Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Switchboard >

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

12:00 / 02.02.06

This article in today's Guardian suggests that the capitalist way of organising our world isn't sustainable and seriously undermines an enjoyable future for us on the planet.

Anyone take this sort of thing seriously? Is it just pointless scaremongering or is the writer on the right track but over-playing things a bit? Is there really an alternative way of organising our world?

Although we've had previous discussions in various threads on the pros and cons of capitalism and whether workable alternatives exist, nothing concrete is suggested in the article apart from generalisations about "localised energy production" and "personal carbon allowances"

I'd be interested to see what others think of the article and the issues it raises.

Tryphena Absent

12:20 / 02.02.06

I agree with the premise, it's pretty clear that most people, when given the opportunity of buying expensive energy saving lightbulbs or cheap normal bulbs will go fot the cheaper ones. Then there are issues of supply and how many shope stock real alternatives- the economy is the primary excuse given by governments for not taking action.

Some points are made well:
is it not more likely that people are stunned into inaction by the bizarre discrepancy between how extreme the crisis described and how insipid the solutions proposed? is my favourite, closely followed by the paragraph on solar panels and energy corporations.

This was clumsy though:
Private ownership of trade and industry means that the decisive political force in the world is private power

I dislike it when people mistake decisive effect for political force. I understand what he's getting at but it's a misinterpretation to imply that the government are doing these things for business. How would the writer like to clean up the major economic crisis that would take place if the government took extreme measures? About as much as the government I suspect.

The truth is that what we need to do would change things and in the short term it would be worse unless every country took extreme measures at the same time. Kyoto was really about not destroying the economies of the G8 countries because trade would fundamentally change everywhere at the same time. A lot of governments have rejected that risk making it impossible for the others to maintain their capitalist economies effectively in the face of cheaper, easier lives elsewhere and less cheap trade.

14:05 / 02.02.06

The problems - the article's Scylla and Charybdis - are real and will cause chaotic change, but the article is very pessimistic and rather hysterical. I think it often uses the word capitalism when it means plutocracy. Capitalism can be very flexible and thus respond well to catastrophic change. The author seems to want us all to run to Daddy. I do hope we do not.

Tryphena Absent

18:17 / 02.02.06

But this isn't about catastrophic change, it's about prevention and the systems inability to act on it. The governments of the west who have all of this information are only now proposing solutions, the kind that present another type of waste. There's no plastic bag tax in this country but the British population uses on average 8 million of them a year. That's not action and you can't rely on people to understand the amount of carbon used in the production of plastic bags: how many people do you know who sit down and think about 1)the production, 2)the transport, 3)the biodegradability of plsatic bags?

Our governments should legislate against waste but they're not doing that because it might hurt industry. Banning plastic bags for instance would mean that people who forgot to take a carrier with them couldn't buy anything without also buying a bag. That's a threat to the economy and the principles of capitalism.

19:01 / 02.02.06

I don't think anything substantial is going to be done until the damage is catastrophic. The USA won't change and China can't afford to at present. The UK ought to wean itself off plastic bags, but it'll not save the world by doing so. Here in Germany we've been doing a lot of the things right for a long time now, and the climate’s still going to pot. I think Newman's right to be alarmed.

20:17 / 02.02.06

The problem with the system at the moment is that it only innovates if there is money in it. This is further exascerbated by the all-pervading mantra of shareholder value - funds that were formerly diverted towards R&D are now paid out to an ever hungry band of shareholders used to big dividends. Companies exist only to maximise shareholder value.
It should therefore be obvious that we can't rely on "the market" to solve the problems associated with waste and climate change. Our governments should be forcing the issue - but they are being taken in by the prevailing capitalist theory that says that government control undermines the efficient workings of the market.
I'm worried because business seems to be getting its own way too often. Instead of renewable energy we'll end up with more nuclear (and more waste). More sub-Saharan Africans will starve to death when the desert expands because there governments will still be paying back World Bank debts while the worth of their assets are exploited by western companies. Most of the Netherlands will disappear under the sea when it rises because its government and companies such as Royal Dutch chose to pursue the last drop of oil.

I think it will take a catastrophe before people listen but by then it could be too late.

04:34 / 03.02.06

The problem with the system at the moment is that it only innovates if there is money in it.

The upside to this is that the rise in oil prices as we near peak oil will mean that there will be a lot of money to be made in clean energy. It's a narrow window, though.

08:31 / 03.02.06

I think it will take a catastrophe before people listen but by then it could be too late.

In a sense, once a catastrophe has occurred it is already too late, but I doubt that's what you mean, Brunner. As Truman says, peak oil may well force us to develop technologies that will ameliorate the damage we've done to the climate. That would be very fortunate. Peak oil will itself, however, lead to extreme turmoil and no little violence. It'll probably be worse than World War II was. Of course that would still be a blessing as it's nothing compared to the potential dangers of climate change, where the prize might ultimately be the survival of the human race.

What does "too late" mean in this context, Brunner?

08:58 / 03.02.06

By too late I guess I am alluding to the scenario you've painted yourself. And it could be worse - many scientists suggest that a point of no return, or tipping point in climate stability, will be upon us if we don't change our ways now.
So if social and political upheaval results, who is to say we will have the patience and cooperation to develop new technologies at that time. These things take years and short termism often wins - especially when left to the market.

10:16 / 03.02.06

Of course that would still be a blessing as it's nothing compared to the potential dangers of climate change, where the prize might ultimately be the survival of the human race.

There is no reasonable scenario whereby climate change will spell extinction for the human race.

I could see the survivors living in cramped, squalid boxes eating food paste distributed by the local military junta for a few hundred years, but this will not cause us to become extinct.

06:37 / 04.02.06

Brunner, I agree, but I think our governments ought only force the issue using the usual mechanisms: subsidies, investment, tax relief and the like. I think the real problem is that our governments remain, to varying degrees, unaware of the size of the dangers we're facing.

06:38 / 04.02.06

Truman, I thought that too until quite recently. I thought the worst-case scenario was catastrophic climate change. I presumed however that the system would stabilise on a scale of hundreds of years, allowing those who'd come through to more or less simply redeploy civilization in the new world. There is however no reason to believe that the climate will re-stabilise to the degree we require on any reasonable timescale. It's quite possible that our civilisation and our numbers will be repeatedly degraded by a recurring series of catastrophic climate changes lasting tens of thousands of years in total.

07:07 / 04.02.06

I don't consider this final scenario likely, but I'm aware of no way to even schematically predict how an event like the melting of the icecaps will play out at the level of detail required to discern whether we humans can survive it or not.

11:27 / 06.02.06

Brunner, I agree, but I think our governments ought only force the issue using the usual mechanisms: subsidies, investment, tax relief and the like.

Why only the usual mechanisms if you foresee the imminent catastrophe as worse than initially thought? If it's going to be that bad we need serious action, action which goes well beyond government tickering with market operations. Government mainly thinks about staying in government and corporations mainly think about profit. Both are short term views - we need to look at the long term surely? Either that or let nature take its course....

12:21 / 06.02.06

Potentially worse, Brunner. We just don't know. I want people to think about that, especially politicians. How do you envisage governments forcing the issue?

03:19 / 11.02.06

I'd say the Guardian article shows some confused thinking. Capitalism is predicated on making a profit, not necesarily expanding markets, etc., etc. For things that involve profit, like selling oranges or copper, it does quite well. The trouble comes in when the profit paradigm metastasizes into fields where it doesn't work: education, prisons, medicine, sex, long-range environmental planning, and so on through a long list. (This isn't to say you can't make a living as as, say, a doctor. Only that profit can't be the main issue.)

So, really, it's back to the boring old idea that we need to corral capitalism into the small sphere where it belongs, and take back the whole rest of the world before the cancer destroys it.

12:10 / 14.02.06

That is quite a neat way of looking at it quixote, but politicians and business are always telling us that capitalism is a way to improve the public sector. Look at Blair's love for all things PFI. It's as elene says, they haven't grasped the bigger picture - or as I suspect with many people, they believe the true affects of climate change, diminishing resources etc will not be seen in their own lifetime...

So, how can we corral capitalism back into its pen?

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

14:26 / 15.02.06

Uh...vote with your wallet?

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

14:44 / 15.02.06

if voting with your wallet actually worked.

--not jack