I'd like to crash and talk about this book I haven't read:

https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Republic-Walmart-Corporations-Foundation/dp/178663516X

The People's Republic of Walmart: How the World's Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism

It's basically an argument pro planned economy in detail.

> what happens when you centralize power, capital distribution and control of production in an ever complex system

You get Amazon? :)

https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Republic-Walmart-Corporations-Foundation/dp/178663516X

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn


https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-Republic-Walmart-Corporations-Foundation/dp/178663516X


Don’t buy the book from Bezos.

libgen.is is a really good ebook pirating site. If the site is blocked, consult the comrades at r/piracy

I just checked, libgen have the book in .epub format.

I’m telling you this because fuck Bezos.

P.S.

ePub works best with iBooks (iOS and Mac), but on windows, it’s better to have a ebook reader software.

I use Calibre, which can be found along with many other free and open source softwares on github. These are written by volunteers, so they’re a nice break from all the ad infested or overpriced software shit from tech corporations.

Most of these softwares don’t have installers, the short cut would be to use a power-shell (similar but distinct from the command prompt) app called chocolatey. They’re a small but nonetheless for profit business, but don’t give them your money, because the free service already covers installation and uninstallation of packages.

I’m writing all this because fuck intellectual property.

can i interest you in a book on just such a topic?

Well that is a very good question. I don't really know but I think about this all the time. First I think we should look at China. Here you have the world's second-largest economy where all the land is state owned, all the banks are state owned so the state is what's in the driver's seat in terms of investment on a macro scale. The officials in the Politburo still read Marx. Some of the things they have accomplished were laid out by Marx and Engels in the 1940s, particularly state control of finance.

Xi Jinping is supposed to have an article on dialectical materialism coming out soon in Qiushi Journal, the Communist Party's theoretical journal, but I haven't found it yet. But the idea behind dialectics is that history is a struggle between opposites which are reconciled every so often in a new "synthesis." The conflict between lord and serf are reconciled by the rise of bourgeois capitalism, which in turns gives rise to a conflict between owners and workers. History does not go in a straight line but like this according to this theory. There are some heterodox Marxists (you won't find many of them here) who also claim that 21st century capitalism in the West is effectively centrally-planned now, at present. So what if the "synthesis" of the 20th century Cold War is not the overthrow of capitalism, but the transformation of capitalism through its conflict with 20th century state socialism? Capitalism "beat" socialism but was also fundamentally changed in that process.

I just think it's interesting. If you look back at France, the French overthrew the monarchy and then took over most of Europe, spreading nationalist and republican ideas. This was reversed and the House of Bourbon took over in 1815, switching to the House of Orleans in 1830 which lasted until 1848. That's 33 years of restored aristocratic rule after a bourgeois revolution. Well, we are 28 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Not saying Lenin is going to reawaken and punch his way out of his glass box anytime soon, but history moves in strange directions especially when you think that the Communist Party is making a comeback in Russia now. It might be the case that we only saw the first wave in the 20th century.

The Failure of Capitalist Production: Underlying Causes of the Great Recession by Andrew Kliman argues that capitalist mode of production is long-term unsustainable.

People's Republic of Walmart goes through the so called economic calculation debate and shows potential outlines of a modern socialist society.

Towards a New Socialism is an older book that paints another version of a possible alternative socialist system.