The People's Republic of Walmart

How the World's Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism

By: Leigh Phillips, Michal Rozworski

Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin

Since the demise of the USSR, the mantle of the largest planned economies in the world has been taken up by the likes of Walmart, Amazon, and other multinational corporations.

For the left and the right, major multinational companies are held up as the ultimate expressions of free-market capitalism. Their remarkable success appears to vindicate the old idea that modern society is too complex to be subjected to a plan. And yet, as Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski argue, much of the economy of the West is centrally planned at present. Not only is planning on vast scales possible, we already have it and it works. The real question is whether planning can be democratic. Can it be transformed to work for us?

An engaging, polemical romp through economic theory, computational complexity, and the history of planning, The People's Republic of Walmart revives the conversation about how society can extend democratic decision-making to all economic matters. With the advances in information technology in recent decades and the emergence of globe-straddling collective enterprises, democratic planning in the interest of all humanity is more important and closer to attainment than ever before.

©2019 Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski (P)2019 Tantor

This book is important

This book is lovely, concise, and too the point. The only complaint is that someone could rightly accuse it of being anecdotal - however, the author does a good job at weaving his points onto broader self-evident trends.

A worthy read, regardless of one’s economic or political leanings

"great book, an important tool in your arsenal "

Simple ideas expressed in a way we can use to argue with sociopaths about socialism

Insightful from start to finish

I hated supply chain classes in college but the history behind it is quite fascinating.

Thought provoking

He makes many interesting points under the premise that firms do not operate internally like markets. They are “islands of tyranny”, a phrase that will live rent free in my mind. He provides a lot of history, and some humor and wit. I think he successfully argues that democratically organized economic planning is not only feasible, but already in practice in companies like Walmart and these tools could be in the hands of the people rather than the corporate despots.

Great explanation of an at surface utopian theory

Simplified the history and theory behind a socialist economy very well, so well my dumbass was able to understand it.