The below image was created in order to depict political economy in purely economic terms. This is to say that the purpose of the image is to focus on the economic facets of each political theory, to such of a degree, that the two axes depicted are not economic and political, nor economic and social, but economic and economic.
The left-vs.-right axis depicts "Who owns the means of production?" (that is, productive workplaces, farms, factories, etc.), while the up-down axis (which would normally depict political authority, centralization, or concentration of power) has been replaced with the question of "How are resources allocated?".
The purpose of the image is to show that ownership and distribution can be done by different entities, and that mixed economies have been proposed. Mixed economic systems are unique in that they do not always believe that just because one group owns everything, it should necessarily allocate everything; and vice-versa.
It would be worthwhile to ask the following questions while reading this image: "Does 100% of the wealth (or resources) really need to be owned by private entities, in order for us to say that capitalism exists? Which is more important to capitalists; that literally 100% of all resources be owned and distributed by private entities, or that private ownership exist at all? Wouldn't a mixed economy be more likely to satisfy everyone, than either a 100% private, 100% societal, or a 100% market-based system?
Click on the image,
(and, if necessary, open it in a new tab)
to see it in greater detail.
Explaining the axes in this image:
Since the up-down axis usually shows high centralization of power and authority at the top, and decentralization and separation of powers at the bottom, it should be easy to understand why high levels of planning are at the top and low levels of planning are at the bottom.
However, this does not necessarily imply that government planning is the only type of authoritarian planning. The fact that the top-right corner exists, shows that corporate planning can be just as oligarchical as government planning can be.
What this means is that, although I have aligned and associated the axis of political planning with the axis of economic planning, they are not necessarily one and the same. It is debatable, and should always remain debatable, whether there is any intrinsic relationship between political, economic, and moral concentrations of power. While they often appear together, that doesn't mean that there aren't any political philosophies which support (for example) high amounts of social and economic control but low amounts of political control.
Moreover, the fact that two economic axes exist, makes it even more difficult to depict economic positions alongside social and political positions (without resorting to using models consisting of three dimensions of more).
Note:
The above image, which I created, is based on several versions of the same type of image, which depict the same axes (ownership and distribution/allocation). Those images are available at the following links, and an example can be seen below.
Readers wishing to learn more about the economic spectrum, should consider researching the following topics:
1) The debate over whether the Soviet Union was practicing communism or "state monopoly capitalism";
2) The debate over whether Lenin's "New Economic Policy" (N.E.P.) was market liberalization and whether it worked;
3) The debate over whether the Nazi regime achieved any privatization;
4) The debate over whether fascism is socialist or capitalist, or whether fascism is part of dirigism, a distinct economic system focusing on government's authority to direct the economic affairs of the nation; and
5) The "market socialist" economics of Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito, and articulations of "left-wing market anarchism" which value high degrees of social ownership alongside mostly market-based systems of distribution.
2) The debate over whether Lenin's "New Economic Policy" (N.E.P.) was market liberalization and whether it worked;
3) The debate over whether the Nazi regime achieved any privatization;
4) The debate over whether fascism is socialist or capitalist, or whether fascism is part of dirigism, a distinct economic system focusing on government's authority to direct the economic affairs of the nation; and
5) The "market socialist" economics of Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito, and articulations of "left-wing market anarchism" which value high degrees of social ownership alongside mostly market-based systems of distribution.
Based on Notes Taken in Early May 2020
Image Created, and Explanation Written,
and Post Originally Published,
on May 11th, 2020
