Freedom, Economic Planning, and Climate Crisis

A political theory - political economy crossover
Authors

Leah Downey

Benjamin Braun

Abstract

Arguments in favor of the market-led approach to economic coordination are frequently rooted in the view that state intervention limits freedom. On this view, state intervention should be limited to securing the ‘rules of the game’. Such arguments tend to rule out consideration of state-led approaches to macroeconomic coordination, which permit a much wider scope for intervention in guiding macroeconomic activity, particularly money creation and investment. In this paper we argue that state-led approaches to economic coordination can be defended as supporting freedom. In the final section we argue in favor of a state-led approach to economic coordination in the particular context of climate crisis. We defend this view by appeal to a neoroman republican conception of freedom and furthermore, its capacity to deliver a fast, effective energy transition.