Capitalism must end somehow
I remember reading about this individual Mark Lynas. I guess at some point he started writing books, and as someone who was born in Fiji and who grew up in Peru and the UK (I am going by the Wikipedia article here -- his "About" page on his personal website doesn't say anything about this -- his first book was a natural. "High Tide" is to some extent an ethnographic study of climate change, going to various places around the world to find out what it's like. But that book was published back in 2004. Things are moving quickly on the climate change front now.
Lynas' next book was Six Degrees, in which he (supposedly -- I can't remember the source for this) went to a library to find out everything he could about the effects of abrupt climate change. The results for six degrees of climate change are pretty horrifying -- much of Earth becomes a bleak wasteland, and great balls of methane are released from the ocean floors to the surface, where lighting storms set them afire.
Having established climate change as a mortal threat, Lynas then proceeded (after some other projects) to write a book titled The God Species, in which he proclaimed nuclear power and genetic engineering to be the salvation of the human species. Huh? Nuclear power? Genetic engineering? It appears that Lynas' problem was that he was unable to believe that there was any alternative to the capitalist system, with its syndrome of endless economic growth on a finite planet.
So it appears that it is we who need to believe that there is this alternative. One can see how ridiculous the strategy of "decarbonizing the economy" while leaving everything else the same really is in mainstream reporting on climate change. The most recent example is this piece in E&E News, owned by Politico: Doubt grows over Biden's climate strategy. What they're doing is looking at dollar figures and saying "oh that's not enough to decarbonize the economy." Here's the important quote:
In Congress, Biden's climate plan has hit the rocks and faces an uncertain path forward. He began the process by trimming his climate and infrastructure spending plan to an average of $200 billion a year over a decade, after campaigning on spending $500 billion annually over his first term.
That's probably not enough to decarbonize the American economy. Economists across the political spectrum have proposed investing between $600 billion and $1 trillion annually, according to a HuffPost analysis, equivalent to about 2% to 5% of U.S. gross domestic product.
The problem, of course, is that the capitalist economy is not going to "decarbonize." Perhaps the Biden administration knows this, and has secretly given up trying as a result. Biden, remember, is there to protect capitalism, not you or me.
The problem with he idea of "decarbonizing the economy," presumably while leaving everything the same, is that the energy and resource needs of the capitalist system are simply too high, and the carbon-burning infrastructure is too firmly in place. And that's not counting the energy and resource needs of a transition effort that would try to duplicate the existing system while "decarbonizing" it.
The tendency in the "environmental" movement is to point to a statistic showing some 2% reduction in carbon burning somewhere in the world, and to throw wild parties over this as if the whole battle had been won. This is because they, like Biden, assume capitalism to be eternal. It isn't.
So here is my proposal. Rather than waiting for capitalism to implode, leaving us with either a smaller capitalist system (amidst lots of death when the agricultural systems fail and there is widespread famine), or some effort to bail out the capitalists leading to what is being called "neofeudalism," it's time we start to form the new system right here and now. Or at least we could do something to anticipate the end of capitalism before we all burn to death.
Comments
Well, socialism won't be the answer
It's just a subsystemm of capitalism.
No "ism" is actually to blame.. Corruption is to blame. We need a system that can self regulate to stamp out corruption.
Since humans are by nature easily corrupted, well, good luck with that.
cooperatives are a viable option,
but giving up the dream of being rich and powerful, or the actual loss of riches and power for the benefit of others will take a global revolutionary action.
We also have a significant population that either denies climate change, or is remote and illiterate that haven't heard of it, and would not easily comprehend it.
I think the first mention of climate change came in some article I read last week which quoted some archived congressional report (or from some wing of government)that used the phrase "climate change" in 1912 in warning about fossil fuels.
Wish I could find it.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Weren't Stalin and Kruschev rich and powerful?
True the property they controlled and owned was legally the property of the state. but especially in the case of Stalin, wasn't it effectively "L'Etat C'est Moi" translated into Russian?
Capitalism isn't bad. We should try it sometime. This oligopoly we have combined with political corruption is no way capitalism. RobberBaronism it should be called. Michael Dell assembling computers for sale in his dorm was capitalism. What it grew into wasn't.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
You pretty much answered your question
I do not seem to recall a society that benefited from capitalism for more than a brief period. Regulations always seem to vanish, wealth inequality always seems to emerge, and over and over, it results in disaster.
I am not a promoter of a good decade, as the prize for many decades of suffering, as a quality economic system.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Svante Arrhenius imagined climate change in 1896.
He thought it could be a good thing because it would open up large northern land masses to agriculture. The idea that it was actually happening was voiced many ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide ago, in anecdotal accounts in the 1930s. See Spencer Weart's "The Discovery of Global Warming."
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
Extremely insteresting stuff.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
The first to raise a warning about the human threat
to our interconnected web of life on the planet that I know of is Alexander Humboldt. In The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf is an eye opener for me. Humboldt, who was born into a very wealthy family, spent his fortune as a young man exploring and compiling scientific data largely in South America. At the time, the idea that Great Nature’s abundance was at risk to a growing and imprudent human population was unheard of. Humboldt observed the devastation wrought by the Spanish occupiers and saw it as a warning to the larger world.
We have been warned for centuries by many harbingers but the warnings have universally been ignored by those holding the reins of power, and our futures, in their hands. It’s not just a capitalism problem, it’s a larger human one. We need to find our place within the ecosystem, not lording over it as if we owned it and could mistreat it at our pleasure.
“What the herd hates most is the one who thinks differently; it is not so much the opinion itself, but the audacity of wanting to think for themselves, something that they do not know how to do.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
A Sweeping History of the Great Reset
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHtfqrydZzU]
First we have to admit
that we WANT a hydrocarbon dependent "capitalism". We WANT iPhones and xboxes and cars. We are afraid of losing them. We refuse to admit that there are consequences. We would rather die, or rather we would rather our children die.
On to Biden since 1973
We will have to reconfigure society
Just as a practical matter, we need the practical answer to just one scenario: medical emergencies. We have to have phones. We must have ambulances. Well-lighted ers, and good roads to get there. Rural areas are even more dependent upon the fuel.
How do we just flip without considering the different needs of rural and urban?
Nobody wants a system where that ambulanced person is financially ruined by said ambulance ride, or do they? Do we expect them to whine about fossil fuels? Their bitch is about bad roads and medical bills.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Actual democracy would be nice
I'm wondering if the tiny group that reads caucus99percent knows what the social imaginary is. Maybe it would be a good subject for a diary?
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
write it and see
BTW, you make "tiny group" sound both insignificant and ignorant.
My guess is you will be both shocked AND dismayed at the tiny group comprehension here, which might exceed your expectations.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
There are some intelligent people here.
Go ahead, surprise me.
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
I have no duty to surprise you.
I gave a thumbs up to the writers of both those comments, since I agree with where they are coming from, and the problems they see.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
That was me.
"thanks for the laugh,"
Thanks for the acknowledgement of your disapproval.
I admired your post. Yet, when I remark something you dislike, you take immediate offense.
This vape bag is for you.
Peace
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Just ‘some' people here are smart huh?
Gee between you and EDG deciding on who’s smart or worth reading was shocking to discover. I guess the dumb folks who read the site better get smarter and learn how to write interesting essays so that people will want to read them.
Anyone else who has gripes about the members here? Speak up…
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Too funny.
The only way for capitalism to end in the usa, if for greed to be outlawed.
Thanks for the laugh.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Why are you here?
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
I'm here
for the entertainment.
How about you?
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Two things seem inevitable
That any economic system will eventually funnel wealth into the hands of a few, and the political system will evolve to aid the wealthy and focus on telling the masses why this system is good.
I see both sides of Ending Capitalism Somehow
It is both absolutely necessary (subject to some further discussion of what we mean exactly by capitalism) and hysterically funny to contemplate a message board conversation about the prospect of actually ending capitalism forever.
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I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Roman Empire and Capitalism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKbEqpAKk44]
[video: