Global economic planning as a challenge for the labour movement

Abstract

The central line of argument in this contribution is that the urgency of the economic, social and environmental crises demands to go beyond the institutionalist efforts to install more Global Framework Agreements or Decent Work Campaigns that often only come with piecemeal changes, if at all. The social uprisings in various countries around the globe that erupted in 2019 and 2020 underline the emerging pressure towards a broader vision of systemic change. The shift of emphasis towards Global Economic Planning opens up the following perspectives: 1. It allows to study and adapt the methods used by transnational corporations in economic planning for alternative purposes. 2. It allows to retrieve experiences made both in capitalist planning, i.e. in the framework of industrial policy and developmental states, and in socialist planning and to apply enhanced versions of both. 3. It allows to intervene strategically in order to exploit the potentials of renewable energy for which investment is stagnating globally. 4. It offers an avenue for the labour movement to become a reliable partner of environmental initiatives and the global climate movement. 5. It can provide an avenue for mass participation in systemic change with concrete objectives like the conversion of the automobile industry, decentralised renewable energy grids, and public and community based health and care systems.