6 ms·

Absurd argument against private sector. It claims that "Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says" but when you read the study you

Absurd argument against private sector. It claims that "Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says" but when you read the study you realize that 99% of these companies are state owned and directed corporations, like Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) or Abu Dhabi National Oil Co, just to cite examples. Again, the anticapitalism bias is absurd, since capitalism is the most sustainable system in comparison with others. I want to remember to those who believe the goverment will provide the best option, that goverments created the worst environmental disasters: Chernobyl, Aral sea (now gone forever), Four Pests Campaign and the list keeps going.

claudiawerner 7y ago
The thing is that by being owned by a government, it doesn't stop being "capitalism" in the eyes of the proponents of anti-capitalism. For them, the core feature of capitalism is freedom to buy and sell labour, employment of wage labour and accumulation of capital. They may even argue that companies such as PDVSA are private - because they are not under direct democratic control of the labourers who work with those means of production. I see no reason to believe that capitalism is "the most sustainable" environmentally speaking. Just because it's hard to see big incidents such as Chernobyl or the drying of the Aral sea under capitalism, that doesn't mean that its effects are any less pernicious. In fact, it just means its actions are more transparent and insidious - in the words of a famous author, dystopia without a despot. Nevertheless, it's worth reading up on socialist critiques of the environmental policy of previous socialist states. Eco-socialism[0] is actually one of the most researched areas of normative social philosophy this decade. They likely explain the points better than the article linked in OP. [0] https://climateandcapitalism.com/2019/07/27/20-essential-books-on-marxist-ecology/ https://climateandcapitalism.com/2019/07/27/20-essential-boo...
- meerita 7y ago
  Is not capitalism what you mention. It's called Corporatism, the theory and practice of organizing society into "corporations" subordinate to the state. It is also known as prebender companies. Companies that operate thanks to the arrangements they have with the State, without the pressure of the institutions of capitalism: competition, rules, etc. And yes, the people who think "it's capitalism anyways" don't realize this fact.
  - hybrids 7y ago
    "Corporatism," "corporatocracy," "crony capitalism," etc. are right-wing buzzwords intended to piggyback on the contemporary resurgence in capital-critical thought, esp. after Occupy and more recently with Trump. The issue is that "corporatism" is less of a theory and more just an echo of the same things libertarians have been saying for many years: to libertarians, the state and its relationship to capital looks "accidental" and seeks to return to an Adam Smith-era of development that you can't actually turn back to. To Marxists the construction of the state (the 1848 moment) was unconscious but happened for a reason - new contradictions in society emerged, creating a bourgeois necessity for a state to "keep order" as it were, to "destroy capitalism" in the name of preserving capitalism. As capitalism's contradiction translates from one position to the other, the apparent relationship of the state to capital seems to ebb and flow in ways without getting to the actual root of the manner - both market liberalization and Keynesian state intervention can appear valid in capitalism. What you call "corporatism" - the apparent abject deterioration of capitalism - Lenin called "imperialism" or "the monopoly stage of capitalism" a century prior, and he correctly pointed out that it was an an actual inevitability of capitalism due to the heightened concentration of capital.
    - meerita 7y ago
      I call corporativisim or prebendary, to those non-capitalists forms of enterprises, where some intermediaries ally with goverments. People always cite these examples when they want to point out about capitalism, but they're totally wrong about it. That's not capitalism, that's just another form of socialism where the State is not yet deep root in it and they're buying time while others profit, until everything is owned by the state "in favor of the people".
      - hybrids 7y ago
        Socialism is not "the state doing things" or "state intervention" or "state ownership." Of course these can be aspects of an implementation of socialism, but they are not socialism in itself - the "how" and "why" actually matters. This is a conflation that historically came to prominence during the Cold War to make the difference between capitalism and socialism "digestible." Even young modern socialists believe this now, no longer understanding socialism as a historical tendency towards emancipation, which attests to the current pitiful state of the Left. You want actual evidence of what actual major socialist thinkers thought of the state during the time when socialism was most relevant, read Marx's 18th Brumaire or read Lenin's State and Revolution and come to your own conclusions.
- Excel_Wizard 7y ago
  How would you propose organizing society such that it is environmentally sustainable?
- esarbe 7y ago
  Don't know why this is getting downvoted. This is Marx's core definition of Capitalism; the ability to buy and sell labour, employment of wage labour and accumulation of capital. That means that those who own the means of production extract more value from those who labour than what they pay for that labour. That's Capitalism. 'Rent taking' is missing, that's no reason for a downvote.
  - hybrids 7y ago
    Adam Smith observed rent-seeking in his own time, and had some harsh words to say about it (first volume of Wealth of Nations) "The ability to buy and sell labor" is not really part of Marx's definition of capitalism - while LTV is important to Marxism, Marx's critique was that LTV is no longer clear because of Capital. Anti-marxists like to try and disprove LTV because it's the first thing in Das Kapital but they miss the point completely (Marx got it from Smith anyway).
    - claudiawerner 7y ago
      >"The ability to buy and sell labor" is not really part of Marx's definition of capitalism It absolutely is, and that's part of what distinguishes the capitalist mode of production from any other. Marx speaks of the "double freedom" workers under capitalism must have. Liberal property relations are what allows capitalism to survive, and free trade in labour is its precondition.
      - hybrids 7y ago
        The selling of labor applies more to the greater bourgeois revolution (or humanity in general aspiring to it) than capitalism specifically (which is what the bourgeois revolution evolved to). This is why "people selling their labor" appears true for Adam Smith prior the state (and capitalism in general, in spite of what so many people think about Smith's time) being really formed; for Marx and Engels, capitalism truly was there into existence with the rise of the state - (Lenin identifies it thus as "special bodies of armed men"), and this is why the repurposement and eventual "withering away" of the state becomes so important to Marxist theory. LTV leads to capital, but then it became distorted by capital. Capitalism became "locked in" once you had a new public entity to arise and preside over the growing clash between the classes (which were newly formed). Lenin gives a detailed analysis of Marx & Engels on this point in the first chapter of State & Revolution.
TFortunato 7y ago
When you read the study, you actually realize that the number isn't 99%, its 59%, which I'm sure you know.
- meerita 7y ago
  Almost all the companies have entire goverment control or shared with majority, plus, they have to respect local goverment rules.
  - pizzazzaro 7y ago
    What penalty did Exxon pay for the Exxon-Valdez spill? Just some money. A fine. Oh, its a company emergency, and I need to get in? I could pay $100 parking ticket for breaking the law, and get inside NOW? Perfect. You've commodified parking for me. Thanks, "laws" for being worth breaking. Fines are just the recurring cost of business that block little "people" with little "salaries" from doing what is reserved for those with real power. Freedom is a lie when you cant afford it. And I bet you dont even pay your secretary enough to make rent without outside subsidy, like another job. Like Another MASTER. I doubt you'd survive a pay-period in their shoes.
  - illliiiillllil 7y ago
    The companies control the government, and most people are sort of catching on.
corodra 7y ago
What's worse is the fact that this rhetoric never gives an alternative other than a renaming of a communist command/control economy. Also known as "that thing tried multiple times in the 20th century that led to the direct slaughter or death by starvation of tens of millions". Sometimes shortened to "that thing that never worked". Then the argument that the banks and high industry are going to be democratic... yea, on paper. Not in practice. It would still be run by a small group of assholes, no different than right now. The difference is, they'll no longer have to be clever on taking tax dollars. I could potentially agree with anti capitalist rhetoric if they had a shred of understanding human nature. In capitalism, its base nature is everyone is an asshole thus you must out asshole them. The big thing is, you dont need nobility, allowance from the church or any real allowance from a governing body (other than health/safety depending on your NAICS, which I think is important). I wish I could remember the book. But it showed a chart of countries and their average business filing timelines from start to end. Theres a real damn good correlation between the lower day timelines (USA is avg 6 days depending on industry) and the higer GDP per cap. Countries with high timelines, like Russia with their 400+ days to start a business, which really hasn't changed since the CCCP days, have a shit GDP per cap. The same goes with the more socialist countries of europe compared to the more capitalist countries. But in general, starting a business in Europe is a fucking nightmare compared to this side of the pond. Anyways, the four pests campaign is one of the funniest and saddest events in the 20th century. I love how that shit got swept under the rug.
- meerita 7y ago
  There's an inmense example of the difference of total private banking system vs shared (today's system). I will never use banks as the example, since we're moving towards digital and decentralized currencies. > I could potentially agree with anti capitalist rhetoric if they had a shred of understanding human nature. In capitalism, its base nature is everyone is an asshole thus you must out asshole them. No, capitalism is a sum of institutions, so, it's not being an asshole, because if you're asshole, you will have it hard to triumph. In capitalism, the only way to success is by being good. If you take the opposite approach, you will last until your entire capital is lost. There's huge amounts of book that describe the theory well. The only bad here in the equation are the goverments, because they use the force, and if you believe all humans are "wolves", what you will not do (to solve the problems) is giving a wolf all the powers.
meerita 7y ago
Just another point on the argument. If you belive capitalism is the worst for the climate, then check what the most capitalists countries are in terms of ecology in comparison with other non-capitalists. You can use as reference the Economic Liberty Index.
pizzazzaro 7y ago
Nothing is perfect - how are we going to negotiate the survival of our species? Socialism has always meant, "worker ownership of the means of production." How well does that single thought harmonize with Anti-Democratic, Repressive Authoritarianism featuring State-directed-Economies? Just because your masters, and the masters across the sea agreed on deceiptive nomenclature does not make such a thing real. You'll find Smith and Marx synergized at your local co-op. But that alone wont save our world. As for the ownership dispute - markets have existed long before we, as a world, decided to make them into a God. No market has ever existed without either regulation or complete collapse. Imagine - humans for sale, politicians for sale, entire governments for sale. Unless you know for certain (Lolololol!) where you'll land in that world, do you really want to live in it? Without even a State to standardize your currency, the whole thing collapses before it gets off the ground. But hey, Cuba is doing well. They've got vaccines for four distinct cancers, universal literacy that makes the US look like the poor satellite by comparison,... and internet connections where an hour's use demands a full day's pay for most workers. Let me reiterate - Nothing is perfect. How are we going to negotiate the survival of our species? If Josef Stalin himself has a workable plan, screw it - I'll work for Tankie-Satan while ya boy Elon "works" over twitter for 96 hours a week.
illliiiillllil 7y ago
The private sector controls the state.

claudiawerner 7y ago

The thing is that by being owned by a government, it doesn't stop being "capitalism" in the eyes of the proponents of anti-capitalism. For them, the core feature of capitalism is freedom to buy and sell labour, employment of wage labour and accumulation of capital. They may even argue that companies such as PDVSA are private - because they are not under direct democratic control of the labourers who work with those means of production. I see no reason to believe that capitalism is "the most sustainable" environmentally speaking. Just because it's hard to see big incidents such as Chernobyl or the drying of the Aral sea under capitalism, that doesn't mean that its effects are any less pernicious. In fact, it just means its actions are more transparent and insidious - in the words of a famous author, dystopia without a despot. Nevertheless, it's worth reading up on socialist critiques of the environmental policy of previous socialist states. Eco-socialism[0] is actually one of the most researched areas of normative social philosophy this decade. They likely explain the points better than the article linked in OP. [0] https://climateandcapitalism.com/2019/07/27/20-essential-books-on-marxist-ecology/ https://climateandcapitalism.com/2019/07/27/20-essential-boo...

meerita 7y ago
Is not capitalism what you mention. It's called Corporatism, the theory and practice of organizing society into "corporations" subordinate to the state. It is also known as prebender companies. Companies that operate thanks to the arrangements they have with the State, without the pressure of the institutions of capitalism: competition, rules, etc. And yes, the people who think "it's capitalism anyways" don't realize this fact.
- hybrids 7y ago
  "Corporatism," "corporatocracy," "crony capitalism," etc. are right-wing buzzwords intended to piggyback on the contemporary resurgence in capital-critical thought, esp. after Occupy and more recently with Trump. The issue is that "corporatism" is less of a theory and more just an echo of the same things libertarians have been saying for many years: to libertarians, the state and its relationship to capital looks "accidental" and seeks to return to an Adam Smith-era of development that you can't actually turn back to. To Marxists the construction of the state (the 1848 moment) was unconscious but happened for a reason - new contradictions in society emerged, creating a bourgeois necessity for a state to "keep order" as it were, to "destroy capitalism" in the name of preserving capitalism. As capitalism's contradiction translates from one position to the other, the apparent relationship of the state to capital seems to ebb and flow in ways without getting to the actual root of the manner - both market liberalization and Keynesian state intervention can appear valid in capitalism. What you call "corporatism" - the apparent abject deterioration of capitalism - Lenin called "imperialism" or "the monopoly stage of capitalism" a century prior, and he correctly pointed out that it was an an actual inevitability of capitalism due to the heightened concentration of capital.
  - meerita 7y ago
    I call corporativisim or prebendary, to those non-capitalists forms of enterprises, where some intermediaries ally with goverments. People always cite these examples when they want to point out about capitalism, but they're totally wrong about it. That's not capitalism, that's just another form of socialism where the State is not yet deep root in it and they're buying time while others profit, until everything is owned by the state "in favor of the people".
    - hybrids 7y ago
      Socialism is not "the state doing things" or "state intervention" or "state ownership." Of course these can be aspects of an implementation of socialism, but they are not socialism in itself - the "how" and "why" actually matters. This is a conflation that historically came to prominence during the Cold War to make the difference between capitalism and socialism "digestible." Even young modern socialists believe this now, no longer understanding socialism as a historical tendency towards emancipation, which attests to the current pitiful state of the Left. You want actual evidence of what actual major socialist thinkers thought of the state during the time when socialism was most relevant, read Marx's 18th Brumaire or read Lenin's State and Revolution and come to your own conclusions.
Excel_Wizard 7y ago
How would you propose organizing society such that it is environmentally sustainable?
esarbe 7y ago
Don't know why this is getting downvoted. This is Marx's core definition of Capitalism; the ability to buy and sell labour, employment of wage labour and accumulation of capital. That means that those who own the means of production extract more value from those who labour than what they pay for that labour. That's Capitalism. 'Rent taking' is missing, that's no reason for a downvote.
- hybrids 7y ago
  Adam Smith observed rent-seeking in his own time, and had some harsh words to say about it (first volume of Wealth of Nations) "The ability to buy and sell labor" is not really part of Marx's definition of capitalism - while LTV is important to Marxism, Marx's critique was that LTV is no longer clear because of Capital. Anti-marxists like to try and disprove LTV because it's the first thing in Das Kapital but they miss the point completely (Marx got it from Smith anyway).
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    >"The ability to buy and sell labor" is not really part of Marx's definition of capitalism It absolutely is, and that's part of what distinguishes the capitalist mode of production from any other. Marx speaks of the "double freedom" workers under capitalism must have. Liberal property relations are what allows capitalism to survive, and free trade in labour is its precondition.
    - hybrids 7y ago
      The selling of labor applies more to the greater bourgeois revolution (or humanity in general aspiring to it) than capitalism specifically (which is what the bourgeois revolution evolved to). This is why "people selling their labor" appears true for Adam Smith prior the state (and capitalism in general, in spite of what so many people think about Smith's time) being really formed; for Marx and Engels, capitalism truly was there into existence with the rise of the state - (Lenin identifies it thus as "special bodies of armed men"), and this is why the repurposement and eventual "withering away" of the state becomes so important to Marxist theory. LTV leads to capital, but then it became distorted by capital. Capitalism became "locked in" once you had a new public entity to arise and preside over the growing clash between the classes (which were newly formed). Lenin gives a detailed analysis of Marx & Engels on this point in the first chapter of State & Revolution.

TFortunato 7y ago

When you read the study, you actually realize that the number isn't 99%, its 59%, which I'm sure you know.

meerita 7y ago
Almost all the companies have entire goverment control or shared with majority, plus, they have to respect local goverment rules.
- pizzazzaro 7y ago
  What penalty did Exxon pay for the Exxon-Valdez spill? Just some money. A fine. Oh, its a company emergency, and I need to get in? I could pay $100 parking ticket for breaking the law, and get inside NOW? Perfect. You've commodified parking for me. Thanks, "laws" for being worth breaking. Fines are just the recurring cost of business that block little "people" with little "salaries" from doing what is reserved for those with real power. Freedom is a lie when you cant afford it. And I bet you dont even pay your secretary enough to make rent without outside subsidy, like another job. Like Another MASTER. I doubt you'd survive a pay-period in their shoes.
- illliiiillllil 7y ago
  The companies control the government, and most people are sort of catching on.

corodra 7y ago

What's worse is the fact that this rhetoric never gives an alternative other than a renaming of a communist command/control economy. Also known as "that thing tried multiple times in the 20th century that led to the direct slaughter or death by starvation of tens of millions". Sometimes shortened to "that thing that never worked". Then the argument that the banks and high industry are going to be democratic... yea, on paper. Not in practice. It would still be run by a small group of assholes, no different than right now. The difference is, they'll no longer have to be clever on taking tax dollars. I could potentially agree with anti capitalist rhetoric if they had a shred of understanding human nature. In capitalism, its base nature is everyone is an asshole thus you must out asshole them. The big thing is, you dont need nobility, allowance from the church or any real allowance from a governing body (other than health/safety depending on your NAICS, which I think is important). I wish I could remember the book. But it showed a chart of countries and their average business filing timelines from start to end. Theres a real damn good correlation between the lower day timelines (USA is avg 6 days depending on industry) and the higer GDP per cap. Countries with high timelines, like Russia with their 400+ days to start a business, which really hasn't changed since the CCCP days, have a shit GDP per cap. The same goes with the more socialist countries of europe compared to the more capitalist countries. But in general, starting a business in Europe is a fucking nightmare compared to this side of the pond. Anyways, the four pests campaign is one of the funniest and saddest events in the 20th century. I love how that shit got swept under the rug.

meerita 7y ago
There's an inmense example of the difference of total private banking system vs shared (today's system). I will never use banks as the example, since we're moving towards digital and decentralized currencies. > I could potentially agree with anti capitalist rhetoric if they had a shred of understanding human nature. In capitalism, its base nature is everyone is an asshole thus you must out asshole them. No, capitalism is a sum of institutions, so, it's not being an asshole, because if you're asshole, you will have it hard to triumph. In capitalism, the only way to success is by being good. If you take the opposite approach, you will last until your entire capital is lost. There's huge amounts of book that describe the theory well. The only bad here in the equation are the goverments, because they use the force, and if you believe all humans are "wolves", what you will not do (to solve the problems) is giving a wolf all the powers.

meerita 7y ago

Just another point on the argument. If you belive capitalism is the worst for the climate, then check what the most capitalists countries are in terms of ecology in comparison with other non-capitalists. You can use as reference the Economic Liberty Index.

pizzazzaro 7y ago

Nothing is perfect - how are we going to negotiate the survival of our species? Socialism has always meant, "worker ownership of the means of production." How well does that single thought harmonize with Anti-Democratic, Repressive Authoritarianism featuring State-directed-Economies? Just because your masters, and the masters across the sea agreed on deceiptive nomenclature does not make such a thing real. You'll find Smith and Marx synergized at your local co-op. But that alone wont save our world. As for the ownership dispute - markets have existed long before we, as a world, decided to make them into a God. No market has ever existed without either regulation or complete collapse. Imagine - humans for sale, politicians for sale, entire governments for sale. Unless you know for certain (Lolololol!) where you'll land in that world, do you really want to live in it? Without even a State to standardize your currency, the whole thing collapses before it gets off the ground. But hey, Cuba is doing well. They've got vaccines for four distinct cancers, universal literacy that makes the US look like the poor satellite by comparison,... and internet connections where an hour's use demands a full day's pay for most workers. Let me reiterate - Nothing is perfect. How are we going to negotiate the survival of our species? If Josef Stalin himself has a workable plan, screw it - I'll work for Tankie-Satan while ya boy Elon "works" over twitter for 96 hours a week.

illliiiillllil 7y ago

The private sector controls the state.