In their latest article, “Decentralized Socialist Economic Planning: The Report of Labor-Time Accounting’s Death Was an Exaggeration”, IDA (Initiative Democratic Labor-Time Accounting) respond to Robin Hahnel’s May 2025 critique of labor-time calculation. Hahnel argued that labor time fails to account for environmental costs, unpleasant or dangerous work, and temporal considerations in production.
IDA argue that these criticisms, while valid in the context of Participatory Economics, do not undermine the use of labor time calculation in a decentralized socialist economy.
Drawing on the model of the Group of International Communists (GIC) and recent cybernetic planning approaches, IDA argues that labor-time calculation remains a transparent, fair, and practical method to coordinate production, account for environmental and social costs, and ensure a just allocation of resources in a democratic, decentralized socialism.