Hi all,
I’m seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I’m wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I’m pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.
If this isn’t the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I’m happy to take this somewhere else.
Cheers!
Climate change cannot be addressed under capitalism.
This is a big reason I’m anti capitalist as well, it has no mechanism outside of regulation for controlling the usage of resources, and so long as something is profitable it will be pursued.
This natural result is the regulation reduces profit and it is an adversarial relationship. Because Capitalism is incapable of this, and runaway consumption is driving climate change and many ecological problems, Capitalism must either be tamed and tightly controlled, or most likely replaced with a resource aware system, such as a central planning system that considers resource consumption and weighs it against ecological considerations.
To fix things, a drastic shift is necessary, and actually is so far overdue that it’s likely too late to do anything other than a near paradigm shift.
Huh? How do you explain the ban on ozone-depleting gasses? How do you explain carbon trading?
Of course climate change can be addressed under capitalism. It just can’t be addresses without regulation.
Capitalism didn’t ban ozone depleting gases. It invented them.
The only reason we successfully banned CFCs, is because the more environmentally friendly replacement was cheaper.
If the motivations for fighting climate change (or any problem, really) don’t align with the profit motive of the affected corporations, nothing will be done.
The Montreal Protocol passed because the CFCs industry failed to lobby Reagan against the to be against Protocol. They assumed Reagan would be on their side.
Big oil saw what happened to that industry and lobbied a crap ton. Now just about everyone in the government is sponsored by them.
Speaking of short term gains, sure,
but isn’t it possible to imagine more long term capitalistic goals aligning with actually preserving our well-being?
There’s no such thing as long term capitalistic goals. That’s the entire point of things like the stock market. The goals of a capitalist enterprise is to make as much money as quickly as possible.
Long term goals are too risky for capitalism
Regulated capitalism can direct capital to innovation in low/zero emission technologies and disincentivize investment in polluting technology very effectively,. More effectively than a corrupt command economy could do it. Fossil fuel companies have fought against interventions to push the market towards alternatives but the biggest failure has been on the political class and voters who haven’t done enough to push the market in the correct direction. Photo voltaics, storage technology and wind turbines have received a lot of investment and are growing rapidly despite the work of the big polluters to stall action.
Sure, it directs money towards alternatives, while doing absolutelyfucking nothing about actually reducing the harmful technologies. We may have more solar and wind (neither of which is perfect, nothing is), which is then used as propaganda to show “Oh, look at all the progress we’re making!”, while still mostly keeping oil and coal.
And, of course, everything is the fault of regular people, struggling to get by, companies are blameless.
Capitalism is what got us here my lemon.
Because? If it’s free market and people actually cared about climate then they’d boycott the businesses which aren’t doing their part. Otherwise it’s not an issue with capitalism. You’re just arguing that you need to police everyone otherwise.
You can’t boycott the businesses that aren’t doing their part given that most businesses aren’t doing their part and the ones that are produce stuff that’s more expensive and/or less convenient.
Supply chains are also super complex these days and even the companies themselves don’t always report on them properly out of either incompetence or simple denial. That’s why every few years we get stories blowing up about tech firms using slave labour to build phones or food corporates ripping off third world farmers.
Working people are tired and worn down and poor and don’t have the mental capacity or even the capital to be able to micro evaluate every single purchase decision they make and think “hmm does this company or one of is hundreds of suppliers do their part for the climate?”
For some people it’s “I can afford to feed my kids if I use this cheap product from a company that does bad things or I can go without dinner this week if I only buy from ethical companies”
Strong top down regulation is the only practical way to make big companies behave.
And your second from the last paragraph is the problem. Clearly there aren’t enough people who care who aren’t in a predicament about whether they can feed their families.
Regardless of what regulations are put in place short of robbing the wealthy, thereby becoming the supposed villains, they’ll always find a way.
Anyway, one thing I’ve learned over the years is there’s no way to change your opinion or mine, not at a deep rooted level anyway. The minute people caring about capitalism falls below the other side, it’ll probably be outlawed.
Well this has been a refreshingly calm and civil exchange of opinions.
10/10 would recommend.
Are you serious? You can’t boycott concrete. It’s not a personal decision. You can’t boycott coal, oil, or natural gas either.
The amount of climate change you mitigate by boycotting single use grocery bags is a joke.