[D66] Plan C

[A.O.]

http://www.weareplanc.org/about/
http://www.weareplanc.org/blog/

Where did Plan C come from?

Good question! Some of our members in Leeds were interviewed by the 
Interventionist Left – a radical organisation in Germany – in 2012 about 
Plan C’s origins and practice. Whilst not all of it is up to date and 
the politics of Plan C are always evolving it does provide a useful 
overview of the origins of our organisation. To find out more about our 
current activity you can see our events page, blog or get in touch with us.

1. Plan C is quite an unusual name for a leftist organisation. What does 
it stand for?

The ‘C’ is deliberately ambiguous. The assumption tends to be that it 
stands for ‘Commons’ or ‘Communism’. Either of these is acceptable but 
people should feel free to interpret it differently if they wish. It 
also has the advantage of sounding a little like the title of a 1950s 
American ‘red scare’ thriller. More importantly, it’s a play on the 
flurry of discourse around ‘Plan A’ and ‘Plan B’ that emerged in the UK 
once the crisis had dug its heels in after 2007.

At the end of 2009, in a now-classic statement, the prime minister’s 
spokesperson told us “It is quite normal for government officials to be 
thinking about alternative scenarios [but] ministers haven’t asked for 
advice on ‘plan B’ because they are very clear that the plan we have is 
the right plan.” This plan, Plan A, is the plan that involves massive 
cuts to public spending, tripling of university fees, the ‘remodeling’ 
of labour and environmental policy, and tax breaks for the wealthy. In 
short, a neo-liberal plan focused on making Britain more 
‘business-friendly’. Of course, just because ministers hadn’t gone 
looking for a plan B doesn’t mean no one else did.

There are numerous Plan B’s. Some better than others, but all of them 
hovering in the vicinity of some form or other of neokeynesianism. We 
don’t want to unhelpfully dismiss these plan Bs out of hand. We think 
it’s exciting so many people seem to be questioning the ‘present state 
of things’ and thinking about alternatives. However, it is crucially 
important to note the absence of the same social and material conditions 
that ushered in the golden age of social democracy in the past. In the 
light of this, the Plan B(s), being called for by everyone from 
pragmatic capitalist economists to left revolutionary parties, seem 
little more than pie in the sky. So, we suggest a new plan, Plan C 
(perhaps centred on commons). We have no desire to present this plan as 
a prognosis; one of the problems with plan B after all is its inability 
to meet the dynamism and flux of everyday life under capitalism. We need 
plans that can change, rapidly if need be. We do however, see this plan 
as being centred on how we organise our social reproduction. The focus 
on the question of organisation that this necessarily engenders is 
another aspect of the name. We want to go beyond the plans A and B of 
political organizing.