ANSWERTOCRITIQUE
Why "open planning" is not King and Petty’s "technosocialism", and how it answers the critique of technocracy
Based on D. A. Davydov’s article "Techno(crato)socialism: A Critical Look at the Ideas of B. King and R. Petty" (Sociological Studies, No. 9, 2023).
Davydov shows that the popular "technosocialism" is a technocratic class position: real socio-political change is replaced by a technological surrogate, and the result is not socialism but radical inequality. We take this critique seriously — which is exactly why we renamed the project and built the answers into the model itself.
1. This is someone else’s argument: we are not King and Petty
Davydov’s blow targets the version where capitalism stays unchanged and abundance is delivered by robots plus a basic income that replaces social policy. Our model is different on three key points:
Public ownership of basic resources — the very socialization whose absence Davydov names as King and Petty’s main failure.
The coordination mechanism itself changes (plan + market + verifiability), not just the "economic focus".
Basic income is not the central tool and not a replacement for education and medicine — at most, an insurance.
2. The technocracy trap
The very discourse of "optimization through technology" legitimizes handing power to a technocratic class: those who deploy innovation stay on top, while citizens become spectators. "Socialism" becomes a label masking inequality.
Goal-setting is separated from execution. Goals, limits and priorities are set by a democratic layer on a "one person — one vote" basis (citizen assemblies, protection against vote concentration), not by a token-weighted DAO. Technocracy executes the plan but does not set the goals.
3. KPIs and Goodhart’s law
Any metric is gameable. "Output at any cost" does not disappear — it mutates into "KPI at any cost". Metric-driven optimization deskills labor where value is immeasurable (care, education, medicine).
Honest demarcation: quotas, KPIs and oracles apply to measurable, standardized domains (logistics, energy, standard procurement) and deliberately do not apply where value is immeasurable. Plus anti-gaming: rotating metrics, human audit, deferred quality-based payments.
4. Oracles are living labor, not "objective truth"
Behind every "automatic" confirmation stands invisible human labor — data labeling, moderation, fact verification (often precarious "ghost work"). "Objective indicators" can be faked and gamed.
We treat oracles and labelers as labor: fair pay, transparency, accountability through stake and reputation, cross-checking of sources. Not "magic objectivity", but verifiable people and procedures.
5. Humanizing labor instead of deskilling it
Genuine technological abundance should expand human labor in education, medicine and care and make it more meaningful — not cut it for the sake of savings. The "discourse of savings" is neoliberalism, not socialism.
The surplus from automating routine is directed toward increasing the number and quality of human roles in care and education. Routine is automated — the human is set free.
Conclusion: why we renamed the project
Davydov’s critique is a test of whether "technosocialism" is neoliberalism in left-wing packaging. The main risk is not technical (scalability) but political: capture of goal-setting by a techno-administrative class. By closing this gap with a democratic goal-setting layer and a principle of humanizing labor, the model separates itself from the neo-feudal scenario.
That is why we dropped the label "technosocialism" and call the model "Open Planning": the plan sets the frame, markets and technology are the means, and democracy and transparency are the guarantee against technocracy.