Kohei Saito: AI Planned Economies and the Green Total-War Mobilization

Economic thinker Kohei Saito examines how GAFAM already runs a de facto planned economy and argues for the possibility of a democratically governed planned economy in the AI era.

• GAFAM already operates a profit-driven planned economy in practice, using data and algorithms to coordinate production and consumption at scale
• Advances in AI and quantum computing are bringing real-time planned economies closer to technical feasibility
• State-run digital infrastructure—replacing Gmail with a nationally owned equivalent—could serve as the foundation for data sovereignty and democratic planning
• Responding to the climate crisis calls for a “green total-war mobilization”: a wartime-economy analogy requiring rapid rollout of EVs, renewables, and domestic food production
• In-kind benefits and expanded public services are needed, not cash basic income—outsourcing welfare to markets is the wrong path
• If AOC runs for president in 2028, she could become the first woman and the first socialist to hold the office
• If Japan continues to reject planning and socialism through a Cold War Soviet lens, it risks being isolated from the rest of the world within a decade
• Abenomics failed because it lacked a plan: capital pooled in equity markets instead of flowing into the real economy

2026-04-23 · Watch on YouTube

Japanese page: 斎藤幸平：AI計画経済と緑の総力戦