One of the deepest effects of neoliberalism, I think, is how thoroughly it has tarnished the concept of economic planning. Try advocating five-year plans and you’d be called a tankie, despite it (or something similar) being obviously needed to combat climate change.
Five year plans (or four, or six) used to be commonplace in capitalism but are now beyond the pale. The only exception is China, a country neoliberals like to claim as their own, but it wouldn’t have grown rich without the planning (or the capitalism, of course).
The taboo against planning is why we have the idea that a tax on carbon is tHe MoSt EfFiCiEnT way to reduce emissions, instead of just choosing which industries to promote and which ones to phase out. I’ve said this before but I think we need indicative planning in the discourse
The need for economic planning is widely recognized for developing countries to overcome economic backwardness. If we accept that developed countries are in a position of extreme backwardness with regard to sustainability, the argument for planning is hard to refute
And that’s why there’s now talk of a WW2 type mobilization to combat climate change, even among mainstream politicians, so I guess the concept isn’t so taboo anymore after all. But we’ve wasted a lot of time pretending it won’t be needed.
Saying we should increase the deficit used to be taboo just a few years ago. Now we just need to remove the stigma around saying I want the economic planning bureau to draw up a five year rationalization plan for the lithium processing industry
