Democratic Economic Planning

Robin Hahnel is a Professor Emeritus from American University in Washington DC where he taught for thirty-three years. During the past fourteen years he taught as a Visiting Professor at Portland State University, Lewis and Clark College, and Willamette University in Oregon.

• Introduction Part I: Preliminaries 1. Defining Goals 2. Social Democratic Capitalism Part II: Central Planning 3. Central Planning: How to do it 4. Central Planning: Why not to do it Part III: Participatory Economics 5. Participatory Economics in Brief 6. Digging Deeper into Participatory Economics 7. The Annual Participatory Planning Procedure 8. Computer Simulations of Participatory Planning 9. Reproductive Labor Part IV: Investment Planning 10. Aggregate Investment Planning 11. Comprehensive Investment Planning Part V: Long-Run Development Planning 12. Participatory Education Planning 13. Participatory Environmental Planning 14. Participatory International Economic Planning 15. After the Plan: Dispelling Common Confusions Conclusion

"Robin Hahnel’s remarkable study, the product of a lifetime of serious thought and direct engagement, is directed to dreamers and skeptics. The dreamers aspire to "an alliance of free groups of men and women based on cooperative labor and a planned administration of things in the interest of the community," in the words of a traditional left-libertarian ideal. The skeptics regard this as hopeless utopianism. With scrupulous analysis, deft technical skill, and incisive vision, Hahnel explores a wide range of potential problems and exciting opportunities, constructing a strong case that the dreamers are the realists."- Noam Chomsky"This new book occupies a unique position in the writings about alternatives to capitalism. Robin Hahnel and his coauthors present both a vision and a technical model of a participatory economy that does not rely on competition or markets, while also reviewing other approaches to capitalist alternatives. A must read for anyone interested in structural solutions to the severe and persistent economic and social problems of today."- David M. Kotz, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Senior Research Fellow in the Political Economy Research Institute