CLIMATE CRISIS: TIME TO RETHINK ECONOMIC PLANNING BY DEMYSTIFYING CAPITALISM AND ITS MARKET(S)
In: Teorija in praksa, S. 341-360
Abstract. The purpose of the article is to open up epistemological space for revitalising the idea of democratic
economic planning as a viable alternative vision. It
argues that a proper development of the idea must be
preceded by a comprehensive critical interrogation of a
hegemonic multidimensional ideological mystification
of capitalism and its markets. By utilizing Marxist and
eco-socialist insights the article identifies and analyses
several central ideological mystifications that enact an
epistemic closure. These range from the obfuscation
of capitalism's role in creating the climate crisis as an
inherently unsustainable system, to the mystification of
its non-evolutionary origins, to the obfuscation of the
role economic planning plays in contemporary capitalism, to the mystification of markets as ideal spaces of
freedom and innovation obfuscating the ever present
market-related oppression, exploitation and environmental devastation, and to silencing concrete historical examples of democratic economic planning such as
project Cybersyn that should serve as an inspiration for
imagining an alternative order.
Keywords: climate change, ideological mystification,
democratic economic planning, capitalism, neoliberalism