The project

Questions of ownership are inherently normative insofar as property claims require justification to be valid, especially when they concern resources that are essential for social life. Socialization can only be justified on the basis of normative claims consistent with shared democratic values. This sub-project, led by Dr. Jacob Blumenfeld, examines how and why socialization can be justified in democratic societies facing climate crisis, economic stagnation, and growing inequalities. The project explores arguments for and against socialization across different historical and political contexts, and clarifies how socialization differs from related approaches such as nationalization, common ownership, or cooperatives. What distinguishes socialization from other strategies of reform is the emphasis on democratization and social control.

Land is a water and CO₂ reservoir, important for biodiversity protection, key for climate policy, and essential for food production. Yet, it is also increasingly treated as a speculative asset facilitating the extraction of ground rent. This sub-project interrogates land use conflicts through the concept of socialization. The concept of socialization underlines that private ownership, regulated through private property and market-mediated access, clashes with a democratic control over this central and finite resource. This raises the questions of how to organize democratic access to land. The sub-project is dedicated to developing the conceptual and normative contours of what a democratic land economy could look like. Empirically, the focus is on land-use conflicts in Germany, where the agricultural structure is changing through speculative land investment and rising prices that put pressure on agriculture practice.

Our societies are in the midst of a comprehensive energy transition that requires extensive planning measures. There has long been broad consensus on the most important goals of such a planned transition, i.e. the decarbonization of energy production through the expansion of renewable energies, the adaptation and expansion of grids, the expansion of storage infrastructures and improved sector coupling. Nevertheless, the transition is not yet progressing at the speed required to achieve climate targets. By analyzing current planning processes and their obstacles, the project aims to identify the challenges that the socialization of energy systems would have to respond to, as well as the difficulties with planning processes that socialized systems would continue to face in the transition to a post-capitalist energy system.