Post-capitalism

Concerns the organization and functioning of a post-capitalist system. This subject encompasses alternatives for the major elements of a capitalist system, such as the wage and profit systems, market-based allocation, private ownership of the means of production, and the use of money as a measure of value; and critical analysis of post-capitalist economic models.

Arguments for post-capitalism

In the Marxist method of analysis and theory of historical materialism, specific modes of production come into being as a result of underlying changes in the level of technology. In this view, advances in technology enable new forms of economic and social organization, while outdated methods of social organization become impediments and eventually deadweight to further material progress in the form of internal contradictions. This underlying theory of socioeconomic evolution lies at the heart of many arguments for socialism or communism, though the exact details on how the transformation from capitalism to socialism will play out is the source of much controversy.

Post-capitalist systems

There are a number of proposals for a new economic system to replace capitalism. According to some Classical Marxist and some social evolutionary theories, post-capitalist society may come about as a result of spontaneous evolution as capitalism becomes obsolete. Others propose models to intentionally replace capitalism (see: Technological utopianism and Reformism). The most notable among them are:

Socialism

• Socialism, an economic system based on public or cooperative ownership of the means of production where production is carried out to directly produce use-value, a moneyless form of accounting such as physical resource accounting or labor-time, and based on the direct production of utility rather than on the capitalist laws of accumulation and value. Some models of socialism imply economic planning for the allocation of the factors of production in place of capital markets, while other models of socialism retain market-based allocation of capital goods.

• Planned socialism, a type of socialism where some form of economic planning substitutes markets for allocating the factors of production and for coordinating the economy. There are various types of planning, including central planning and decentralized planning; material balance planning, input-output planning and computerized planning.

• Market socialism, a type of socialism based on public ownership or cooperative ownership of the means of production, but retains monetary calculation and utilizes markets as the primary way of allocating the factors of production.

• Cooperative economics, an economic system based on worker cooperatives. Related ideas include mutualism and guild socialism.

• Participatory economics, an economic system that uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the allocation of resources and consumption in a given society.

• Communalism, a political theory based on the writings of Murray Bookchin. Bookchin developed Communalism after he broke with anarchism believing it to be individualist and lifestylist. It is based on libertarian municipalism, confederalism, and social ecology.

• Economic democracy, a socioeconomic philosophy that retains a market economy, but establishes democratic control of firms by their workers, and social control of investment by a network of public banks.

Technocracy

• Bureaucratic technocracy, a governmental or organizational system where decision makers are selected through bureaucratic processes on the basis of specialized knowledge and performance, rather than how much political capital they hold. The Venus Project advocates a society governed by computers.

Libertarian

• Voluntaryism, a philosophy of economics and social interaction derived from the non-aggression principle (NAP), the homestead principle and natural rights.

Anarchism

• Anarchist communism, a hybrid of communism and anarchism advocating (among others) abolition of the state, common ownership of the means of production and decision making by direct and/or consensus democracy.

• Post scarcity anarchism, an economic system based on social ecology, libertarian municipalism, and an abundance of fundamental resources.

• Anarcho-syndicalism, an ideology centred around self-management of labour, Socialism, and Direct democracy.

See also

• Anti-capitalism
• Calculation in kind (A method of moneyless calculation and valuation)
• Critique of capitalism
• Economic history of the world
• Eco-communalism
• Evolutionary economics
• History of economics
• Historical materialism
• Netocracy

• Post-scarcity economy
• Socialist calculation debate
• Socialist mode of production
• Social peer-to-peer processes
• Social evolution
• Technocapitalism
• Technological singularity
• The Zeitgeist Movement
• Anarcho-Primitivism

Further reading

• Albert, Michael. Parecon: Life After Capitalism. London: Verso, 2003.
• Ankerl, Guy C. Beyond Monopoly Capitalism and Monopoly Socialism: Dstributive Justice in a Competitive Society. Cambridge MA: Schenkman, 1978
• Shutt, Harry (2010). Beyond the Profits System: Possibilities for the Post-Capitalist Era. Zed Books. ISBN 978-1848134171
• Steele, Ramsay Steele (1999). From Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation. Open Court. ISBN 978-0875484495

External links

• What is Post-Capitalism?
• The Associative Economy: Insights beyond the Welfare System and into Post-Capitalism
• Transition to Postcapitalism and Capitalist Elite