Presentation short abstract

Current ecological macro models reproduce technocratic, capitalist assumptions. We explore Democratic Economic Planning and possibilities for integration with ecological macroeconomics to incorporate democratic coordination and support exploration of transformative post-capitalist futures.

Presentation long abstract

Ecological Macroeconomic Integrated Assessment Models (EM-IAMs) dominate ecological macroeconomic modelling yet remain structurally constrained by institutional and epistemic assumptions of capitalist dynamics and technocratic governance. Whether neoclassical/CGE, post-Keynesian stock–flow consistent, or physical system-dynamics, existing IAMs typically treat economic transformation as an implicit planning problem involving apolitical optimisation processes. This marginalizes democratic agency and participatory decision-making—qualitative dimensions of social life that ecological economics has long argued are central to just and sustainable transformation. As a result, post-capitalist alternative futures are largely excluded, and economic change is depoliticized in ways that conflict with the field’s normative commitments.

This paper argues that Democratic Economic Planning (DEP) provides a necessary framework for grounding ecological macroeconomics in institutions of collective reasoning, accountability, and shared responsibility. We survey prominent DEP proposals, showing how they challenge both market dependence and technocratic planning while enabling multilevel coordination within ecological limits. We then examine emerging computational modelling of DEP, including agent-based, cybernetic, participatory, and commons-oriented simulations that illuminate practical mechanisms and implementation challenges.

From these insights, we outline a research agenda for integrating DEP with ecological macroeconomic modelling. This agenda spans analytical, institutional, and pedagogical innovations, including modelling non-market quantities, incorporating communication and information flows, and exploring participatory macroeconomic planning through human-in-the-loop simulations and multiplayer ecological-economics simulations / games. Together, these directions of inquiry reorient ecological macroeconomics toward an explicitly democratic and post-capitalist modelling paradigm capable of exploring genuinely transformative socio-ecological futures.