It's capitalism or a habitable planet - you can't have both

[The Straight Story]

It's capitalism or a habitable planet - you can't have both

by Robert Newman


There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change. A cap on this and a quota on the other won't do it. Tinker at the edges as we may, we cannot sustain earth's life-support systems within the present economic system.

Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a finite planet. And yet this ideological model remains the central organising principle of our lives, and as long as it continues to be so it will automatically undo (with its invisible hand) every single green initiative anybody cares to come up with.

Much discussion of energy, with never a word about power, leads to the fallacy of a low-impact, green capitalism somehow put at the service of environmentalism. In reality, power concentrates around wealth. Private ownership of trade and industry means that the decisive political force in the world is private power. The corporation will outflank every puny law and regulation that seeks to constrain its profitability. It therefore stands in the way of the functioning democracy needed to tackle climate change. Only by breaking up corporate power and bringing it under social control will we be able to overcome the global environmental crisis.

On these pages we have been called on to admire capital's ability to take robust action while governments dither. All hail Wal-Mart for imposing a 20% reduction in its own carbon emissions. But the point is that supermarkets are over. We cannot have such long supply lines between us and our food. Not any more. The very model of the supermarket is unsustainable, what with the packaging, food miles and destruction of British farming. Small, independent suppliers, processors and retailers or community-owned shops selling locally produced food provide a social glue and reduce carbon emissions. The same is true of food co-ops such as Manchester's bulk-distribution scheme serving former "food deserts".

http://www.energybulletin.net/12563.html

[balzac]

1. Unregulated Capitalism could destroy us all

But can we really hope to allocate resources efficiently without any capitalism? We just need regulations to put capitalism into a sandbox and make it serve our collective human interests, not rule the world.

[Selatius]

5. We've tried that and failed over and over again

Everytime we pass a New Deal or a Great Society, they get Reagan and Bush and undo everything.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. Proper Regulation Would Seem To Be The Key

But, the screaming meemies on the radical right, without any evidence, will tell you that regulation stalls economic growth. Somehow, the economy did roaringly fine in a good part of the 80's, almost all the 90's, with the EPA, FDA, OSHA, NIOSH, et al in place. But, they can't let actual evidence get in the way of a simple theory.

A well-regulated capitalism would appear to not be inconsistent with high quality of life, environmental sustainability, and peace. But, we don't exactly have the leverage we need in gov't right now. Too bad.

The Professor

[Psephos]

2. My own take is, "6 billion people or a habitable planet"

Seems like a billion or two would be plenty. Earth and its resources are fixed in size and quantity. More people = less resources per person, and more ecological footprint per person.

What good is it, for example, if all cars get 30% greater gas mileage in five years, but in five years, there are 30% more cars? Ad infinitum....

Peace.

[AndyTiedye]

3. If The Fundies Take Over, Some Of Us Will Be Looking for a New Planet

[Lorien]

4. Republicans push for us all to breed, because more people =

more profits. Capitalism depends upon it. :-(

But I agree-I wish we would have started ZPG at 3 billion or so.

[fakeshemp]

12. Yes, I completely agree with you. n/t

[Psephos]

23. Hey, I love your nickname. Welcome to DU. n/t

[fakeshemp]

28. Groovy!

:hi:

[newyawker99]

24. Hi fakeshemp!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[fakeshemp]

29. Thanks

:hi:

[moondust]

6. Capitalism

is a machine that can rapidly develop resources for those who have them. Too bad for those who don't and those that arrive too late after most everything has already been developed, marketed, sold, re-packaged, re-named, re-marketed, and re-sold a few times. Wall Street says if you're not growing you're dead, so why wouldn't the rain forests disappear?

There are probably better systems for sustaining life once the resources have been developed and meeting human needs has been displaced by the pursuit of grotesque excess.

[XemaSab]

7. And the environment of the Soviet Union is trashed.

The environment of China is trashed.

It's easy to make capitalism the villain, but is communism better? No.

[lapislzi]

16. You would have a valid point IF

The USSR or China practiced communist economics. Neither did/does. Both are variations on a state capitalist model--meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Communism hasn't been tried on a large scale, so we really don't know how well it works, although I suspect it will NOT work for large populations.

[Wilms]

8. K&R n/t

[Sgent]

9. Its been said before

Capitalism sucks -- its a horrible economic system for a myriad of reasons.

Just show me a better one...

[malaise]

10. Correct

Here's more proof but the corporate media are really silent about this one.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/02/content_4130915.htm

[DanCa]

11. Isn't money supposed to be the root of all evil?

I seem to remember reading that somewhere. I can't remember where exactly. :D

[annabanana]

18. It's the LOVE of money.... (according to

these gazillions of versions of the Bible) that is the root of either "ALL evil", or "all kinds of evil" or "every evil" or "all sorts of evils"

What a fun site this is.. I wonder which one of these 25 different versions is the single, inerrent "Word of God"?

http://bible.cc/1_timothy/6-10.htm

[BushOut06]

22. Actually some very wise words from the Bible

Not all of the Bible is gobbledy-gook - there are a few grains of wisdom to be found in there ;)

[CabalPowered]

13. They are not mutually exclusive.

Take a look at Michael Porter's research on environmental regulation.

edit: title

[blindpig]

14. An Ecosocialist Manifesto

is to be found here:

http://www.cnsjournal.org/manifesto.html

After reading this I have started calling myself an Ecosocialist. The failure of Soviet Communism(so-called) does not invalidate the entire concept of socialism. It is a lesson not to be forgotten. The next socialism will have to do much, much better.

To pretend that this is not a planet of finite resources is madness. To base our future on wishful thinking("the magic of the market place")is equally so.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Too many people, too few resources, too much greed.

Something's gotta give. And, it won't be the capitalists.

[Wind Dancer]

19. Exactly.

The corporations are responsible for most of the problems that exist in today's world.

There's an excellent documentary that highlights historically how the same corporations continue to destroy the environment, break the law and destroy the worker. I highly recommend it.

More:
THE CORPORATION - DETAILED SYNOPSIS
In THE CORPORATION, case studies, anecdotes and true confessions reveal behind-the-scenes tensions and influences in several corporate and anti-corporate dramas. Each illuminates an aspect of the corporation's complex character.

Among the 40 interview subjects are CEOs and top-level executives from a range of industries: oil, pharmaceutical, computer, tire, manufacturing, public relations, branding, advertising and undercover marketing; in addition, a Nobel-prize winning economist, the first management guru, a corporate spy, and a range of academics, critics, historians and thinkers are interviewed.

A LEGAL "PERSON"
In the mid-1800s the corporation emerged as a legal "person." Imbued with a "personality" of pure self-interest, the next 100 years saw the corporation's rise to dominance. The corporation created unprecedented wealth. But at what cost? The remorseless rationale of "externalities"-as Milton Friedman explains: the unintended consequences of a transaction between two parties on a third-is responsible for countless cases of illness, death, poverty, pollution, exploitation and lies.

THE PATHOLOGY OF COMMERCE: CASE HISTORIES
To more precisely assess the "personality" of the corporate "person," a checklist is employed, using actual diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the DSM-IV, the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social "personality": It is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. Four case studies, drawn from a universe of corporate activity, clearly demonstrate harm to workers, human health, animals and the biosphere. Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a "psychopath."

more

http://www.thecorporation.com/index.php?page_id=2

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

20. I highly recommend the author's stand-up

especially the most recent album - Apocalypso Now, or, From P45 to AK47, How to Grow the Economy with the Use of War - where he covers some of the above.

Here's a sample from it of Rob talking about Peak Oil:
http://www.robnewman.com/peakoil.mp3 <- 10 megs

Here's a couple of reviews of Apocalypso Now (from the live show):
http://www.thelondonline.co.uk/theline/article.php?articleID=235
http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/9374/robert-newman-apocalypso-now

And finally, buy it here:
http://www.robnewman.com/robertshop.html
or Amazon US - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BYVJU0/
Amazon UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000BYVJU0/

[fakeshemp]

21. thanks for those

I have to admit, though I was a Mary Whitehouse Experience fan, it had somehow completely passed me by that Newman had gone in this direction with his work (in fact i was wondering what happened to him otherday when i flicked past Baddiel and Skinner Unfunny on the comedy channel).

[AZBlue]

25. How do we meet half way between communism and capitalism?

Maybe kind of a mix (I was going to say "hybrid," but now Bush has gone and ruined the word) of socialism and capitalism? I'm no economist so I'm not about to create a new -ism here, but does something along those lines already exist?

Isn't that what socialism really is? It got a bad rep because of Marxism/Communism, but that was just one form of socialism - there are actually many variations of it. Maybe that's a possiblity.

[kalibex]

26. self-control. n/t

[Ron Green]

27. Look at it in Freudian terms:

The Market = the id (I want it, I must have it, give it to me)
The Church = the superego (this is what we should do, this is the right thing, that is the wrong thing)
The State = the ego (this is reasonable, this will work, I decided to do this)

If these things are in balance in an individual or a society, then wants, needs and resources can be successfully managed. When the Market is out of control, as it is with the American free-market wackos, we're like a child in a candy store. When the State runs amok, you get a dull, gray Soviet-style life. When the Church is too powerful, it looks like Iran.

It's all about finding the Middle Way.