ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
Book Review: People's Republic of Walmart
ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends a challenge to conventional thinking on a socialist planned economy
Planning for a global socialist future? A Walmart supercentre in Argentina
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
People’s Republic of Walmart: How the World’s Biggest Corporations Are Laying the Foundation for Socialism
by Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski
(Verso, £9.99)
IGNORED both by conservatives obsessed with the “invisible hand” of the market and socialists caught up in the drama of challenging oppression, planning doesn’t elicit a passionate response.
But, as Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski explain in People’s Republic of Walmart, it is essential to innovation, complex projects and economic stability.
The authors do not merely rehash the notion that economic planning is useful in securing fairer distribution of goods and services — they see it as an engine for the creation of a fairer and more sustainable society.
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