Planning as a Central Element of a Post-Capitalist Project: A Conversation Between Javier Pineda and Martín Arboleda on Podcastpitalismo

Original article: «La planificación será un elemento central de un proyecto poscapitalista»: Javier Pineda conversa con Martín Arboleda en Podcastpitalismo

In a new episode of Podcastpitalismo, Javier Pineda, the director of El Ciudadano, engages in a discussion with Martín Arboleda, a doctor in Political Science and author of the book «Governing Utopia: On Planning and Popular Power.»

«We live under a significant contradiction. For decades, we were told that central economic planning was a failure, that the future should be left to the free market. But that narrative was a fiction. In reality, Western capitalism never abandoned planning; it merely privatized it,» states the editorial for the episode, which airs this Tuesday, December 15th at 7 PM.

Complex Scenario

The topic discussed is of great significance, especially with the recent political developments aligning the next President of Chile, Kast, with the orbit of Donald Trump.

«Today, a handful of mega-corporations like Amazon execute the most sophisticated central planning in history. Tech giants and global logistics chains calculate supply, demand, and resource allocation with astonishing precision. Yet their aim is not collective well-being but profit maximization, exacerbating inequality and ecological crisis,» highlights the editorial of Podcastpitalismo.

«The real question, then, is not whether we should plan, but who and for what purposes (…) The same digital technologies that empower corporate power—microelectronics, big data, networks—could be reclaimed. They are tools that, in other hands and for different purposes, could enable radically participatory democratic planning,» the introduction notes.

In this context, it was emphasized that the limit is no longer technical but political: «China has demonstrated an incredible capacity to plan cities and production processes that put it at the forefront of various global industries,» they indicated.

«Thus, reconstructing an emancipatory post-capitalist project requires reclaiming planning as an act of popular power. It involves developing the collective capacity to govern the economy, to decide from the territories what to produce, how to distribute, and what common future to build. It’s about hacking the tools of the present to construct a concrete utopia,» stressed the Podcastpitalismo team.

El Ciudadano