Policy Press

Creative Construction

Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond

Edited by Jan Groos and Christoph Sorg

Published

Feb 12, 2025

Page count

304 pages

Browse the series

Alternatives to Capitalism in the 21st Century

ISBN

978-1529235128

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press

Published

Feb 12, 2025

Page count

304 pages

Browse the series

Alternatives to Capitalism in the 21st Century

ISBN

978-1529235135

Dimensions

234 x 156 mm

Imprint

Bristol University Press
Creative Construction

Democratic planning allows us to effectively address the multiple crises of our time through cooperative modes of collective coordination. Given the destructive consequences of contemporary capitalism, such a structural alternative to market economies is needed more than ever.

This accessible work examines various approaches that theorise, practise and nurture a creative construction towards varieties of democratic planning. Drawing from current socio-economic and ecological movements, it explores what future non-capitalist democratic planning could look like.

Bringing together important voices in the ongoing debates from scholars to activists, this volume proposes an interdisciplinary and innovative approach to democratic planning in the 21st century and beyond.

Jan Groos is Researcher at Institute of Social Sciences at Christian-Alberchts University of Kiel.

Christoph Sorg is Researcher at Institute of Social Sciences at Ruhr-University Bochum.

Foreword by Kohei Saito

Introduction - Jan Groos and Christoph Sorg

Part 1: Blueprints of Desire

1. A Brief Sketch of Three Models of Democratic Economic Planning - Simon Tremblay-Pepin, Frédéric Legault and Audrey Laurin-Lamothe

2. Basic Problems of a Democratically Planned Economy - Jakob Heyer

3. Social Dividend Socialism: Labour Autonomy in a Participatory Planned Economy - James Muldoon and Dougie Booth

4. Distributed Commonist Planning - Stefan Meretz and Simon Sutterlütti

5. Counter-planning the Polycrisis: For Biocommunism - Nick Dyer-Witheford

6. Planning as an Art of Government - Jan Groos

7. Discovery beyond Competition - Evgeny Morozov in conversation with Jan Groos

Part 2. Building Bridges

8. (Re)-Imagining Housing as an Infrastructure for Social Reproduction – A Proposal for a Radical Democratic Planning of Housing Provision - Rabea Berfelde and Philipp Möller

9. Democratic Planning in One Country? From the Anarchy of Public Planning to Negotiated Globalisation - Christoph Sorg

10. The Question of Transformation – Approaches to Economic Planning in Existing Policy Proposals - Samuel Decker

11. Care Revolution – A Transformation Strategy for a Solidary Society - Gabriele Winker and Matthias Neumann

12. Relational Revolutions - Eva Von Redecker in conversation with Jan Groos

Part 3: Non-Boundaries

13. Planned Degrowth: Towards Macroeconomic, Democratic and Participatory Planning for the Social-Ecological Transformation - Elena Hofferberth, Cédric Durand and Matthias Schmelzer

14. Post-Sovereign Planning? Nature, Culture and Care in the New Socialist Calculation Debate - Samia Mohammed

15. Democratising the Forces of Re/Production. AI Planning as Sensing Apparatus for a Degrowth Economy - Simon Schaupp

16. Embracing the Small Stuff - Caring for Children in a Liberated Society - Heide Lutosch

18. Socialism, Planning and the Relativity of Dirt - Nancy Fraser in conversation with Christoph Sorg

Conclusion - Jan Groos and Christoph Sorg