahnel Interview on Participatory Economics – Part 5 – Optimal Plan, Enterprise Incentives, Worker Control, Consumer Satisfaction
Editor’s Note: Discussion includes optimal and efficient production plans in Parecon, accounting of benefits and costs, enterprise incentives, worker control, and satisfying consumers. [After The Oligarchy] Hello fellow democrats, futurists, and problem solvers, this is After The Oligarchy. Today I’m speaking with Professor Robin Hahnel. Robin Hahnel is a professor of economics in the United…
Paul Cockshott Interview on Towards a New Socialism – Part 4 – Worker Self-Management in Central Planning
Editor’s note: discussion topics include what worker self-management is, the division of labour, how to overcome rule by the professional-managerial class, whether the Towards a New Socialism model (TNS) can fulfil aspirations for worker self-management, innovation and product development, the managerial structure of a project in TNS, hiring and firing in TNS, employment, and strategic…
Robin Hahnel Interview on Participatory Economics – Part 4 – Outsourcing and ‘Wage Labour Through the Back Door?’
Editor’s note: discussion topics include how to decide which workers are members of a particular worker council in Participatory Economics (parecon), whether this threatens wage labour exploitation through the back door in market socialism or parecon, balancing jobs and reproductive labour in parecon, and outsourcing in capitalism. [After the Oligarchy] Hello everybody, this is After…
Robin Hahnel Interview on Participatory Economics – Part 3 – Worker Councils, Efficiency, Labour Cost, Automation
Editor’s note: discussion topics include what production targets for individual production units benefit society as a whole the most in a Participatory Economy (parecon), how to calculate the cost of labour in parecon, how to determine pay for workers in parecon, the role of automation in parecon, unemployment in planned economies vs. market economies, and…
Robin Hahnel Interview on Participatory Economics – Part 2 – Worker Self-Management & Central Planning
Editor’s note: discussion topics include defining worker self-management, the scope for worker self-management in central planning (and Towards a New Socialism in particular), and the scope for worker self-management in Participatory Economics. [After the Oligarchy] Hello everybody, this is After the Oligarchy. Today I’m speaking with Professor Robin Hahnel. Robin Hahnel is a professor of…
Yanis Varoufakis Interview on Another Now – Part 2 – Housing, Taxation, Inequality, Monopoly, Workplace Democracy
Editor’s note: discussion topics include security in commercial housing in the Another Now model (AN), taxation in AN, income and wealth inequality in AN, inheritance in AN, time-limited or depreciating money, whether divergent incomes combined with compound interest can lead to class divisions in AN, firm size in AN, monopoly in AN, workplace management structures…
Robin Hahnel Interview on Participatory Economics – Part 1B – Consumption, Consumerism, Advertising
Editor’s note: discussion topics include whether consumer councils in Participatory Economics (parecon) are incentivized to oversell, whether worker councils in parecon can oversell, conspicuous consumption, whether parecon would reproduce a ‘throwaway society’, whether consumer federations in parecon would compete, plan adjustments during the year, and the scope for rising living standards within ecological limits. [After…
Robin Hahnel Interview on Participatory Economics – Part 1A – Housing & Land
Editor’s note: discussions topics include how housing is built, distributed, and managed, in Participatory Economics (parecon), the distribution of land in a socialist economy, and economic rent. [After The Oligarchy] Hello everybody, this is After The Oligarchy. Today I’m speaking with Professor Robin Hahnel. Robin Hahnel is a professor of economics in the United States,…
Paul Cockshott Interview on Towards a New Socialism – Part 3 – Differential Pay & Worker Self-Management
Editor’s note: discussion topics include how to handle differential pay in the Towards a New Socialism model (TNS), and whether TNS can fulfill aspirations for worker self-management. [After The Oligarchy] Hello everybody, this is After the Oligarchy speaking to Dr. Paul Cockshott again. Paul Cockshott is a computer engineer working on computer design and teaching…
Yanis Varoufakis Interview on Another Now – Part 1 – Nationalization, Unemployment, Climate, Public Finance, Debt
Editor’s note: discussion topics include the role of nationalization in the Another Now model (AN), unemployment in AN, whether AN can overcome the climate crisis, interest in AN, public finance in AN, the scope for and means of debt cancellation in AN. [After the Oligarchy] Hello everybody, this is After The Oligarchy. Today I’m speaking…
Post-Capitalism: Another Now by Yanis Varoufakis – Model Summary
Introduction In this essay, we will summarize the model presented in Another Now, a proposal for a post-capitalist society. This summary is also available in video format (see video embedded below). However, the essay is definitive. In 2020, Yanis Varoufakis, professor of economics, former Greek finance minister, co-founder of DiEM25 and the Progressive International, general…
Paul Cockshott Interview on Towards a New Socialism – Part 2 – Socialism & Technologies, Second Hand Goods, Research
Editor’s note: discussion topics include the relevance (or non-relevance) of 3-D printing, the internet of things, recommender systems, neural networks, and quantum computing, to socialism and the Towards a New Socialism model (TNS) in particular, handling second-hand goods in TNS, the number of commodities in a modern, advanced, capitalist economy, basic research and labour time…
Paul Cockshott Interview on Towards a New Socialism – Part 1 – Planning, Self-Employment, IP, Media, Privacy, Transition
Editor’s note: discussion topics include the motivation for economic planning versus market socialism, self-employment in the Towards A New Socialism model (TNS), intellectual property in TNS, independence of media in TNS, efficiency in TNS, labour credits and privacy in TNS, the weaknesses of TNS, how not to implement TNS in a socialist transition, and a…
Bright Age Beyond 