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> decades More than a century, in some cases. Capitalism needs additional constraints or it will end all civilization. Simply, the cost of creating greenhous
by cryptoz 9y ago
> decades
More than a century, in some cases.
Capitalism needs additional constraints or it will end all civilization. Simply, the cost of creating greenhouse gasses has never been priced in to the market since Exxon and the likes have lobbied hard for decades to not let the truth gain any traction. They should all be in jail and there should be no profits in destroying ecosystems. Otherwise there seems no hope.
- nerdponx 9y agoIn a socialized system you'd have the same thing, except perpetuated by bureaucrats instead of businessmen. If anything, capitalism has an advantage in that it's at least theoretically possible to mitigate the effect of greed on politics. Throwing all your eggs into the government basket gives you no such recourse.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bad-joke 9y agoThe Volkswagen emissions scandal demonstrated that mitigating effects will be circumvented given the presence of a profit motive. Rather than construct an elaborate and exploitable maze of incentives, perhaps it would be simpler to remove the profit motive.
- nerdponx 9y agoThat's my point. Capitalism or socialism, greed is greed. There is always a profit motive.
- michaelmrose 9y agoThe general population controls so little of the economic might that this just isn't true. We could pool our votes to change the course of politics. If we pooled our dollars nobody would care.
- nerdponx 9y agoThere's nothing stopping you from pooling your votes right now. Ownership of capital has basically nothing to do with it. If the means of production are owned by "the workers", all that ends up happening is each group of workers sends a representative to manage their share of the means of production. Unless you have a true Athenian direct democracy, it reduces to exactly the same system, just less diversified.
- johndevor 9y agoAnd yet capitalism gives us the greatest hope we have: companies like Tesla, and products like solar panels and wind turbines. None of that would exist without capitalism.
- michaelmrose 9y agocitation needed
- anticodon 9y agoThere're two statements without any proof: 1) that only capitalist system can create electrical cars and solar panels (obviosly false) 2) that electric vehicles and solar panels are good for the nature (there's not enough data, but to manufacture both you need a lot energy and materials, and not all electricity is created by clean sources)