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Planning: when associated with the economy, it conjures up notions of central committees micromanaging the production of consumer goods—perhaps grandly forgetting to plan for the production of toilet paper or tomato paste. Anticipating an event accurately often imputes responsibility for the event, and certainly makes it a lot easier to survive or even benefit from it. In the 1950's and '60's an economist named John K. Galbraith wrote extensively on planning by monopolid firms; he explained that large firms found the randomness of market behavior intolerable and therefore replaced it with monopoly control. Decades earlier, Ronald Coase had explained the same thing in his "Nature of the Firm" (PDF), but his was a scholarly monograph.
Ironically, for pointing out that the US economy was becoming increasingly Sovietized, Galbraith himself came under fire for being a pinko. It seems pretty clear that the core principle of capitalism is not a free market, but the unique right of business enterprise to plan for, and benefit from, the future. For the public to do this through a political intermediary is socialism, and an abomination. And please ignore the fact that it works: objective measures of the quality of life in European countries like Denmark or France not only surpass that of the USA, those countries are less dependent upon nonrenewable resources and export more than they import.
Amanda (Mouse Words via Unimpressed) and Kameron Hurley (Brutal Women) have each written about the concept of planning as a reliquary of political privilege that jogged me quite a bit:
Ms. Hurley: What bugs me is that the fear and stigmatization of women's reproduction and control over it *is* so intrinsically tied to women's health that what's happening is that women's health, I feel, gets a similiar veil of fear and shame pulled over it. If you've gotta be buzzed into a building and feel like a criminal for going in, and if there's protestors outside screaming at you that you're a whore and threatening violence, you're less likely to go in at all - even if you're just getting a pap or an HIV test.Now that I've got your attention, here's Amanda:
Because [Planned Parenthood] works, they are the target of much, if not most, of the vitriol of the anti-reproductive rights crowd. There is a prevalent belief amongst The Wingnuttery that PP is cash cow of an organization, razzling and dazzling weak-minded females with their flashy propaganda about having all the crazy sex you want [because of support for contraceptives and abortion access...] PP has probably done more than any other group in this country in preventing abortions by getting affordable contraception in the hands of people who need it. Anyone who is genuinely interested in reducing the number of abortions in this country needs to write PP a check right now.Note: PP is big, but of course it has gigantic obligations; and I would humbly submit that, Ms. Hurley's remarks to the contrary, it benefits men almost as much as women. First, because there are those of us who would rather suffer a hard kick in the groin than see the same occur to the women in our lives; and second, because men benefit from the ability to plan parenthood too. The fear of planning is on the part of the same social institutions that award privilege and respect, and people who benefit from those awards. That's why anti-choice or anti-contraceptive zealots aren't uniformly male. However, that is a digression.That they are big and that they are effective explains why they are the target of so much anti-woman fervor, but sometimes I wonder if there's a little more to the story.
I'm sure the name Planned Parenthood was chosen because it was accurate, and also to generate interest and empower the clientele. Nowadays, the notion that women plan when they have children is the norm, and that's created a lot of resentment. Planning is power and control.It's interesting isn't it? The market fundamentalist fulminating over capital controls or anti-trust also [usually] colludes with advocates of social regimentation to crack the whip over women's bodies and fates. The reason is, of course, that the neo-liberals running our country aren't interested in freedom at all—they're interested in defining "freedom" merely their clients' monopoly on the privilege of planning.The woman who makes plans is pretty much always a negative stereotype in our culture. Sylvia Ann Hewlett got on all the talk shows by writing a book scolding women not to plan to have their children later in life when it was easier for them for fear that they may not be able to have them, and a great time was had by all on the shows pitying women who got their comeuppance for thinking they could exert control over their own destinies only to be left childless. Even in situations where women are doing their best to fulfill social expectations, taking control is viewed negatively.
[...] Plans indicate control and plans also indicate desire. You make a plan because you have things you want and you need to figure out the best way to get them. Every time a woman swallows her birth control pill, there's a world of desires behind that decision and the pill is one of the tools she's using to achieve those desires—a job, an education, marriage to the man she really wants not just to the first that got her pregnant, no marriage at all, a smaller family, more income to spend on hobbies, more time to herself, you name it.