8 ms·

Solutions have been seriously discussed by real socialist politicians for years. Problem will start seeing actual solutions when people start massively voting f

Solutions have been seriously discussed by real socialist politicians for years. Problem will start seeing actual solutions when people start massively voting for them. Current stage of capitalism is strictly incompatible with sustainable development. It's the root cause, it's almost never discussed here. https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/16/the-elephant-in-the-room-capitalism-and-sustainable-development/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/16/the-elephant-in-the-...

crispinb 8y ago
That's a hard row to hoe - a civilisation's foundational superstitions are invisible to most of its members, so a wide-scale questioning of them is unfathomably difficult to prompt. Think Protestant Reformation as the scale of the conceptual and emotional shifts needed. It's too late now, but it would be lovely to go back in time, say 50 years, and keep plugging away with attempts to undermine the ideologies: there is no such thing as an 'economy', still less 'economic growth' (and as for 'sustainable' growth ...). We'd probably still lose though. The winners have already bought up half of New Zealand to retire to as things go increasingly awry amongst the general population.
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  Precisely this. People continually underestimate the sheer power of ideology in perpetuating these social structures within capitalism. What's a shame is that Althusser and others in the 70s warned us about them and explained their functioning rather clearly. Talk about the ideological function of capitalism has been quietly pushed to the edges of the discourse (e.g Slavoj Zizek) while everyone scrambles to think of a solution compatible with ever-expanding capital (driven by profit at any cost) and "saving the planet", in democracies controlled by anyone but the demos. Even the mention of a critique of capitalism rather than a particular "implementation" or set of policies within a capitalist instance is enough to rile people up and turn them off what you're saying. Thankfully, in (some) academic circles there is much less of this kind of uncritical backlash against challenging orthodoxies. When Marx wrote, >Every opinion based on scientific criticism I welcome. As to prejudices of so-called public opinion, to which I have never made concessions, now as aforetime the maxim of the great Florentine is mine: “Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti. [Follow your own course, and let people talk – paraphrased from Dante] Little did he know, these prejudices of public opinion would get us to the catastrophe we're heading towards now, both culturally (Adorno et al.), ecologically (Bookchin, Patrick Murray) and socially (Marx, Marcuse, Althusser etc.)
  - crispinb 8y ago
    > What's a shame is that Althusser and others in the 70s warned us about them and explained their functioning rather clearly. True on the warning though I think I'd dispute the 'clearly' aspect. As a philosophy undergrad (admittedly in a dept with a solidly 'analytic' tendency) I found that kind of stuff (from fairly glancing acquaintance) a bit indigestible. In any case AFAIK it never found much demotic expression, so was never going to be politically very useful. Zizek's closer perhaps. But still hardly enough to lift the curtain for most not academically acculturated. Most of us have no idea that common sense is ideological, and, by and large, academia hasn't done much to help this situation.
  - darawk 8y ago
    I'm curious about your critique of capitalism. Do you think that alternative systems could: a) Generate similar aggregate wealth to capitalism. b) Generate less aggregate wealth, but similar or better median wealth by more equal distribution. c) Median wealth isn't something we should even care about. d) Some other thing I didn't think of and if so what is that thing?
    - claudiawerner 8y ago
      It's worth noting that a critique doesn't need to have a positive element to be a valid critique, nor does a critique necessarily prescribe a particular method of action; the critique of capitalism has inspired various ideas for post-capitalist society, each stemming from the exact nature of the critique itself. I do not think that a post-capitalist society would be capable of producing with the efficiency of the capitalist system, but I also don't think that such a level of production is necessary or even desirable if we must also balance efficiency and productivity with a happy society. In particular, it's up to us to decide which are false needs and which are true needs. Marcuse critiqued the nature of technology in capitalism as using the worker (i.e the worker is merely an appendage of the machine) rather than being used by the worker, and the fact that the benefits time-wise are captured by those who own the machines, not those who are replaced by them. On the other hand, technology is continually improving, and a post-capitalist society must necessarily be placed (if it is to exist at all) at a later point than capitalist society, and capitalist society carries with it a great many inefficiencies, such as the multiple reproduction of research due to firms holding trade secrets, Bitcoin mining, cycles of overproduction etc. I also don't think it's merely an issue of equitable distribution; the critique of capitalism isn't focused on what's "fair", since as Marx pointed out, doesn't the capitalist or liberal say that the current distribution is fair? The issue seems to be much more with ownership of productive capacity in society and the qualitative nature of the production process, in particular concerning abstract labour. As such, I think I'd go with (b), but there are elements of (a) and (c) is worthy of consideration because perhaps "wealth" in the terms we'd think of as comparable with capitalism (ownership of money, individual ownership of capital) would not be good measures of "wealth" in a future society, especially given the current crisis of [capitalist] wealth at the cost of ecological damage.
- darawk 8y ago
  > It's too late now, but it would be lovely to go back in time, say 50 years, and keep plugging away with attempts to undermine the ideologies: there is no such thing as an 'economy', still less 'economic growth' (and as for 'sustainable' growth ...). You think that because a think isn't concrete it doesn't exist? Growth is a real thing, whether you like it or not, and it has lifted billions of people out of extreme poverty and hardship. The average person is much better off than they were 100 years ago. That is a direct, inalienable consequence of growth. If you think there is something (e.g. the environment) that is worth more than that, there's certainly cases to be made for that, but that is a value judgment. But it is absolutely not true that growth does not exist or is not important.
  - mikestew 8y ago
    The average person is much better off than they were 100 years ago. That is a direct, inalienable consequence of growth. I believe what is at stake here is that another possible direct, inalienable consequence of growth is that the average person 100 years from now is worse off than we are now, because we squandered their future in the name of growth. To ignore this might lead one to miss a lot parent’s point.
    - darawk 8y ago
      That is a real problem, though I would respond by saying that that is really a consequence of a flaw in the capitalist system we have, rather than a critique of capitalism itself. Which is that if private actors have an incentive to externalize their costs onto a public commons (e.g. the environment), we simply need to find a way to appropriately price and charge for that externality.
- bulatb 8y ago
  What's your disagreement with the concept of economic growth? You say things elsewhere in the thread I rarely hear but broadly agree with, if I understand correctly, so I'm curious about this one.
  - crispinb 8y ago
    Quick & inadequate worktime response: I believe the 'economy' to be a myth: I don't think it represents a defensible system delimitation, as it abstracts too far from the real systems it's embedded within. The real (physical, chemical, biological) processes that have gone on during the last two centuries are not 'growth' in any way that respects the meaning of the term. They constitute an increase in entropy in our ecologies: evolved complex systems are broken down to feed simple technological ones. That process can be considered 'growth' only by mentally excising most of the systems involved (ie. to form 'economics'!). As those systems collapse, the illusoriness of the 'growth' will be clearly exposed as a fake. A few generations of humans will have made hay at the expense of numberless future humans & nonhumans.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    GDP is an extremely artificial measure of an economy, and like most overly simplistic measures, it has lead to gaming the statistic. GDP growth is an easy headline for politicians. Yet even when our modern understanding of GDP was invented (by Kuznets, a US economist, during the Great Depression), he closed the document with several paragraphs criticising and limiting it. The final sentence of which being "The welfare of a nation can, therefore, scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined above." In the context of pollution, environment and climate change resources are not part of GDP until they are used or harvested. A tree has zero value until it is cut, oil has zero value until it is in a pipeline, a river so polluted it catches fire is of zero consequence in GDP. Neither does it consider the health and welfare of a population, quality of life and other non monetary activity (within a household, community schemes etc). Lastly it does not account for progress: It is purely a monetary measure. No account is made of improvements to efficiency or new methods. We could have negative GDP growth without reducing quality of life, as it's not all about money. Solar panels, computers etc are getting more capability for less cost, environmental damage and pollution has monetary costs to health, perhaps mental wellbeing too. Thus it tends to promote purely the monetary aspect, and belittle to the point of insignificance (by calling it an externality) everything else. In short it doesn't measure anything especially useful.
- jdminhbg 8y ago
  > It's too late now, but it would be lovely to go back in time, say 50 years I can think of a billion or so people who would disagree with that proposition.
  - crispinb 8y ago
    Well my notion wasn't so much to go back in time and freeze it but to plot an alternative future (now present) when it was possible. Now it's not. And you can't speak for the billion: my material circumstances have improved dramatcally over my lifetime, but I'd give every last bit of that, and more, to see future generations be permitted to live on a world that was not dying.
darawk 8y ago
> Current stage of capitalism is strictly incompatible with sustainable development. Are you unaware of the concept of 'externality pricing', or do you think it is flawed in some way?
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  The current stage of capitalism doesn't price externalities properly and I don't see any real movement into that direction.
  - darawk 8y ago
    I totally agree that it does not price all of them accurately, though I think it does price some of them decently well (e.g. smoking). I do see quite a few people proposing solutions like that with respect to the primary economic externality of the moment (carbon release), like Cap and trade, carbon credits, etc.. They haven't achieved the kind of widespread adoption that i'd like them to, but they seem like solid solutions to me and ones that have quite a bit of international support, even if not quite enough to get them through.

crispinb 8y ago

That's a hard row to hoe - a civilisation's foundational superstitions are invisible to most of its members, so a wide-scale questioning of them is unfathomably difficult to prompt. Think Protestant Reformation as the scale of the conceptual and emotional shifts needed. It's too late now, but it would be lovely to go back in time, say 50 years, and keep plugging away with attempts to undermine the ideologies: there is no such thing as an 'economy', still less 'economic growth' (and as for 'sustainable' growth ...). We'd probably still lose though. The winners have already bought up half of New Zealand to retire to as things go increasingly awry amongst the general population.

claudiawerner 8y ago
Precisely this. People continually underestimate the sheer power of ideology in perpetuating these social structures within capitalism. What's a shame is that Althusser and others in the 70s warned us about them and explained their functioning rather clearly. Talk about the ideological function of capitalism has been quietly pushed to the edges of the discourse (e.g Slavoj Zizek) while everyone scrambles to think of a solution compatible with ever-expanding capital (driven by profit at any cost) and "saving the planet", in democracies controlled by anyone but the demos. Even the mention of a critique of capitalism rather than a particular "implementation" or set of policies within a capitalist instance is enough to rile people up and turn them off what you're saying. Thankfully, in (some) academic circles there is much less of this kind of uncritical backlash against challenging orthodoxies. When Marx wrote, >Every opinion based on scientific criticism I welcome. As to prejudices of so-called public opinion, to which I have never made concessions, now as aforetime the maxim of the great Florentine is mine: “Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti. [Follow your own course, and let people talk – paraphrased from Dante] Little did he know, these prejudices of public opinion would get us to the catastrophe we're heading towards now, both culturally (Adorno et al.), ecologically (Bookchin, Patrick Murray) and socially (Marx, Marcuse, Althusser etc.)
- crispinb 8y ago
  > What's a shame is that Althusser and others in the 70s warned us about them and explained their functioning rather clearly. True on the warning though I think I'd dispute the 'clearly' aspect. As a philosophy undergrad (admittedly in a dept with a solidly 'analytic' tendency) I found that kind of stuff (from fairly glancing acquaintance) a bit indigestible. In any case AFAIK it never found much demotic expression, so was never going to be politically very useful. Zizek's closer perhaps. But still hardly enough to lift the curtain for most not academically acculturated. Most of us have no idea that common sense is ideological, and, by and large, academia hasn't done much to help this situation.
- darawk 8y ago
  I'm curious about your critique of capitalism. Do you think that alternative systems could: a) Generate similar aggregate wealth to capitalism. b) Generate less aggregate wealth, but similar or better median wealth by more equal distribution. c) Median wealth isn't something we should even care about. d) Some other thing I didn't think of and if so what is that thing?
  - claudiawerner 8y ago
    It's worth noting that a critique doesn't need to have a positive element to be a valid critique, nor does a critique necessarily prescribe a particular method of action; the critique of capitalism has inspired various ideas for post-capitalist society, each stemming from the exact nature of the critique itself. I do not think that a post-capitalist society would be capable of producing with the efficiency of the capitalist system, but I also don't think that such a level of production is necessary or even desirable if we must also balance efficiency and productivity with a happy society. In particular, it's up to us to decide which are false needs and which are true needs. Marcuse critiqued the nature of technology in capitalism as using the worker (i.e the worker is merely an appendage of the machine) rather than being used by the worker, and the fact that the benefits time-wise are captured by those who own the machines, not those who are replaced by them. On the other hand, technology is continually improving, and a post-capitalist society must necessarily be placed (if it is to exist at all) at a later point than capitalist society, and capitalist society carries with it a great many inefficiencies, such as the multiple reproduction of research due to firms holding trade secrets, Bitcoin mining, cycles of overproduction etc. I also don't think it's merely an issue of equitable distribution; the critique of capitalism isn't focused on what's "fair", since as Marx pointed out, doesn't the capitalist or liberal say that the current distribution is fair? The issue seems to be much more with ownership of productive capacity in society and the qualitative nature of the production process, in particular concerning abstract labour. As such, I think I'd go with (b), but there are elements of (a) and (c) is worthy of consideration because perhaps "wealth" in the terms we'd think of as comparable with capitalism (ownership of money, individual ownership of capital) would not be good measures of "wealth" in a future society, especially given the current crisis of [capitalist] wealth at the cost of ecological damage.
darawk 8y ago
> It's too late now, but it would be lovely to go back in time, say 50 years, and keep plugging away with attempts to undermine the ideologies: there is no such thing as an 'economy', still less 'economic growth' (and as for 'sustainable' growth ...). You think that because a think isn't concrete it doesn't exist? Growth is a real thing, whether you like it or not, and it has lifted billions of people out of extreme poverty and hardship. The average person is much better off than they were 100 years ago. That is a direct, inalienable consequence of growth. If you think there is something (e.g. the environment) that is worth more than that, there's certainly cases to be made for that, but that is a value judgment. But it is absolutely not true that growth does not exist or is not important.
- mikestew 8y ago
  The average person is much better off than they were 100 years ago. That is a direct, inalienable consequence of growth. I believe what is at stake here is that another possible direct, inalienable consequence of growth is that the average person 100 years from now is worse off than we are now, because we squandered their future in the name of growth. To ignore this might lead one to miss a lot parent’s point.
  - darawk 8y ago
    That is a real problem, though I would respond by saying that that is really a consequence of a flaw in the capitalist system we have, rather than a critique of capitalism itself. Which is that if private actors have an incentive to externalize their costs onto a public commons (e.g. the environment), we simply need to find a way to appropriately price and charge for that externality.
bulatb 8y ago
What's your disagreement with the concept of economic growth? You say things elsewhere in the thread I rarely hear but broadly agree with, if I understand correctly, so I'm curious about this one.
- crispinb 8y ago
  Quick & inadequate worktime response: I believe the 'economy' to be a myth: I don't think it represents a defensible system delimitation, as it abstracts too far from the real systems it's embedded within. The real (physical, chemical, biological) processes that have gone on during the last two centuries are not 'growth' in any way that respects the meaning of the term. They constitute an increase in entropy in our ecologies: evolved complex systems are broken down to feed simple technological ones. That process can be considered 'growth' only by mentally excising most of the systems involved (ie. to form 'economics'!). As those systems collapse, the illusoriness of the 'growth' will be clearly exposed as a fake. A few generations of humans will have made hay at the expense of numberless future humans & nonhumans.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  GDP is an extremely artificial measure of an economy, and like most overly simplistic measures, it has lead to gaming the statistic. GDP growth is an easy headline for politicians. Yet even when our modern understanding of GDP was invented (by Kuznets, a US economist, during the Great Depression), he closed the document with several paragraphs criticising and limiting it. The final sentence of which being "The welfare of a nation can, therefore, scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined above." In the context of pollution, environment and climate change resources are not part of GDP until they are used or harvested. A tree has zero value until it is cut, oil has zero value until it is in a pipeline, a river so polluted it catches fire is of zero consequence in GDP. Neither does it consider the health and welfare of a population, quality of life and other non monetary activity (within a household, community schemes etc). Lastly it does not account for progress: It is purely a monetary measure. No account is made of improvements to efficiency or new methods. We could have negative GDP growth without reducing quality of life, as it's not all about money. Solar panels, computers etc are getting more capability for less cost, environmental damage and pollution has monetary costs to health, perhaps mental wellbeing too. Thus it tends to promote purely the monetary aspect, and belittle to the point of insignificance (by calling it an externality) everything else. In short it doesn't measure anything especially useful.
jdminhbg 8y ago
> It's too late now, but it would be lovely to go back in time, say 50 years I can think of a billion or so people who would disagree with that proposition.
- crispinb 8y ago
  Well my notion wasn't so much to go back in time and freeze it but to plot an alternative future (now present) when it was possible. Now it's not. And you can't speak for the billion: my material circumstances have improved dramatcally over my lifetime, but I'd give every last bit of that, and more, to see future generations be permitted to live on a world that was not dying.

darawk 8y ago

> Current stage of capitalism is strictly incompatible with sustainable development. Are you unaware of the concept of 'externality pricing', or do you think it is flawed in some way?

maxxxxx 8y ago
The current stage of capitalism doesn't price externalities properly and I don't see any real movement into that direction.
- darawk 8y ago
  I totally agree that it does not price all of them accurately, though I think it does price some of them decently well (e.g. smoking). I do see quite a few people proposing solutions like that with respect to the primary economic externality of the moment (carbon release), like Cap and trade, carbon credits, etc.. They haven't achieved the kind of widespread adoption that i'd like them to, but they seem like solid solutions to me and ones that have quite a bit of international support, even if not quite enough to get them through.