Conference—Transformation
Jan Philipp Dapprich and Simon Sutterlütti
Cyber-Socialism vs. Commonism

The global crisis of 2008 showed us once again that capitalist methods of production are not an appropriate basis for a socially just society. The coronavirus pandemic not only escalated the crisis but advanced the discussions around a non-capitalist, caring society. Visions of a new (digital) planned economy as well as various forms of economies based on common goods play an important role here. The planned economy debates examine the question of whether, under democratic control, modern technologies could pave the way for macrosocial economic planning for the common good. Commons-based “economic models” seek to strengthen the decentralized self-organization of common goods and preferably local business cycles. The question among other things, however, is whether these two approaches exclude one another or whether they can be employed in conjunction with each other.

Jan-Philipp Dapprich and Simon Sutterlütti will present two concrete outlines, each of which represents one of these two directions found in non-capitalist economic models.

Bio
Jan Philipp Dapprich deals with the question whether efficient economic research can exist within socialism. He studied physics and philosophy at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and political economy at the University of Manchester and wrote his dissertation at the University of Glasgow on the subject of Rationality and Distribution in the Socialist Economy (2020).

Simon Sutterlütti is a sociologist who studies utopia, transformation, and history and critical psychology. Together with Stefan Meretz, he is active at the Commons-Institut and the Netzwerk Kollektive Selbstverständigung (Network for Collective Self-Understanding). Among other things, he works on the project Die Gesellschaft nach dem Geld (Society after Money). In his 2018 book Kapitalismus aufheben (Cancelling Capitalism), he invites readers to contemplate utopia and transformation.