Critique of Commutopia: On an Economic Concept of the New Left

Heinz Schimmelbusch
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Heinz Schimmelbusch: The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise

No 171, Studies in Applied Economics from The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise

Abstract: This study is an analysis of Commutopia, a theoretical economic system. Commutopia has never existed anywhere. The system was planned to be set up in the Federal Republic of Germany by a revolution, which was propagated by the Socialist German student organization SDS. The revolution never took place. The SDS dissolved in 1969, after its revolutionary appeal was echoed only at some German universities. Commutopia is a model of a planned economy. The plan is worked out by the highest soviet and determines the input-output-relations for all communes. The communes are production cooperatives of universally educated individuals. The plan is legitimated within a concept of a kind of Soviet-democratic centralism. The high stage of educational development of the people in Commutopia is guaranteed by a permanent rotation of all individuals through all social positions. Even if a German revolution under the leadership of the SDS had taken place, Commutopia would not have been set up in the Federal Republic. It can be shown, that every attempt to reach Commutopia within a highly industrialized world is bound to end in secular dictatorship by the revolutionaries. It can also be shown that the immanent laws of the commutopic production technique lead to the destruction of Commutopia, once the heroic assumption is made that Commutopia exists. For these reasons Commutopia is no alternative

Pages: 128 pages
Date: 2020-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme and nep-hpe
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