Pat Devine

About Pat Devine

Pat Devine is a radical socialist economist concerned mainly with industrial economics and comparative economic systems. Devine made one of the most thorough descriptions of a future post-capitalistic economy which is based upon social ownership of the means of production by those affected by the use of it. The allocation of consumer and capital goods would be made by a form of decentralized participatory economic planning called negotiated coordination of those at the most localised level of economic production. This model is notable for specifying an array of social ownership rights and an analytic distinction between market forces and market relations. Another key aspect of Devine’s work has been a close reading of the notorious economic calculation debate and later attempts to offer a response to the objections by the Austrian school of economic theory. Similarly, Devine's work on the subject of industrial planning has largely constituted an extended critique of the Austrian theory of entrepreneurship.