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> Are you sure that government operations produce less pollution? No, I'm not sure. But we're talking about private companies now, not governments. Governments
by emt02 10y ago
> Are you sure that government operations produce less pollution?
No, I'm not sure. But we're talking about private companies now, not governments.
Governments and companies in the end are two faces of the same coin: the first aim at power, the latter aim at profit (with some exceptions of course).
Moreover, many proposed alternatives to capitalism consider the governments (as we know them today) harmful and unnecessary.
I'm not saying I agree, just wanted to point out that removing capitalism does not automatically mean to give more power to governments.
> Anyhow, the way to deal with pollution in a market based economy is to tax it.
Sure, but that doesn't solve the problem, it just reduces its impact.
And in a world that runs on profit, limiting your local companies may in the end give an advantage to the foreign ones, so this solution may not always be practicable, unless a truly global coordinated action gets taken.
- WalterBright 10y ago> Sure, but that doesn't solve the problem, it just reduces its impact. There's no reason it cannot reduce pollution to tolerable levels. > removing capitalism does not automatically mean to give more power to governments Yes, it does. Who/what else is going to prevent people from trading for a profit?
- emt02 10y ago> Yes, it does. Who/what else is going to prevent people from trading for a profit? There are several social and economical theories that consider a central government, and thus the state, unnecessary. Historically the anarchism movement is maybe the most known, but recently other schools of thoughts are getting relatively important, such as communalism and democratic confederalism (mostly relevant in the context of the revolution in northern Syria). Even communism in its final form (i.e. past the dictatorship of proletariat transitioning phase) should be a stateless and classless society, however historically "communist" states failed to get past this transitioning phase (due to a refusal to give up power by the State, I guess) and ended up in a State Capitalism system, as in the USSR and in China. However, to be honest I don't know this topic in detail enough to teach anyone, so I can only suggest you to look for more info in case you're interested.
- WalterBright 10y agoThose ideas have been around a long time, and no such society has ever managed to be constructed, either voluntarily or forcibly. I'm pretty sure they are completely unworkable. It's like expecting people to not have sex.
- hutzlibu 10y ago"It's like expecting people to not have sex." Thats easy, with a bit of surgery ...
- emt02 10y agoI guess you're talking about the oldest of those ideas, namely anarchism and communism. Regarding anarchism, it's known that the reason it didn't work out in the attempts so far has not been an inherent flaw in the system, but external ingerence. In the two cases that are most known to the public, i.e. anarchist Catalogna and Free territories of Ukraine, the reason why the revolution finally failed has been in both cases the intervention of Soviet Russia, that in the first case supported an antagonist faction (i.e. communists front in the Spanish Civil War) and in the second case it invaded the free territories. I think in general it's not possible to disregard some ideologies on the basis that they never managed to be implemented, without looking at the context. In today's world, which is dominated by capital, it would be even harder to establish a non-capitalist society, but that doesn't mean that such a society would be less fair, free or just than capitalism.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoYou want to avoid making the mistake of communism - ignoring what's the natural evolution of the system made of humans. Hierarchical government seems to be exactly that, as are e.g. property rights. These don't come from ideologies, but how humans self-assemble to coordinate at scale.
- emt02 10y agoEven if it were true (and personally I'm not sure of that) that humans naturally tend to form hierarchical structures of power, that's not a good reason not to try to overcome this "natural" condition to create a more just society.
- codydh 10y agoI'm deeply skeptical that capitalism is a sensible long-term way to run our world. When everything can be made about money, everything is made about money. It doesn't matter how much we've taxed a corporation (especially in the recent environment of skyrocketing corporate profits), if the environment is ruined we're all in trouble. Capitalism drives the conversion of everything into money, so it's no surprise to me when anything from votes to the air we breathe are turned into money.
- maxerickson 10y agoThe extremely capitalistic US has a relatively clean environment. Compared to China because we are already rich and compared to Europe because we have much lower population density. We generate a lot of carbon dioxide but the consequences of that are more long term, not experienced as contamination of things we interact with day to day.
- codydh 10y agoThis is an interesting point. Is this because industrial growth happened more quickly? In more concentrated areas?
- maxerickson 10y agoIt's because government isn't completely inert. Even members of US Congress are extremely responsive to issues they think will get them kicked out of office.
- WalterBright 10y agoOther systems not about money have been tried, and they are worse for the environment.