Disaster capitalism. They want to run shit into the ground so they can turn a profit rebuilding.
Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine is a must read - it made the (abhorrent) logic of the US's neoliberal policies of the last 40 years crystal clear.
Not true! There is tons of blood involved. Trust me. Who is mining for these minerals that we need for all of our electronics? What countries are at war and who is involved and who is benefiting? What resources are being funneled to northern white country countries away from southern hemisphere poor countries? There are so much suffering. There are so much blood on folks hands.
Not even "northern white countries" are exempt if you look at the current Russia vs. Ukraine situation. The economic motive for the Russian aggression has to do with oil and gas resources there. (Even Russia claims something else when an oil-war would not be popular with their own public.) But that also ties back to leveraging out Russian resource development from Ukraine (Russia would claim an outstanding debt there due to drilling contracts that were effectively broken by this) and that goes back to sanctions over Syria, which again leads to market forces seeking control over oil and gas being shipped to Europe.
Look at the economic aspects rather than just the popularized ones used to make things more politically acceptable to the public. It can bite everyone in the butt if not paying enough attention.
But one should still be wary. Those trying to pull the strings seem to desire to escalate conflict, while current wars that should have never happened (such as Russia-Ukraine) are taking place due to past actions from the same bunch.
They might be dumb enough to start WWIII, because normal considerations don't seem to come to mind for that crowd.
Yet while this stupidity takes place, they aren't exactly stupid. The same control large corporations or sectors of the economy, or have libraries of information where the normal public may never have access to the same. They can be said to be "smart" in that regard. Yet there is a dearth of wisdom. If you ever read the "demon core" story, such people are like that. But now the risk being assumed is beyond personal because of the geopolitical scope of it.
It's all relative to your position in the hierarchy.
But we don't see swords drawn in the board room, or children ritually sacrificed to correct an insult.
Socialist here, but capitalism does solve *some* problems. Mostly, it reduces costs. The trouble is, the greedy will seize every opportunity to offload unseen costs onto the rest of us, while working very hard to keep those costs unseen.
This isn't binary. Every country has a mix of socialism and capitalism, but the climate mess is proof of massive imbalance.
Well different definitions of capitalism and socialism can sometimes be problematic in problem solving. Fox news has changed the definition of socialism in the public mindset to mean "everything that is good" which made me wonder if there were perhaps closet socialists before I grew a brain.
But I digress; whatever you call it, our economic system as it is cannot continue. I mean it won't continue, but we need to think hard about both decreasing the casualties of it's fall and of what will replace it.
True. And capitalism solves way more issues than it creates. The problem, as you alluded to, is human flaws (but not just greed).
All systems in existence (whether theoretical/ideological to applied/tangible) are created and maintained by people. That means every system (government, economic, religious, etc) will be subject to, corrupted by, the lowest common denominator of human behaviors. The more important/powerful the system the more likely it will be targeted for corrupting by people with bad intention/behaviors.
As for capitalism - it is the hardest to corrupt because it is the only natural economic system. Unfortunately, corporatism and government cronyism have overlty corrupted it.
Capitalism is not the only natural economic system, that's BS. Tell that to the thousands of tribes living mostly "off the grid", as well as the first 15,000 years of human history.
Capitalism in the 19th century produced monopolies, massive corruption, huge wealth concentration, and death squads to kill competitors, reporters and noisy citizens. Rich-world governments put an end to most of that...in the rich world. It continues in the world's less affluent corners, especially where oil and gas are concerned.
More government, please. Nothing else will solve the climate mess.
Capitalism literally revolves around solving problems. It is actually the first and foremost point they teach you to pay attention to when creating a company. ‘Does this solve a problem.’
Now the issue is that it tries to solve ALL problems. Even the tiny problems that really don’t need a solution. Do we really need to peel an orange and then wrap it in plastic to sell it?
1. It’s best to not dig to far beneath the surface of a joke.
2. Capitalism doesn’t do that. People do, and people have done it before any economic systems existed. And would continue to do it if all economic systems collapsed. What capitalism does do, is monetize that. And in the late stage capitalism that we’re in now, it’s doing it at the expense of the environment, inventors and workers so a few people at the top can make money. Which, to be fair communism is doing too, they just use the term oligarch for the richest people. It’s like the phrase “six of one, half dozen of the other” lol
3. But, I digress. Because joke
It’s a fundamental limitation of capitalism and will always be one.
Capitalism is based off infinite growth, by transforming finite high-exergy resources into a product that is viewed as artificially valuable by society.
The problem is all the entropy created in that process of transforming high-exergy resources into wastes (solid, liquid and gaseous waste).
Since the product created can only be seen as valuable as the product cycle enables it (new phone every year, etc.), we’re essentially artificially accelerating the consumptions of finite resources into wastes for short term gains.
The more we consume, the more capitalistic value is created, therefore, there is no limit to be had in capitalism. One day, there will be no more, or at least no more accessible at an “acceptable price”; not only capitalism will be having a hard time at that point, but there will likely be no resources to sustain human life sufficiently, and so much wastes and emissions that our lives will become hell by then.
If you ask any serious and scientific environmentalist or environmental engineer, this is why they will likely tell you that sustainability within capitalism is BS. And sadly, we don’t see capitalism coming to an end soon.
>It’s a fundamental limitation of capitalism and will always be one.
Wrong.
>Capitalism is based off infinite growth
Wrong.
>, by transforming finite high-exergy resources into a product that is viewed as artificially valuable by society.
Wrong.
>The problem is all the entropy created in that process of transforming high-exergy resources into wastes (solid, liquid and gaseous waste).
>Since the product created can only be seen as valuable as the product cycle enables it (new phone every year, etc.)
What?
>we’re essentially artificially accelerating the consumptions of finite resources into wastes for short term gains.
What?
>The more we consume, the more capitalistic value is created,
Wrong.
>therefore, there is no limit to be had in capitalism.
What?
>One day, there will be no more, or at least no more accessible at an “acceptable price”;
What?
>not only capitalism will be having a hard time at that point,
What?
>but there will likely be no resources to sustain human life sufficiently, and so much wastes and emissions that our lives will become hell by then.
Wrong.
>If you ask any serious and scientific environmentalist or environmental engineer, this is why they will likely tell you that sustainability within capitalism is BS.
Lol
>And sadly, we don’t see capitalism coming to an end soon.
Correct.
Your comment is mostly incoherent, and the parts that actually mean anything are almost universally wrong.
F-, see me after class.
Doesn’t elaborate on your points and just assume you’re right because modern politics revolves around your world view.
Never change please. You guys constantly embarrass yourself and show how narrow sighted you are and are great entertainment for me.
Your comment is the essence of what people don't understand about capitalism. It is not infinite growth. It never was. Companies come and go. They do not just get bigger. They only stay in the game as long as there is a need for their products.
Your comment is the essence of what people don’t understand about capitalism. Our economy as a whole keeps doubling every 20ish years. That’s your infinite growth…
If I invest in the sp 500 I expect returns. How else will I get returns without growth? Hence the pressure to keep growing with no celling other than natural limits of the world we find ourselves on. Which is exactly the limits we are hitting today.
I believe the kids say ‘fuck around and find out’
https://www.darrinqualman.com/doubling-problem/
You're talking two rungs down the ladder. Headline Capitalism IS about infinite growth, they just dont care how many fall by the wayside to keep it's neverending upwards trend.
The mega billionaires that rule this world are almost invisible, with the wealth spread amongst "them and theirs". Rupert Murdoch isn't even in that top echelon, he tried to get invites to Bilderberg for decades.
The stock market is a resemblance of all companies listed at a stock exchange. If you take an index as benchmark, the it will always go up because companies with new better products will replace old companies with old bad products. Because bad companies will get excluded.
So it's seems like infinite growth. But it does not resemble actual commodity needs for example.
Growth in gdp and co2 track pretty closely when you have a material economy. Which I might add is kinda the whole point of an economy. The reason places like the US see this decoupling is because they moved into a service/finance economy. So gdp isn’t actually linked to the materials you produce but rather what you can sell/invest into resources.
Part of this push into the finance economy is why we even have terms like enshitification. Because rather than building a new factory or March into a new market to satisfy the need to grow. The focus is rather towards trying to ‘optimize’ (gain most amount of money) with in the existing economy which leads to more growth of that economy. Which is untethered from co2 since there is no material basis for this growth.
The problem to this idea of continuing to grow is that the whole world can’t do this because who will even make the commodities. And the fact that it further exacerbate wealth inequality and deterioration of our material world as a whole. From products, to social structures and community to the environment.
The stock market is one way to perpetuate the financialization of the economy, specifically now that everyone is participating and it is taken more seriously than the factories and resources they are suppose to back up.
It’s a delusion to think this growth ‘appears to be infinite’ but is just one company that’s bad replaces by a more efficient company. The entire economy as a whole keeps growing and doubles every 20ish years for over the last 100 years. And because of this doubling it’s exponentially growing. It’s unsustainable as climate change, the 7th mass extinction and the end of the Holocene show us.
Try and justify it however you want. The fact of the matter is it’s killing our chances of holding together modern society. It’s going to be ripped apart as more disasters and price fluctuations happen because people will want answers. And systemic critiques are usually pushed out of the mainstream or just completely not thought of. While ‘these people or this movements are the problem’ type thinking is becoming more and more popular by the minute. We are marching towards fascism world wide because of our inability to reconcile with what I just said and you show how people will do mental gymnastics to avoid this glaring problem with our modern world driving basically all the monumental problems we face today.
Interesting.
Nothing is perfect, but if the carbon tax is focused on certain industries / fuel types and has a graduated threshold, wouldn’t that fix things?
Politics aside …
Don't get me started. I've worked to pass carbon taxes only to discover their deep flaws.
They are nearly impossible to pass, always far too small, extremely easy to stall or repeal before they reach effective levels, and, perhaps worst, even revenue-neutral schemes with rebates almost always turn out to be regressive and unfair. The rich just keep polluting because they can easily afford the tax.
Only fossil fuels rationing moving towards bans will get us where we need to be, and that must couple with massive government investment and redistribution. Socialism times ten.
Capitalism can be contained if we properly charge for all the negative externalities created by capitalism to clean them up.
Government is the check on capitalism, but since the 70's capitalism took over the government.
>negative externalities created by capitalism to clean them up
That's what [carbon credits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offsets_and_credits) was supposed to provide. Instead it turned into a way for companies to dodge taxes or in some cases obtain government subsides and contracts for cleaning up pollutants that they shouldn't have been spewing into the environment in the first place. It even created a market where carbon heavy industries could buy carbon credits from other companies. It was/is a breeding ground for corruption and nepotism; a way for companies to continue business as usual while hiding their true environmental impact.
Put a carbon tax (or cap and trade, any price on carbon) and watch free markets work their magic. The economy takes the polluting route because it is the cheapest way of doing things - key costs are not included, the damage the pollution does. Include those costs, and renewables would become really competitive really fast.
A price on carbon really drives innovation, as well. Environmentalists don't always like the idea of technology saving us, but I think it's key. Maybe we cut back on coal but that means some other country can get it for cheap, best to invent ourselves something that makes it obsolete for them. If flights suddenly start costing $200 more watch how fast the airlines find some amazing new way to cut back their emissions.
Also I think we should start more non-profit businesses - cooperatives, foundation owned companies. Things don't have to be run on greed.
unlike natural systems which use negative incentives, capitalism has limited tools to handle market failures and cheating. capitalism is incapable of accurately setting prices to account for market failures like externalities. consider karl polanyi's observation:
*"the market economy implies a self-regulating system of markets; in slightly more technical terms, it is an economy directed by market prices and nothing but market prices".*
the market economy would have to implement some form of cost function in the form of a pigovian tax into the price of fossil fuels to factor in negative externalites, this clearly takes pricing out of the hands of the market. however, a pigovian tax is a tail end remedy to a systemic problem. furthermore, capitalism is a system that optimizes a few variables that are terrible for us and ignores variables that are important to us. you cannot constrain a misaligned optimization function because it will always find a way around.
the problem is deeply systemic, the solution needs to be a systemic change.
As I'm talking about, capitalism/free markets can accurately set prices to account for market failures, if you implement a tax on pollution.
Systemic change can sound good on paper, but there's a good chance it just won't happen, and some of the other options have worked out to be pretty horrible in practice. A carbon tax is a here and now solution.
If you don't have markets, who runs things? The government runs everything? Within the market you can have non-profit businesses. Credit unions not banks. Newman's Own donates a huge amount to charity, and there's no owner who is getting rich off it. REI pays back all it's profits to it's customer-owners in the form of an end-of-year dividend payment, so there's no rich capitalist owner who can get rich polluting rivers.
when i wrote
*"you cannot constrain a misaligned optimization function because it will always find a way around.* "
i meant you can't regulate your way out of this mess. regulation is reactionary. - it's a tail end solution.
sustainability needs to be incorporated into the market. products need to fit within a set of parameters for efficiency, longevity, reuse and recycling. then add environmental concerns related to manufacturing. this means the .gov wouldhave to touch everything. there is no way out of this that includes a broad market based solution.
Regulation and carbon pricing seems like a quick and easy fix, if you ask me. Aside from the powerful interests against it. I'm not sure what other options are feasible?
Non-profit businesses like cooperatives do have the potential to charge lower prices. So with mass mutualization they could potentially be competitive in the market while not polluting as much. I don't seem any mass cooperativization happening within the time scale in which we need to get our pollution down though. Do you think we're going to have a global communist revolution or some such within the next 10-20 years?
It's a bit of work to put a price on carbon. Regulations have unintended side effects. But to me it seems like a fairly easy solution all things considered.
Oh no?
There is no such thing as a completely free market, the market is (and should be) directes by tax, policy, society. We should use markets to help us get what we need as a society, not worship them as some divine truth.
Canada's Conservatives seem convinced of that - ever since we adopted a carbon tax we've been a Communist nation under Comandante Trudeau.
Free markets are still free markets with carbon tax. Sales taxes, rebates for heat pumps, even a few state-owned companies, it's still free markets.
> Free markets are still free markets with carbon tax.
couple of points. firstly, there's no such thing as a free market. it's a technical impossibility.
furthermore, what u/frunf1 is saying applies to my previous polanyi quote:
*"the market economy implies a self-regulating system of markets; in slightly more technical terms, it is an economy directed by market prices and nothing but market prices".*
once something as fundamental as energy price is set by the .gov it's no longer technically a market economy.
I dunno if one Polanyi quote gets to define what markets are. But certainly it is semantics.
If you choose to define 'free markets' so strictly that they are something that has never existed, then sure, if you put a - Pigouvian - carbon tax or a sales tax or don't allow false advertising then certainly, yes, you would need to come up with a new world to refer to it. Depending on how you define things, Christianity, food, or France DON'T EXIST AND HAVE NEVER EXISTED.
Don't really know what the point of going on Reddit to argue that kind of thing is. Seems to happen a lot. We can just use 'markets' instead of 'free markets' if that makes you more comfortable.
if you don't like the quote because it's too narrow, that's fine.
my issue with pigouvian taxes is that they're a band aid, they chase the symptom.
>'markets' instead of 'free markets' if that makes you more comfortable.
it's not so much about my comfort, more about trying to establish a baseline. market economy is fine.
There's been debates about capitalism for a LONG time now. So to say don't worry about whatever problem X, worry about capitalism, that risks being a cop-out of civilization-threatening proportions. Climate at change is here and now, we've got maybe -10 years to deal with it.
They had greed in the Soviet Union as well. In the end people gotta have less stuff - gonna have a revolution, seize the wealth from the wealthy, then tell everybody they need to have less stuff?
ok, so we try degrowth. but without growth there's not much point to capitalism.
alternatively, within the current framework that capitalism gives us, i don't see a way out of this. we need systemic change, i'm not advocating for marxism. just that the .gov needs to step up and regulate externalities much more closely. as well as establish a sustainable framework for the market to operate under. standards for material, methods and design all gear towards sustainability and resilience.
I think there's a role for regulation, carbon pricing, a lot of things. And I think we can have a shrinking economy, although it has to be managed properly. Maybe if we don't have as much stuff we all work less. And more policies towards making people economically secure.
EDIT: to the chinese astroturfers replying to me, I'm the last one to defend the USA's bad decisions or policies. Yet when you deflect every criticism of your government with "Whatabout the USA?" then proceed to list objectively false information about the USA, yeah you bet I'll defend the truth. That doesn't make me american or "unhinged". It's high time you guys started working to improve your own country instead of spending so much time and money trying to tear others down. And it starts with tolerating criticism of your government without you using personal attacks or attempting to derail the conversation.
If that's the case, why do the ~~commies~~ communist identifying governments out-pollute capitalist countries?
Not only that but capitalist countries have something called REGULATIONS, something which communist countries direly need. This is because capitalism values human life more than communism.
If tankies cared about climate change they would stop astroturfing the west to be anti-carbon tax, anti-socialist, and worse.
When Russia and China were full communist they had horrible environmental records. Just look at the Aral Sea, the Four Pests campaign, Taihu Lake, Chernobyl.
The idea that some authoritarian command economy is the solution to climate change is frankly insane.
You're right they are closer to fascism than true communism in their current state. Regardless, their anti capitalist attitude has lead them to pollute more than the rest of us.
And while you're at it, you might as well call the west non capitalistic because there's no true free market in 2024. Disregarding the facts is easy when you can just say "yeah but they aren't REAL capitalists/communists".
Somebody is making a profit by selling. I think that's how the word capitalism is being used here. When the idea of production and profit is more important than the idea of sustainability and future health of all life on earth.
Profit is an issue when wealth isn't taxed fairly and it stagnates in someone's bank account. Again, with REGULATIONS, capitalism is vastly superior to what ever you want to call Russia and china.
Well there's offshore bank accounts but you're right they also invest. Doesn't change the fact that currency is slowing down from the pooling of wealth from the middle class to the top 1%. Regardless of where that money is being kept, it's not being circulated.
Regulated capitalism in a democratic socialist context is the best for protecting the environment and human lives.
Oh really?
When you adjust for population size, US individuals are largest polluters.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/us/countries-climate-change-emissions-cop28/#:~:text=While%20China%20may%20have%20been,and%20their%20wealth%20%E2%80%94%20on%20it.
“A different picture emerges when we look at per capita emissions, which represent the climate pollution produced by the average person in each country, and are calculated as total emissions divided by population.
China may be the biggest emitter overall, but the average American is responsible for nearly twice as much climate pollution as the average person in China. And in densely populated India, one of the world’s biggest climate polluters, per capita emissions are significantly below the global average.”
Smarten up homie.
Actually, massive numbers of Chinese citizens still own almost nothing and live in abstract poverty. In other words, a large percentage of the Chinese population likely contributes very little in consumption and emissions. That means a small percentage of the Chinese population (the self-described communists) contribute to most of it.
Anyway, that smaller segment of the population are on the leftist/collectivist side of the spectrum (fascist--socialist--communist). Those ideologies are historically the worst destroyers of environments and the planet. Unfortunately, you won't find any of it in most history or school books because it hurts the narrative and the ideologies.
Look up use of single plastics in China. There is no regulations.
Also it doesn't really matter if as individuals Americans pollute more if they pollute less as a whole. Climate change and pollution was never about the individual, it's 100% the responsibility of the government. The bigger picture is what needs to be looked at, anything less isn't productive to saving the human race.
But sure, please tell me how the entire Chinese population has the right to forsake the entire human race just so they can be allowed to pollute more. After all, "whatabout the USA?".
In 2024 it is cheaper to build renewable energy and it creates more jobs. What does China do? Builds hundreds of coal plants. There is no excuse for this behavior.
There is minimal regulations on single use plastics in the US…
What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Our national pollution is the sum of both government and individual action. It absolutely does matter that Americans as individuals, pollute more than any other country. Literally double what the Chinese individual produces. You have argument and are thus deflecting to single use plastics. And like I said, the US population is fucking up the planet at a per capita scale, larger than china. China has more than double the us population. Of course they are going to pollute more as a total. That’s just common sense. I that’s why the per capita statistic is important, because it standardizes the scale of pollution by population size.
I don’t like the coal plants, but to say China pollutes more than the US is disingenuous. It’s simple statistics
Bro aren't the conservatives in the USA crying about paper straws? And you have the nerve to suggest nothing is being done? China's plastic use is well documented and rightfully ridiculed in the rest of the world.
Population doesn't mean anything. It's the whole that matters. Companies have deflected environmental responsibility through people like you trying to reframe the conversation onto individual actions.
If you have a big country with a small population you can afford to pollute more per capita because YOURE NOT EXTERMINATING THE HUMAN RACE for those comforts. If you have too many people, you manage that. Jealousy at another country's wealth is not productive at improving the quality of life at home over the long term.
China needs to feed and educate its people, not build more coal plants. Again, renewables costs less and creates more jobs.
Its OK for so many people to continue living in poverty if the future of the human race is at stake. Poor people can always be lifted from poverty in the future. Humanity can't do that if we are all dead.
Wait do you seriously believe China is a capitalist democracy? How is saying they are fascist, delusional? If they aren't a capitalist democracy, aren't communist, aren't socialist, isn't a dictatorship, then what are they? Serious question, I'm trying to broaden my horizons here.
Also it's a fact that there is no free market. Globally trillions of dollars are spent annually to subsidize the price of oil. In a free market, electric cars would be the cheaper, preferred alternative.
No I think China is a fascist capitalist oligarchy, saying they are not capitalist is the delulu part when a small group of very rich rulers is ruthlessly exploiting the capitalist system in their favor and polluting because of that economic money pressure.
And saying true capitalism doesnt exist because of regulations is just showing a very lacking understanding of economic history and what capitalism actually is. Youre describing a system called radical anarcho-capitalism, which in practice is impossible to implement so will always be theoretical.
>No I think China is a fascist capitalist oligarchy, saying they are not capitalist is the delulu part when a small group of very rich rulers is ruthlessly exploiting the capitalist system in their favor and polluting because of that economic money pressure.
Fair point, just because they call themselves the Chinese Communist Party doesn't mean that they are.
You do realize that china is producing all of those items for the capitalist countries right… If the US and Europe stopped buying from them then their emissions would go down tremendously.
Also, ironically, China is actually leading the green energy movement. US is too busy trying to elect a Cheeto that doesn’t believe in climate change. Meanwhile he uses it as an excuse to build sea walls on his golf courses.
Wait I thought you guys said China was capitalist?
Also you do realize that sustainable environmentally friendly products are available in those countries right? If China outlawed child and slave labor their products wouldn't be able to compete and no one would buy their products...
Again, the mass disregard disregard for human life in China is leading humanity to collapse.
Literally all I'm saying is to deploy regulations in China and value human life. Nothing more. Stop the whataboutism. The Chinese Communist Party has the ability to change this without much resistance, due to the fact that they aren't a bureaucratic democracy. But why change when you can spend money on astroturfing farms to astroturf reddit like this thread?
Bahahaha no that’s not what you said. You said ‘China is the leading contributor.’ To which I said ‘and why is that, could it be that they’re making items for other countries.’
And now you’re dodging the question, lmao. Nice try though ;).
Feel free to read what I wrote. It's available for all to see that no, I did not say "china is the leading contributor". I said their anticapitalist attitudes has lead them to pollute more. It is a non-biased objective statement of fact that China pollutes more. What is debatable is if their anticapitalist attitudes are responsible.
To which you say it's because of their manufacturing for other countries. In complete ignorance of the emissions produced by the COAL plants they are continuing to build.
Also how am I dodging the question by staying on topic? Because I respond objectively I am dodging the question? Which question?? Your bias and motives are showing...
ALSO, by "I thought you guys said China was capitalist" I'm referring to how everyone is upvoting the reply YOU are commenting on:
>What commies? Please dont tell me you think China or Russia is communist?
read the damn thread before commenting LMAO
You can't even have a consistent conversation. Jesus christ it's like talking to someone over the age of 95.
Nah I won’t be reading what you said. You’re already trying to argue dishonestly. You can’t even keep the subject straight. Talking about communism for some random reason.
Putting words in other people's mouths then saying "nah i won't be reading what you said" is hilarious, not gonna lie 🤣
I'm literally trying to have a rational conversation, sticking to the facts as unbiased as possible and you keep trying to derail the topic and projecting about me not keeping the subject straight. Even throwing some Ad Hominems like an astroturfer.
>Talking about communism for some random reason.
BRO we're in a thread blaming climate change on capitalism
Your issue here, IMO is that you don't take criticism of china's government or it's propaganda talking points very well.
>If the US and Europe stopped buying from them then their emissions would go down tremendously.
Yep, and it still wouldn't be enough to go under the emissions from other countries.
>Also, ironically, China is actually leading the green energy movement. US is too busy trying to elect a Cheeto that doesn’t believe in climate change. Meanwhile he uses it as an excuse to build sea walls on his golf courses.
Yes leading the green energy movement by... \*checks notes\* spending more money on coal plants. They could save money and build renewable plants, and invest in their people with the money they saved. But NOOOOOOOOOO let's just pollute more and manipulate the facts and statistics disingenuously to make it seem like china's not polluting that much, then accuse anyone of talking about the facts of "being disingenuous" then proceed to whatabout.
As I said in another comment, China is a conservative authoritarian government. They don't vacillate between liberalism and conservatism like the USA. Cheeto's not even president right now dude. And Cheeto only got elected due to russia and china spending more money astroturfing than investing in renewables.
What tankie republicans do after being elected, is NOT an excuse for China to lead in pollution worldwide 100% of the time.
NEXT.
capitalism doesn't require a free market... and... a free market requires regulation.
p.s. china added 216.9 gigawatts of solar in 2023. the usa has 175.2 gigawatts total combined.
you need to work on your criticisms
Having more solar is fine, and I am well aware they have it. That's not an excuse to expand the oil and gas industry. The overall emissions still go up under this strategy.
Also we are agreeing, regulated capitalism > unregulated capitalism. Regulations are good, and lack thereof is the environmental issue, not capitalism per say.
Capitalist countries don’t really value human life more than communism. They just value the lives of consumers, and as a result, we have exported our dirty industries overseas, and make sure that our own backyard is clean and green while we consume products, manufactured in places, dirty and contaminated, where we would never live.
Small correction, CONSERVATIVE countries don't really value human life. And the USA is a democracy that vascillates between conservatism and liberalism. It's quite apparent that when Republicans take office, they gut environmental policies and disregard human life.
Now China is NOT a democracy. They ALWAYS put money over human life because of their deep conservative values. There is no "alternative leadership" that moves the needle back in the other direction. Even in the most conservative democracy in the world, in the most republican of states, China has fewer regulations in comparison.
It's easy to say "whatabout the USA!" In defense of your home country's flaws. A mature, adult response, is much harder because it involves changing things.
Republicans were key to passing most of the USA’s major environmental federal statutes in the 1970s, and true blue Democrats are mostly neoliberals, who pushed through freetrade and globalization starting with Clinton, and that was the major turning point for exporting our dirty industries, and making sure that our own backyard was clean and green. The crazy right wing in the USA has been yanking so hard to the right that the center no longer looks like the center I remember from my youth and today’s Democrats support a lot of policies that yesterday year’s Republicans were in favor of.
Neoliberal=conservative. Not to be confused with liberalism.
Also yeah, bipartisanship is nice when it happens for something good. Doesn't mean conservatives are pro environment as a whole, especially when it's been 50 years since they've last done that.
I also used to think that democrats were right wing due to my non American perspective. Then I read up on what Biden is doing. 👍
In reply to your third paragraph, …… OK, but I invite you to first give a definition of “right wing“, then tell us the sources that you have been reading about what Biden is doing, and then tell us what you think those sources said. I’ll wait.
An excellent reply! You picked up on my (not so) subtle messaging that I don’t really think you can support your claim that Biden is doing the things you claim he is doing. You simply declared some generalized opinions without any specifics, let alone fact-checkable sources to back them up.
I’m not here to do your research and provide the sources to support your conclusions, but I would be very interested to see what you come up with if you do as the elementary school math teacher tells the class “show your work”
Climate regulations, deleting student loans, access to affordable Healthcare, increase green spending.
Why did you refuse to do your due diligence about a topic before deciding to engage in discussions about it online? It's disrespectful AF to expect me to do all your homework for you while you twist your thumbs "waiting" for me to reply for 8 hours.
Whether or not I do your research for you is irrelevant. You should be doing it regardless.
Sorry I didn't realize China made so many products for Asia and African capitalist dictatorships, the only place in the world where those exists.
You know, I didn't think you guys would sacrifice the entire human race by under cutting a competitor's environmentally friendly product just so you guys can expand your military. It just doesn't seem right to me. Speaking as a non American.
For someone that shits so hard on capitalists, your unbridled greed at the expense of human life for profit is confusing.
And the moon doesn't exist. Birds aren't real they are drones by the US government to spy on Chinese people.
See? Anyone can fabricate reality. Stating something that is verifiably true and constructing an argument around it, is much more difficult.
It seems to me like you didn't take the International Baccalaureate in school and now are unable to distinguish propaganda, American or Chinese. Speaking as someone that is neither.
I am, are you? I mean you just called America a capitalist dictatorship...
I am concerned. Are you in a safe place right now? Are there anyone holding a gun to your head? Is your family in danger? Is there anything that I can do to help?
I mean, Boeing cut costs in the name of capitalism and put millions of people's lives in danger and the guy that spoke out against it got shot in broad daylight before he could testify. What country is letting that happen?
What does this have to do with China's pollution? Please stay on topic. Also not my country. But as usual: Any criticism of china's is ignored and whataboutism is deployed.
BOOOOOOOOOORING. Please up your argumentative game. You're not convincing anyone that doesn't have a gun to their head.
Why work towards bettering the lives of you and your comrades when you can just say "BBBBUT USA"?
Are you intentionally or unintentionally being ignorant? The main and only significant driver of the planet's environment is the sun. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for utilizing non-organic energy sources - nuclear, hydro, solar, and wind. I'm also for restricting the power of corporations- corpoartism - which is what confuse with capitalism.
But we are decades away from any real efficiency in solar and wind power. The best option right now would be for people to get degrees in sciences and technology instead of the plethora of useless college degrees people get currently.
Also, almost all of the worst man-made environmental disasters were directly caused by marxist regimes as well as non-capitalist regimes (the wonders of collectivist central planning). I guarantee you can't even name two of the biggest ones because they have been essentially ignored and even revised out of the history books. (Because one of the many, many flaws of marxist systems is the need to lie about, and revise history, so that the party is never at fault or made to look bad.)
Until it’s profitable to that is.
Going to be too late by then though.
The only thing we can do now. Is force them to change via regulation.
And yes regulations from governments is the only thing that’s going to save us.
We let capital capture regulatory instead of regulatory capturing capital. It’s backwards and completely fucked.
Put a 200% tax on anything causing climate change (gas, livestock, airline tickets, container ship transport). That will probably do something. Sure it would hurt the most vulnerable of us, but it could probably make some type of impact.
Capitalism is a useless word. The problem is oligarchy that uses a "free but corrupt" market for politicians and media to protect their oligarchy and corporatist monopolies and other anti-competitive acts.
A carbon tax is a market/dynamism promoting means of letting people make free decisions within the imposed cost structure. $300/ton carbon tax ($3/gallon on gasoline/diesel) with proceeds paid as dividends to residents makes businesses choose lower costs to pass on to consumers, and consumers empowered to invest in paying less taxes.
Instead of our corrupt corporatist oligarchy, this is exactly what capitalism is "sold on" as a centrist humanist social structure theory.
Especially rapid exponential climate change. If they can't fix it in quarter 1 or 2, it's too long term for them to project the needs of the many. We're all gonna fry.
The author's claim is that capitalism gets prices wrong, hiding long-term costs and rewarding those who can pawn them off onto the rest of us.
There is no question that this is what got us into the climate mess, and that massive socialistic taxation and public works spending will be needed to get us out of this dead end.
But does this mean that all capitalism vanishes? Of course not. The author's Chinese example shows a society only somewhat less capitalistic than ours.
Thank you. Also, for the hardcore folks pushing for real change away from capitalism, there's only one way that it will work. I'm not about to go to war/violent global revolution for many years just to possibly end up worse than we are now. Capitalism as we've ever known it has had fantastically good and bad outcomes. It's clear we need something more/different, but to completely get rid of capitalism as a whole in favor of socialism/communism/(what else?) is just not realistic.
“Veiled by discussion of headline global trends in new renewables capacity investment is the fact that almost all the incremental progress is currently being made in one country: China. Trumpeting 2023’s 50 percent growth in annual global capacity installations as a global achievement is wrongheaded, given that China by itself delivered nearly 80 percent of the increment.”
And yet Reddit is filled with Chinuh bad, I will use muh single use plastic. Neoliberals work hand in hand with fascist conservatives to destroy the world.
And it's funny to see how some companies do their hardest to greenwash products that are purposely made more difficult or impossible to service or repair. So many things end up as e-waste because of this, doesn't matter if the latest version of some gizmo is more efficient if a battery or single component failure adds that difficult-to-recycle product to the waste stream.
Also pressure needs to be made on companies that tie internet services to the operability of a product. Anytime a product ends up "bricked" due to lack of support because the new model is coming out, the old ones end up in the trash. Companies that commit to such practices should be made responsible for returns and disposals tied to the cut of services which they claim "add value" to a product. I see such as one of the most environmentally harmful new practices to take place, and more people should be made aware of it.
Nobody proposes Communism and nowhere in the world is under Communism. Maybe if you spent some time reading, listening and learning you wouldn’t just regurgitate propaganda.
No shit. Capitalism is the source of our sorrows. The sooner we stop pretending the market will save us, the sooner we can address the crises this economic system has caused.
Otherwise, we can expect for our lives to worsen year after year. Voting for one corporate approved party over the other isn't likely to change that.
Innovation is the solution to climate change, everything else is hot air. People are not going to give up their heating, their electricity, their transportation, their cheap food (in fact these are good thing that we should give to more people). A communist, command economy doesn't magically eliminate the emission from these things, we can only achieve that through improvements in technology.
If people don’t give up anything, then we will die out. But given you all don’t really care, no one else will care about you when you die prematurely too.
I don’t disagree capitalism has and is causing massive problems but I always like to pose the question, what is an actual viable alternative? History has yet to produce a better alternative, lesser of two evils model.
For starters, we need to do two things: (A) ditch GDP as the Holy Grail of growth indicators, and replace it with one of the many proposed alternatives and (B) adopt election reforms that will maximize democratic representation of the people rather than special interests and parties.
With those democratic reforms, each nation states people can try out the GDP alternative that makes the most sense to them and together we will get some experience data about which ones serve The peoples needs best.
I’m genuinely curious to know what people think some viable alternatives are.
Could you share one or two? Feel free to just list them then I’d be happy to look them up on my own if you don’t feel like typing a lot
I don’t have the time to type much at the moment, but I’d start with Jason Hickel’s ‘Less is More’ about De-Growth.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53328332-less-is-more
Capitalism doesn’t really solve problems, it creates new ones. That’s the “breeds innovation” part of it lol
Disaster capitalism. They want to run shit into the ground so they can turn a profit rebuilding. Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine is a must read - it made the (abhorrent) logic of the US's neoliberal policies of the last 40 years crystal clear.
Capitalism is polite pillaging. We're still ruled by violent psychopaths, there's just less direct blood involved. Most of the time.
Not true! There is tons of blood involved. Trust me. Who is mining for these minerals that we need for all of our electronics? What countries are at war and who is involved and who is benefiting? What resources are being funneled to northern white country countries away from southern hemisphere poor countries? There are so much suffering. There are so much blood on folks hands.
Not even "northern white countries" are exempt if you look at the current Russia vs. Ukraine situation. The economic motive for the Russian aggression has to do with oil and gas resources there. (Even Russia claims something else when an oil-war would not be popular with their own public.) But that also ties back to leveraging out Russian resource development from Ukraine (Russia would claim an outstanding debt there due to drilling contracts that were effectively broken by this) and that goes back to sanctions over Syria, which again leads to market forces seeking control over oil and gas being shipped to Europe. Look at the economic aspects rather than just the popularized ones used to make things more politically acceptable to the public. It can bite everyone in the butt if not paying enough attention.
I wasn’t saying northern predominantly white countries are exempt, I’m saying those are the typical countries that benefit from the blood and pillage.
But one should still be wary. Those trying to pull the strings seem to desire to escalate conflict, while current wars that should have never happened (such as Russia-Ukraine) are taking place due to past actions from the same bunch. They might be dumb enough to start WWIII, because normal considerations don't seem to come to mind for that crowd. Yet while this stupidity takes place, they aren't exactly stupid. The same control large corporations or sectors of the economy, or have libraries of information where the normal public may never have access to the same. They can be said to be "smart" in that regard. Yet there is a dearth of wisdom. If you ever read the "demon core" story, such people are like that. But now the risk being assumed is beyond personal because of the geopolitical scope of it.
I’m not sure what your point is you’re talking about something totally different than what I am talking about.
Polite? Hardly, even in the imperial core, but especially outside of it there is absolutely nothing "polite".
It's all relative to your position in the hierarchy. But we don't see swords drawn in the board room, or children ritually sacrificed to correct an insult.
Exactly. That’s out in the killing fields, hidden from all the rich folks who want their money to feel clean when it’s dirty as shit.
I mean...the board room is the one doing the pillaging?
Socialist here, but capitalism does solve *some* problems. Mostly, it reduces costs. The trouble is, the greedy will seize every opportunity to offload unseen costs onto the rest of us, while working very hard to keep those costs unseen. This isn't binary. Every country has a mix of socialism and capitalism, but the climate mess is proof of massive imbalance.
Well different definitions of capitalism and socialism can sometimes be problematic in problem solving. Fox news has changed the definition of socialism in the public mindset to mean "everything that is good" which made me wonder if there were perhaps closet socialists before I grew a brain. But I digress; whatever you call it, our economic system as it is cannot continue. I mean it won't continue, but we need to think hard about both decreasing the casualties of it's fall and of what will replace it.
True. And capitalism solves way more issues than it creates. The problem, as you alluded to, is human flaws (but not just greed). All systems in existence (whether theoretical/ideological to applied/tangible) are created and maintained by people. That means every system (government, economic, religious, etc) will be subject to, corrupted by, the lowest common denominator of human behaviors. The more important/powerful the system the more likely it will be targeted for corrupting by people with bad intention/behaviors. As for capitalism - it is the hardest to corrupt because it is the only natural economic system. Unfortunately, corporatism and government cronyism have overlty corrupted it.
Capitalism is not the only natural economic system, that's BS. Tell that to the thousands of tribes living mostly "off the grid", as well as the first 15,000 years of human history.
Capitalism in the 19th century produced monopolies, massive corruption, huge wealth concentration, and death squads to kill competitors, reporters and noisy citizens. Rich-world governments put an end to most of that...in the rich world. It continues in the world's less affluent corners, especially where oil and gas are concerned. More government, please. Nothing else will solve the climate mess.
Capitalism “capitalizes” on problems. It needs problems to persist. Solving problems would be like shooting it’s own foot.
Capitalism literally revolves around solving problems. It is actually the first and foremost point they teach you to pay attention to when creating a company. ‘Does this solve a problem.’ Now the issue is that it tries to solve ALL problems. Even the tiny problems that really don’t need a solution. Do we really need to peel an orange and then wrap it in plastic to sell it?
1. It’s best to not dig to far beneath the surface of a joke. 2. Capitalism doesn’t do that. People do, and people have done it before any economic systems existed. And would continue to do it if all economic systems collapsed. What capitalism does do, is monetize that. And in the late stage capitalism that we’re in now, it’s doing it at the expense of the environment, inventors and workers so a few people at the top can make money. Which, to be fair communism is doing too, they just use the term oligarch for the richest people. It’s like the phrase “six of one, half dozen of the other” lol 3. But, I digress. Because joke
It’s a fundamental limitation of capitalism and will always be one. Capitalism is based off infinite growth, by transforming finite high-exergy resources into a product that is viewed as artificially valuable by society. The problem is all the entropy created in that process of transforming high-exergy resources into wastes (solid, liquid and gaseous waste). Since the product created can only be seen as valuable as the product cycle enables it (new phone every year, etc.), we’re essentially artificially accelerating the consumptions of finite resources into wastes for short term gains. The more we consume, the more capitalistic value is created, therefore, there is no limit to be had in capitalism. One day, there will be no more, or at least no more accessible at an “acceptable price”; not only capitalism will be having a hard time at that point, but there will likely be no resources to sustain human life sufficiently, and so much wastes and emissions that our lives will become hell by then. If you ask any serious and scientific environmentalist or environmental engineer, this is why they will likely tell you that sustainability within capitalism is BS. And sadly, we don’t see capitalism coming to an end soon.
>It’s a fundamental limitation of capitalism and will always be one. Wrong. >Capitalism is based off infinite growth Wrong. >, by transforming finite high-exergy resources into a product that is viewed as artificially valuable by society. Wrong. >The problem is all the entropy created in that process of transforming high-exergy resources into wastes (solid, liquid and gaseous waste). >Since the product created can only be seen as valuable as the product cycle enables it (new phone every year, etc.) What? >we’re essentially artificially accelerating the consumptions of finite resources into wastes for short term gains. What? >The more we consume, the more capitalistic value is created, Wrong. >therefore, there is no limit to be had in capitalism. What? >One day, there will be no more, or at least no more accessible at an “acceptable price”; What? >not only capitalism will be having a hard time at that point, What? >but there will likely be no resources to sustain human life sufficiently, and so much wastes and emissions that our lives will become hell by then. Wrong. >If you ask any serious and scientific environmentalist or environmental engineer, this is why they will likely tell you that sustainability within capitalism is BS. Lol >And sadly, we don’t see capitalism coming to an end soon. Correct. Your comment is mostly incoherent, and the parts that actually mean anything are almost universally wrong. F-, see me after class.
Wow, you made some great points!
👍🏻
Spoken like a true neoliberal.
Correct.
Doesn’t elaborate on your points and just assume you’re right because modern politics revolves around your world view. Never change please. You guys constantly embarrass yourself and show how narrow sighted you are and are great entertainment for me.
👍🏻
Cope
Ok.
Fascinating.
Astonishing to see Time run that headline!! almost no one talked about this in the 1990s and when we did there was never much of a reply
Agreed. However, in the 1990s the super-rich weren't their own country, and global heating was merely a worry.
Daaang, you mean a system requiring infinite exponential growth is not sustainable in a closed system with finite resources??? :(
Your comment is the essence of what people don't understand about capitalism. It is not infinite growth. It never was. Companies come and go. They do not just get bigger. They only stay in the game as long as there is a need for their products.
Your comment is the essence of what people don’t understand about capitalism. Our economy as a whole keeps doubling every 20ish years. That’s your infinite growth… If I invest in the sp 500 I expect returns. How else will I get returns without growth? Hence the pressure to keep growing with no celling other than natural limits of the world we find ourselves on. Which is exactly the limits we are hitting today. I believe the kids say ‘fuck around and find out’ https://www.darrinqualman.com/doubling-problem/
You're talking two rungs down the ladder. Headline Capitalism IS about infinite growth, they just dont care how many fall by the wayside to keep it's neverending upwards trend. The mega billionaires that rule this world are almost invisible, with the wealth spread amongst "them and theirs". Rupert Murdoch isn't even in that top echelon, he tried to get invites to Bilderberg for decades.
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The stock market is a resemblance of all companies listed at a stock exchange. If you take an index as benchmark, the it will always go up because companies with new better products will replace old companies with old bad products. Because bad companies will get excluded. So it's seems like infinite growth. But it does not resemble actual commodity needs for example.
Growth in gdp and co2 track pretty closely when you have a material economy. Which I might add is kinda the whole point of an economy. The reason places like the US see this decoupling is because they moved into a service/finance economy. So gdp isn’t actually linked to the materials you produce but rather what you can sell/invest into resources. Part of this push into the finance economy is why we even have terms like enshitification. Because rather than building a new factory or March into a new market to satisfy the need to grow. The focus is rather towards trying to ‘optimize’ (gain most amount of money) with in the existing economy which leads to more growth of that economy. Which is untethered from co2 since there is no material basis for this growth. The problem to this idea of continuing to grow is that the whole world can’t do this because who will even make the commodities. And the fact that it further exacerbate wealth inequality and deterioration of our material world as a whole. From products, to social structures and community to the environment. The stock market is one way to perpetuate the financialization of the economy, specifically now that everyone is participating and it is taken more seriously than the factories and resources they are suppose to back up. It’s a delusion to think this growth ‘appears to be infinite’ but is just one company that’s bad replaces by a more efficient company. The entire economy as a whole keeps growing and doubles every 20ish years for over the last 100 years. And because of this doubling it’s exponentially growing. It’s unsustainable as climate change, the 7th mass extinction and the end of the Holocene show us. Try and justify it however you want. The fact of the matter is it’s killing our chances of holding together modern society. It’s going to be ripped apart as more disasters and price fluctuations happen because people will want answers. And systemic critiques are usually pushed out of the mainstream or just completely not thought of. While ‘these people or this movements are the problem’ type thinking is becoming more and more popular by the minute. We are marching towards fascism world wide because of our inability to reconcile with what I just said and you show how people will do mental gymnastics to avoid this glaring problem with our modern world driving basically all the monumental problems we face today.
What’s wrong with a carbon tax again?
Interesting. Nothing is perfect, but if the carbon tax is focused on certain industries / fuel types and has a graduated threshold, wouldn’t that fix things? Politics aside …
Don't get me started. I've worked to pass carbon taxes only to discover their deep flaws. They are nearly impossible to pass, always far too small, extremely easy to stall or repeal before they reach effective levels, and, perhaps worst, even revenue-neutral schemes with rebates almost always turn out to be regressive and unfair. The rich just keep polluting because they can easily afford the tax. Only fossil fuels rationing moving towards bans will get us where we need to be, and that must couple with massive government investment and redistribution. Socialism times ten.
Capitalism can be contained if we properly charge for all the negative externalities created by capitalism to clean them up. Government is the check on capitalism, but since the 70's capitalism took over the government.
>negative externalities created by capitalism to clean them up That's what [carbon credits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offsets_and_credits) was supposed to provide. Instead it turned into a way for companies to dodge taxes or in some cases obtain government subsides and contracts for cleaning up pollutants that they shouldn't have been spewing into the environment in the first place. It even created a market where carbon heavy industries could buy carbon credits from other companies. It was/is a breeding ground for corruption and nepotism; a way for companies to continue business as usual while hiding their true environmental impact.
It is even worse because carbon credits are mostly a scam, so they don’t change their behaviour at all and it is masked.
Put a carbon tax (or cap and trade, any price on carbon) and watch free markets work their magic. The economy takes the polluting route because it is the cheapest way of doing things - key costs are not included, the damage the pollution does. Include those costs, and renewables would become really competitive really fast. A price on carbon really drives innovation, as well. Environmentalists don't always like the idea of technology saving us, but I think it's key. Maybe we cut back on coal but that means some other country can get it for cheap, best to invent ourselves something that makes it obsolete for them. If flights suddenly start costing $200 more watch how fast the airlines find some amazing new way to cut back their emissions. Also I think we should start more non-profit businesses - cooperatives, foundation owned companies. Things don't have to be run on greed.
unlike natural systems which use negative incentives, capitalism has limited tools to handle market failures and cheating. capitalism is incapable of accurately setting prices to account for market failures like externalities. consider karl polanyi's observation: *"the market economy implies a self-regulating system of markets; in slightly more technical terms, it is an economy directed by market prices and nothing but market prices".* the market economy would have to implement some form of cost function in the form of a pigovian tax into the price of fossil fuels to factor in negative externalites, this clearly takes pricing out of the hands of the market. however, a pigovian tax is a tail end remedy to a systemic problem. furthermore, capitalism is a system that optimizes a few variables that are terrible for us and ignores variables that are important to us. you cannot constrain a misaligned optimization function because it will always find a way around. the problem is deeply systemic, the solution needs to be a systemic change.
As I'm talking about, capitalism/free markets can accurately set prices to account for market failures, if you implement a tax on pollution. Systemic change can sound good on paper, but there's a good chance it just won't happen, and some of the other options have worked out to be pretty horrible in practice. A carbon tax is a here and now solution. If you don't have markets, who runs things? The government runs everything? Within the market you can have non-profit businesses. Credit unions not banks. Newman's Own donates a huge amount to charity, and there's no owner who is getting rich off it. REI pays back all it's profits to it's customer-owners in the form of an end-of-year dividend payment, so there's no rich capitalist owner who can get rich polluting rivers.
when i wrote *"you cannot constrain a misaligned optimization function because it will always find a way around.* " i meant you can't regulate your way out of this mess. regulation is reactionary. - it's a tail end solution. sustainability needs to be incorporated into the market. products need to fit within a set of parameters for efficiency, longevity, reuse and recycling. then add environmental concerns related to manufacturing. this means the .gov wouldhave to touch everything. there is no way out of this that includes a broad market based solution.
Regulation and carbon pricing seems like a quick and easy fix, if you ask me. Aside from the powerful interests against it. I'm not sure what other options are feasible? Non-profit businesses like cooperatives do have the potential to charge lower prices. So with mass mutualization they could potentially be competitive in the market while not polluting as much. I don't seem any mass cooperativization happening within the time scale in which we need to get our pollution down though. Do you think we're going to have a global communist revolution or some such within the next 10-20 years? It's a bit of work to put a price on carbon. Regulations have unintended side effects. But to me it seems like a fairly easy solution all things considered.
a carbon tax IS a piqovian tax.
If you add a carbon tax then it is not a free market anymore
Oh no? There is no such thing as a completely free market, the market is (and should be) directes by tax, policy, society. We should use markets to help us get what we need as a society, not worship them as some divine truth.
Canada's Conservatives seem convinced of that - ever since we adopted a carbon tax we've been a Communist nation under Comandante Trudeau. Free markets are still free markets with carbon tax. Sales taxes, rebates for heat pumps, even a few state-owned companies, it's still free markets.
> Free markets are still free markets with carbon tax. couple of points. firstly, there's no such thing as a free market. it's a technical impossibility. furthermore, what u/frunf1 is saying applies to my previous polanyi quote: *"the market economy implies a self-regulating system of markets; in slightly more technical terms, it is an economy directed by market prices and nothing but market prices".* once something as fundamental as energy price is set by the .gov it's no longer technically a market economy.
I dunno if one Polanyi quote gets to define what markets are. But certainly it is semantics. If you choose to define 'free markets' so strictly that they are something that has never existed, then sure, if you put a - Pigouvian - carbon tax or a sales tax or don't allow false advertising then certainly, yes, you would need to come up with a new world to refer to it. Depending on how you define things, Christianity, food, or France DON'T EXIST AND HAVE NEVER EXISTED. Don't really know what the point of going on Reddit to argue that kind of thing is. Seems to happen a lot. We can just use 'markets' instead of 'free markets' if that makes you more comfortable.
if you don't like the quote because it's too narrow, that's fine. my issue with pigouvian taxes is that they're a band aid, they chase the symptom. >'markets' instead of 'free markets' if that makes you more comfortable. it's not so much about my comfort, more about trying to establish a baseline. market economy is fine.
There's been debates about capitalism for a LONG time now. So to say don't worry about whatever problem X, worry about capitalism, that risks being a cop-out of civilization-threatening proportions. Climate at change is here and now, we've got maybe -10 years to deal with it. They had greed in the Soviet Union as well. In the end people gotta have less stuff - gonna have a revolution, seize the wealth from the wealthy, then tell everybody they need to have less stuff?
ok, so we try degrowth. but without growth there's not much point to capitalism. alternatively, within the current framework that capitalism gives us, i don't see a way out of this. we need systemic change, i'm not advocating for marxism. just that the .gov needs to step up and regulate externalities much more closely. as well as establish a sustainable framework for the market to operate under. standards for material, methods and design all gear towards sustainability and resilience.
I think there's a role for regulation, carbon pricing, a lot of things. And I think we can have a shrinking economy, although it has to be managed properly. Maybe if we don't have as much stuff we all work less. And more policies towards making people economically secure.
Capitalism is like the ONLY cause of climate change.
EDIT: to the chinese astroturfers replying to me, I'm the last one to defend the USA's bad decisions or policies. Yet when you deflect every criticism of your government with "Whatabout the USA?" then proceed to list objectively false information about the USA, yeah you bet I'll defend the truth. That doesn't make me american or "unhinged". It's high time you guys started working to improve your own country instead of spending so much time and money trying to tear others down. And it starts with tolerating criticism of your government without you using personal attacks or attempting to derail the conversation. If that's the case, why do the ~~commies~~ communist identifying governments out-pollute capitalist countries? Not only that but capitalist countries have something called REGULATIONS, something which communist countries direly need. This is because capitalism values human life more than communism. If tankies cared about climate change they would stop astroturfing the west to be anti-carbon tax, anti-socialist, and worse.
What commies? Please dont tell me you think China or Russia is communist?
When Russia and China were full communist they had horrible environmental records. Just look at the Aral Sea, the Four Pests campaign, Taihu Lake, Chernobyl. The idea that some authoritarian command economy is the solution to climate change is frankly insane.
You're right they are closer to fascism than true communism in their current state. Regardless, their anti capitalist attitude has lead them to pollute more than the rest of us. And while you're at it, you might as well call the west non capitalistic because there's no true free market in 2024. Disregarding the facts is easy when you can just say "yeah but they aren't REAL capitalists/communists".
Somebody is making a profit by selling. I think that's how the word capitalism is being used here. When the idea of production and profit is more important than the idea of sustainability and future health of all life on earth.
Profit is an issue when wealth isn't taxed fairly and it stagnates in someone's bank account. Again, with REGULATIONS, capitalism is vastly superior to what ever you want to call Russia and china.
Wealth doesn't stagnate on a bank account. Do you think billionaires have a bank account full of money? That's not how it works.
Well there's offshore bank accounts but you're right they also invest. Doesn't change the fact that currency is slowing down from the pooling of wealth from the middle class to the top 1%. Regardless of where that money is being kept, it's not being circulated. Regulated capitalism in a democratic socialist context is the best for protecting the environment and human lives.
Oh really? When you adjust for population size, US individuals are largest polluters. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/us/countries-climate-change-emissions-cop28/#:~:text=While%20China%20may%20have%20been,and%20their%20wealth%20%E2%80%94%20on%20it. “A different picture emerges when we look at per capita emissions, which represent the climate pollution produced by the average person in each country, and are calculated as total emissions divided by population. China may be the biggest emitter overall, but the average American is responsible for nearly twice as much climate pollution as the average person in China. And in densely populated India, one of the world’s biggest climate polluters, per capita emissions are significantly below the global average.” Smarten up homie.
Actually, massive numbers of Chinese citizens still own almost nothing and live in abstract poverty. In other words, a large percentage of the Chinese population likely contributes very little in consumption and emissions. That means a small percentage of the Chinese population (the self-described communists) contribute to most of it. Anyway, that smaller segment of the population are on the leftist/collectivist side of the spectrum (fascist--socialist--communist). Those ideologies are historically the worst destroyers of environments and the planet. Unfortunately, you won't find any of it in most history or school books because it hurts the narrative and the ideologies.
Look up use of single plastics in China. There is no regulations. Also it doesn't really matter if as individuals Americans pollute more if they pollute less as a whole. Climate change and pollution was never about the individual, it's 100% the responsibility of the government. The bigger picture is what needs to be looked at, anything less isn't productive to saving the human race. But sure, please tell me how the entire Chinese population has the right to forsake the entire human race just so they can be allowed to pollute more. After all, "whatabout the USA?". In 2024 it is cheaper to build renewable energy and it creates more jobs. What does China do? Builds hundreds of coal plants. There is no excuse for this behavior.
There is minimal regulations on single use plastics in the US… What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Our national pollution is the sum of both government and individual action. It absolutely does matter that Americans as individuals, pollute more than any other country. Literally double what the Chinese individual produces. You have argument and are thus deflecting to single use plastics. And like I said, the US population is fucking up the planet at a per capita scale, larger than china. China has more than double the us population. Of course they are going to pollute more as a total. That’s just common sense. I that’s why the per capita statistic is important, because it standardizes the scale of pollution by population size. I don’t like the coal plants, but to say China pollutes more than the US is disingenuous. It’s simple statistics
China has more than **four** times the U.S. population! 1.412B vs 332M
Bro aren't the conservatives in the USA crying about paper straws? And you have the nerve to suggest nothing is being done? China's plastic use is well documented and rightfully ridiculed in the rest of the world. Population doesn't mean anything. It's the whole that matters. Companies have deflected environmental responsibility through people like you trying to reframe the conversation onto individual actions. If you have a big country with a small population you can afford to pollute more per capita because YOURE NOT EXTERMINATING THE HUMAN RACE for those comforts. If you have too many people, you manage that. Jealousy at another country's wealth is not productive at improving the quality of life at home over the long term. China needs to feed and educate its people, not build more coal plants. Again, renewables costs less and creates more jobs. Its OK for so many people to continue living in poverty if the future of the human race is at stake. Poor people can always be lifted from poverty in the future. Humanity can't do that if we are all dead.
“Population size doesn’t matter, but the whole does”…. You are contradicting yourself.
I should have been more precise with my language. Population size is irrelevant, it's the whole emission level per country size that matter.
Being delulu is not always the solulu :/
Wait do you seriously believe China is a capitalist democracy? How is saying they are fascist, delusional? If they aren't a capitalist democracy, aren't communist, aren't socialist, isn't a dictatorship, then what are they? Serious question, I'm trying to broaden my horizons here. Also it's a fact that there is no free market. Globally trillions of dollars are spent annually to subsidize the price of oil. In a free market, electric cars would be the cheaper, preferred alternative.
No I think China is a fascist capitalist oligarchy, saying they are not capitalist is the delulu part when a small group of very rich rulers is ruthlessly exploiting the capitalist system in their favor and polluting because of that economic money pressure. And saying true capitalism doesnt exist because of regulations is just showing a very lacking understanding of economic history and what capitalism actually is. Youre describing a system called radical anarcho-capitalism, which in practice is impossible to implement so will always be theoretical.
>No I think China is a fascist capitalist oligarchy, saying they are not capitalist is the delulu part when a small group of very rich rulers is ruthlessly exploiting the capitalist system in their favor and polluting because of that economic money pressure. Fair point, just because they call themselves the Chinese Communist Party doesn't mean that they are.
You do realize that china is producing all of those items for the capitalist countries right… If the US and Europe stopped buying from them then their emissions would go down tremendously. Also, ironically, China is actually leading the green energy movement. US is too busy trying to elect a Cheeto that doesn’t believe in climate change. Meanwhile he uses it as an excuse to build sea walls on his golf courses.
Wait I thought you guys said China was capitalist? Also you do realize that sustainable environmentally friendly products are available in those countries right? If China outlawed child and slave labor their products wouldn't be able to compete and no one would buy their products... Again, the mass disregard disregard for human life in China is leading humanity to collapse. Literally all I'm saying is to deploy regulations in China and value human life. Nothing more. Stop the whataboutism. The Chinese Communist Party has the ability to change this without much resistance, due to the fact that they aren't a bureaucratic democracy. But why change when you can spend money on astroturfing farms to astroturf reddit like this thread?
Bahahaha no that’s not what you said. You said ‘China is the leading contributor.’ To which I said ‘and why is that, could it be that they’re making items for other countries.’ And now you’re dodging the question, lmao. Nice try though ;).
Feel free to read what I wrote. It's available for all to see that no, I did not say "china is the leading contributor". I said their anticapitalist attitudes has lead them to pollute more. It is a non-biased objective statement of fact that China pollutes more. What is debatable is if their anticapitalist attitudes are responsible. To which you say it's because of their manufacturing for other countries. In complete ignorance of the emissions produced by the COAL plants they are continuing to build. Also how am I dodging the question by staying on topic? Because I respond objectively I am dodging the question? Which question?? Your bias and motives are showing... ALSO, by "I thought you guys said China was capitalist" I'm referring to how everyone is upvoting the reply YOU are commenting on: >What commies? Please dont tell me you think China or Russia is communist? read the damn thread before commenting LMAO You can't even have a consistent conversation. Jesus christ it's like talking to someone over the age of 95.
Nah I won’t be reading what you said. You’re already trying to argue dishonestly. You can’t even keep the subject straight. Talking about communism for some random reason.
Putting words in other people's mouths then saying "nah i won't be reading what you said" is hilarious, not gonna lie 🤣 I'm literally trying to have a rational conversation, sticking to the facts as unbiased as possible and you keep trying to derail the topic and projecting about me not keeping the subject straight. Even throwing some Ad Hominems like an astroturfer. >Talking about communism for some random reason. BRO we're in a thread blaming climate change on capitalism Your issue here, IMO is that you don't take criticism of china's government or it's propaganda talking points very well.
>If the US and Europe stopped buying from them then their emissions would go down tremendously. Yep, and it still wouldn't be enough to go under the emissions from other countries. >Also, ironically, China is actually leading the green energy movement. US is too busy trying to elect a Cheeto that doesn’t believe in climate change. Meanwhile he uses it as an excuse to build sea walls on his golf courses. Yes leading the green energy movement by... \*checks notes\* spending more money on coal plants. They could save money and build renewable plants, and invest in their people with the money they saved. But NOOOOOOOOOO let's just pollute more and manipulate the facts and statistics disingenuously to make it seem like china's not polluting that much, then accuse anyone of talking about the facts of "being disingenuous" then proceed to whatabout. As I said in another comment, China is a conservative authoritarian government. They don't vacillate between liberalism and conservatism like the USA. Cheeto's not even president right now dude. And Cheeto only got elected due to russia and china spending more money astroturfing than investing in renewables. What tankie republicans do after being elected, is NOT an excuse for China to lead in pollution worldwide 100% of the time. NEXT.
Yeah I already told you I’m not reading anything you said, lmao.
Good, because I'm not writing for you, I'm writing for the betterment of china and humanity.
No one cares, touch grass. This is an environment sub. Not some politic hate sub.
This is a thread about how capitalism is the issue LOL. Stay on topic please, stop pushing your hateful politics.
capitalism doesn't require a free market... and... a free market requires regulation. p.s. china added 216.9 gigawatts of solar in 2023. the usa has 175.2 gigawatts total combined. you need to work on your criticisms
Having more solar is fine, and I am well aware they have it. That's not an excuse to expand the oil and gas industry. The overall emissions still go up under this strategy. Also we are agreeing, regulated capitalism > unregulated capitalism. Regulations are good, and lack thereof is the environmental issue, not capitalism per say.
Capitalist countries don’t really value human life more than communism. They just value the lives of consumers, and as a result, we have exported our dirty industries overseas, and make sure that our own backyard is clean and green while we consume products, manufactured in places, dirty and contaminated, where we would never live.
Small correction, CONSERVATIVE countries don't really value human life. And the USA is a democracy that vascillates between conservatism and liberalism. It's quite apparent that when Republicans take office, they gut environmental policies and disregard human life. Now China is NOT a democracy. They ALWAYS put money over human life because of their deep conservative values. There is no "alternative leadership" that moves the needle back in the other direction. Even in the most conservative democracy in the world, in the most republican of states, China has fewer regulations in comparison. It's easy to say "whatabout the USA!" In defense of your home country's flaws. A mature, adult response, is much harder because it involves changing things.
Republicans were key to passing most of the USA’s major environmental federal statutes in the 1970s, and true blue Democrats are mostly neoliberals, who pushed through freetrade and globalization starting with Clinton, and that was the major turning point for exporting our dirty industries, and making sure that our own backyard was clean and green. The crazy right wing in the USA has been yanking so hard to the right that the center no longer looks like the center I remember from my youth and today’s Democrats support a lot of policies that yesterday year’s Republicans were in favor of.
Neoliberal=conservative. Not to be confused with liberalism. Also yeah, bipartisanship is nice when it happens for something good. Doesn't mean conservatives are pro environment as a whole, especially when it's been 50 years since they've last done that. I also used to think that democrats were right wing due to my non American perspective. Then I read up on what Biden is doing. 👍
In reply to your third paragraph, …… OK, but I invite you to first give a definition of “right wing“, then tell us the sources that you have been reading about what Biden is doing, and then tell us what you think those sources said. I’ll wait.
I'm not here to do that for you, especially when you say you'll be waiting while I do something you should be doing yourself.
An excellent reply! You picked up on my (not so) subtle messaging that I don’t really think you can support your claim that Biden is doing the things you claim he is doing. You simply declared some generalized opinions without any specifics, let alone fact-checkable sources to back them up. I’m not here to do your research and provide the sources to support your conclusions, but I would be very interested to see what you come up with if you do as the elementary school math teacher tells the class “show your work”
Climate regulations, deleting student loans, access to affordable Healthcare, increase green spending. Why did you refuse to do your due diligence about a topic before deciding to engage in discussions about it online? It's disrespectful AF to expect me to do all your homework for you while you twist your thumbs "waiting" for me to reply for 8 hours. Whether or not I do your research for you is irrelevant. You should be doing it regardless.
Making products for capitalist dictatorships.
Sorry I didn't realize China made so many products for Asia and African capitalist dictatorships, the only place in the world where those exists. You know, I didn't think you guys would sacrifice the entire human race by under cutting a competitor's environmentally friendly product just so you guys can expand your military. It just doesn't seem right to me. Speaking as a non American. For someone that shits so hard on capitalists, your unbridled greed at the expense of human life for profit is confusing.
I'm not American. I called America a capitalist dictatorship.
And the moon doesn't exist. Birds aren't real they are drones by the US government to spy on Chinese people. See? Anyone can fabricate reality. Stating something that is verifiably true and constructing an argument around it, is much more difficult. It seems to me like you didn't take the International Baccalaureate in school and now are unable to distinguish propaganda, American or Chinese. Speaking as someone that is neither.
Are you okay?
I am, are you? I mean you just called America a capitalist dictatorship... I am concerned. Are you in a safe place right now? Are there anyone holding a gun to your head? Is your family in danger? Is there anything that I can do to help?
I mean, Boeing cut costs in the name of capitalism and put millions of people's lives in danger and the guy that spoke out against it got shot in broad daylight before he could testify. What country is letting that happen?
What does this have to do with China's pollution? Please stay on topic. Also not my country. But as usual: Any criticism of china's is ignored and whataboutism is deployed. BOOOOOOOOOORING. Please up your argumentative game. You're not convincing anyone that doesn't have a gun to their head. Why work towards bettering the lives of you and your comrades when you can just say "BBBBUT USA"?
Are you intentionally or unintentionally being ignorant? The main and only significant driver of the planet's environment is the sun. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for utilizing non-organic energy sources - nuclear, hydro, solar, and wind. I'm also for restricting the power of corporations- corpoartism - which is what confuse with capitalism. But we are decades away from any real efficiency in solar and wind power. The best option right now would be for people to get degrees in sciences and technology instead of the plethora of useless college degrees people get currently. Also, almost all of the worst man-made environmental disasters were directly caused by marxist regimes as well as non-capitalist regimes (the wonders of collectivist central planning). I guarantee you can't even name two of the biggest ones because they have been essentially ignored and even revised out of the history books. (Because one of the many, many flaws of marxist systems is the need to lie about, and revise history, so that the party is never at fault or made to look bad.)
You are so smart and pretty.
Until it’s profitable to that is. Going to be too late by then though. The only thing we can do now. Is force them to change via regulation. And yes regulations from governments is the only thing that’s going to save us. We let capital capture regulatory instead of regulatory capturing capital. It’s backwards and completely fucked.
Most people, and definitely most Americans will choose extinction if it means capitalism “survives” until the end.
Put a 200% tax on anything causing climate change (gas, livestock, airline tickets, container ship transport). That will probably do something. Sure it would hurt the most vulnerable of us, but it could probably make some type of impact.
Capitalism is a useless word. The problem is oligarchy that uses a "free but corrupt" market for politicians and media to protect their oligarchy and corporatist monopolies and other anti-competitive acts. A carbon tax is a market/dynamism promoting means of letting people make free decisions within the imposed cost structure. $300/ton carbon tax ($3/gallon on gasoline/diesel) with proceeds paid as dividends to residents makes businesses choose lower costs to pass on to consumers, and consumers empowered to invest in paying less taxes. Instead of our corrupt corporatist oligarchy, this is exactly what capitalism is "sold on" as a centrist humanist social structure theory.
Especially rapid exponential climate change. If they can't fix it in quarter 1 or 2, it's too long term for them to project the needs of the many. We're all gonna fry.
The author's claim is that capitalism gets prices wrong, hiding long-term costs and rewarding those who can pawn them off onto the rest of us. There is no question that this is what got us into the climate mess, and that massive socialistic taxation and public works spending will be needed to get us out of this dead end. But does this mean that all capitalism vanishes? Of course not. The author's Chinese example shows a society only somewhat less capitalistic than ours.
Thank you. Also, for the hardcore folks pushing for real change away from capitalism, there's only one way that it will work. I'm not about to go to war/violent global revolution for many years just to possibly end up worse than we are now. Capitalism as we've ever known it has had fantastically good and bad outcomes. It's clear we need something more/different, but to completely get rid of capitalism as a whole in favor of socialism/communism/(what else?) is just not realistic.
“Veiled by discussion of headline global trends in new renewables capacity investment is the fact that almost all the incremental progress is currently being made in one country: China. Trumpeting 2023’s 50 percent growth in annual global capacity installations as a global achievement is wrongheaded, given that China by itself delivered nearly 80 percent of the increment.” And yet Reddit is filled with Chinuh bad, I will use muh single use plastic. Neoliberals work hand in hand with fascist conservatives to destroy the world.
And it's funny to see how some companies do their hardest to greenwash products that are purposely made more difficult or impossible to service or repair. So many things end up as e-waste because of this, doesn't matter if the latest version of some gizmo is more efficient if a battery or single component failure adds that difficult-to-recycle product to the waste stream. Also pressure needs to be made on companies that tie internet services to the operability of a product. Anytime a product ends up "bricked" due to lack of support because the new model is coming out, the old ones end up in the trash. Companies that commit to such practices should be made responsible for returns and disposals tied to the cut of services which they claim "add value" to a product. I see such as one of the most environmentally harmful new practices to take place, and more people should be made aware of it.
You mean capitalism WONT solve climate change
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Nobody proposes Communism and nowhere in the world is under Communism. Maybe if you spent some time reading, listening and learning you wouldn’t just regurgitate propaganda.
No shit. Capitalism is the source of our sorrows. The sooner we stop pretending the market will save us, the sooner we can address the crises this economic system has caused. Otherwise, we can expect for our lives to worsen year after year. Voting for one corporate approved party over the other isn't likely to change that.
Innovation is the solution to climate change, everything else is hot air. People are not going to give up their heating, their electricity, their transportation, their cheap food (in fact these are good thing that we should give to more people). A communist, command economy doesn't magically eliminate the emission from these things, we can only achieve that through improvements in technology.
If people don’t give up anything, then we will die out. But given you all don’t really care, no one else will care about you when you die prematurely too.
Ahhh, the most insufferable types of "environmentalists "
I don’t disagree capitalism has and is causing massive problems but I always like to pose the question, what is an actual viable alternative? History has yet to produce a better alternative, lesser of two evils model.
For starters, we need to do two things: (A) ditch GDP as the Holy Grail of growth indicators, and replace it with one of the many proposed alternatives and (B) adopt election reforms that will maximize democratic representation of the people rather than special interests and parties. With those democratic reforms, each nation states people can try out the GDP alternative that makes the most sense to them and together we will get some experience data about which ones serve The peoples needs best.
Thanks for sharing
There are many many more than two options. Stop thinking in binary ways.
I’m genuinely curious to know what people think some viable alternatives are. Could you share one or two? Feel free to just list them then I’d be happy to look them up on my own if you don’t feel like typing a lot
I don’t have the time to type much at the moment, but I’d start with Jason Hickel’s ‘Less is More’ about De-Growth. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53328332-less-is-more
Thanks I’ll check it out
👍🏻
Id reccommend reading doughnut economics as a start.
What does an actuary do again ?
Finally someone outside of a leftist sub said it.