This article reviews Commonism, a postcapitalist model developed by Stefan Meretz and Simon Sutterlütti (2023, 2025) (Gerdes et al. 2023) based on a decentralized network of commons. As this model puts forward the idea that a postcapitalist economy should avoid using money at all, we focus specifically on how economic coordination can be realized in Commonism. We first present how we understand the functioning of Commonism, to then underline issues generated by the absence of the money form. These issues are about human volition, information, social arbitration, and temporality. We end by suggesting a way to domesticate money that would resolve the problems we have identified without doing much harm, in our view, to the main features of the model.

This article responds to a comment by Benoît Lévesque on a text we wrote collectively (2022) about the traces and fate of a collectivist tradition in economic thought in Quebec from the turn of the 20th century onwards. After offering a brief rejoinder to Benoît Lévesque’s arguments, this article presents that make our vision of the collectivist tradition more concrete. We conclude by outlining the essential elements of a research program that could take these reflections further.

This article responds to a comment by Benoit L & eacute;vesque on a text we wrote collectively (2022) about the traces and fate of a collectivist tradition in economic thought in Quebec from the turn of the 20th century onwards. After offering a brief rejoinder to Benoit L & eacute;vesque's arguments, this article presents that make our vision of the collectivist tradition more concrete. We conclude by outlining the essential elements of a research program that could take these reflections further.

Based on a typology of three conceptions of the democratization of finance (ruptural, symbiotic, interstitial), this paper reinterprets the conflicts that shaped the history of Quebec’s public and cooperative financial institutions (PCFI) from 1960 until today. For each period, we evaluate reform projects and institutions that aimed to socialize finance, supplement the private financial sector to improve it from within, or create financial spaces outside of the logic of profit maximization. Often overlooked, union struggles and demands favouring the socialization of finance in Quebec help highlight the limits of PCFI associated notably with « solidarity finance ». This particular history of social conflicts over Quebec finance also offers resources to reimagine the democratization of finance in the Quebec context.

Biophysical Economics is a school of thought in heterodox economics built on the premise of the primacy of energy in the economic process. Despite significant progress made in the methodology of net-energy analysis, the literature on the relationships (if any) between the biophysical properties of energy sources, such as net-energy ratios, and financial indicators (price, cost, etc.) is scant. Are the biophysical qualities of energy sources reflected by market signals? As such, can the latter guide decision-making in the context of the ongoing depletion of non-renewable energy resources? The paper examines the relationships between the net-energy ratios and price, cost of production and price-to-cost ratios of the Canadian oil sands produced via open-pit mining from 1997 to 2016. A simple econometric model is developed to estimate the correlation between the standard Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROIst) with the price, cost of production and price-to-cost ratio of diluted bitumen and synthetic crude over a 20-year period. Preliminary results suggest the absence of correlation between any pair of biophysical and financial variables. No discernable correlation is identified between the EROIst and financial indicators of either crude stream, suggesting biophysical and financial properties to be sui generis realities.

Based on a typology of three conceptions of the democratization of finance (ruptural, symbiotic, interstitial), this paper reinterprets the conflicts that shaped the history of Quebec's public and cooperative financial institutions (PCFI) from 1960 until today. For each period, we evaluate reform projects and institutions that aimed to socialize finance, supplement the private financial sector to improve it from within, or create financial spaces outside of the logic of profit maximization. Often overlooked, union struggles and demands favouring the socialization of finance in Quebec help highlight the limits of PCFI associated notably with << solidarity finance >>. This particular history of social conflicts over Quebec finance also offers resources to reimagine the democratization of finance in the Quebec context.

There has been a renewal of discussions about alternative economic systems in recent years. Democratic planning has received a lot of attention, especially in view of the way it could help address social and ecological challenges. However, little has been written about how a democratically planned economy could relate to other economies through trade or financial flows. This lack of interest is surprising, considering that any country aspiring to plan its economy democratically would have to take into consideration its integration in global value chains and that few would likely aim for complete autarky once fully democratized. In this article, we address this issue by delineating five principles that an institution responsible for international economic relations should follow in a democratically planned economy and giving an example of how it could function in practice.

While the global pandemic has taken the front stage since the spring of 2020, environmental issues remain as pressing as ever. In this article, I question whether the current liberalized trade and investment regime is consistent with the possibility of an ecological transition and argue that it is not. The organization of a large part of economic activity on a world scale by multinational corporations, with profitability imperatives and relatively short planning horizons, is inherently conducive to an intensification of resource extraction and commodity production. A liberal trade and investment regime gives free rein to these dynamics, which should instead be curtailed in order to achieve the necessary adjustments to sustainable living. As such, this article will explore ways in which the trade and investment regime could be subordinated to ecological and social concerns and contribute to, rather than hinder, an ecological transition.

Three models of democratic economic planning - Devine and Adaman's negotiated coordination, Albert and Hahnel's participatory economics, and Cockshott and Cottrell's computerized central planning - have important implications for the wider perspective of ecological economics. When the models are reviewed from the standpoint of the complexity and biophysical interdependence inherent in ecological systems, they are shown to contain a number of problematic areas, revealed in the way they tackle ecological challenges. A potential way to resolve these problems points toward a new framework for understanding democratic economic planning. A merger of the different models and insights can lead to new institutions that would be better adapted to confronting current environmental issues.

Historically, economic thought in Québec had an important collectivist strand, which gradually disappeared in the latter half of the twentieth century. In this article, we present a synthesis of the ideas of nationalist thinkers who laid the bases of an original development path in Québec that differs from the one eventually taken during the Quiet Revolution. We argue that the collectivist elements in the tradition got suppressed during the Quiet Revolution because a democratization of economic institutions was contrary to the interests of the economic and business elites at that time. However, in our view, there are useful insights to be gleaned from the collectivist tradition, which remains relevant today. A renewal of that tradition could contribute to finding solutions to several important issues in Québec that the current development model seems ill-equipped to address, such as the need for an ecological transition, rising inequality, and a structural dependence on extractive industries.

The Market Basket Measure (MBM) has been increasingly positioned in Québec and Canada since 2009 as a metric to follow situations of poverty. This article shows that this measure, linked more specifically to the coverage of basic needs, can be used to design three indicators which acknowledge the whole range of income inequalities and the associated disparities in quality of life: (1) the distance from the MBM; (2) the number of baskets available to households; and (3) the components of after-tax income in relation to the MBM. These indicators can complement existing income inequality measures and inform public debates on socio-economic policy while leaving space for further research about the continuum between poverty and non-poverty. As they express and describe the distribution of after-tax income, a component of national economic accounts, among households along a vital guideline of basic needs coverage, they can contribute to a better understanding of quality of life and sustainability issues between the macro and micro levels of social organisation.

« Il semble donc important de voir si on peut arriver a arrimer une dynamique economique globale avec un ensemble de normes et pratiques environnementales nationales » 01. Introduction Que ce soit les changements climatiques, la pollution ou encore le deperissement de certains ecosystemes, plusieurs enjeux environnementaux se font de plus en plus pressants. Comme nombre d’entre eux sont lies a l’action humaine, ces enjeux viennent remettre en cause l’organisation des societes humaines, notamm...

dégage maintenant un espace pour réfléchir à l’avenir, à l’après-crise. L’IRIS le fait depuis un moment déjà, à travers une série de billets qui touchent à différents aspects de la question. Or, nombre d’analystes affirment que le problème qui a mené à la crise est lié au système économique dans lequel nous vivons1 et à ses conséquences écologiques2. Ainsi, en complément des textes publiés sur le blogue de l’IRIS, nous menons une réflexion prospective sur les structures économiques actuelles au Québec qui pourraient permettre un premier pas vers une alternative au capitalisme. Les mesures de soutien mises en place par les différents ordres de gouvernements depuis le début de la crise peuvent donner l’impression que la seule option est de supporter par tous les moyens disponibles le système capitaliste qui domine l’activité économique au Québec et au Canada. Ce système n’est pourtant vieux que de quelques siècles. Les humains ont organisé les aspects matériels de leur existence de multiples manières à travers l’histoire3. Le capitalisme n’est donc pas une fatalité. Le document qui suit détaille comment le Québec pourrait effectuer des réformes importantes à la suite de cette crise pour se diriger vers un changement de système économique.