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I fail to understand why you bring capitalism into this when it's the most efficient way of dealing with pollution, since it has a pricing mechanism for raw mat

by mopsi 5y ago

I fail to understand why you bring capitalism into this when it's the most efficient way of dealing with pollution, since it has a pricing mechanism for raw materials, pollution taxes, etc. I've lived in the socialism on the USSR and seen what it looked like, it's day and night compared to how free countries deal with pollution. Guess what happens when raw materials are available for free, the economy is inefficient because why bother, and pollution doesn't matter because citizens can't vote anyone else into the office because there's only a single party. China happens. Rivers downstream from textile factories colored with dye-of-the-season, wire fences near cement factories opaque from dust, transport workers spilling diesel fuel into the ground for decades to hide slacking and sub-quota mileage, etc. I've seen it all with my own eyes. When the first Western experts gained access after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were utterly devastated at the scale of environmental pollution. They had never seen anything this bad. The solution to everything had been "dig a ditch and throw it in", and if anyone complained, arrest and beat them until they shut up, or send to a labor camp if they don't. The main problem in the West is similar socialism for the polluters, albeit on a much smaller scale. They get to pollute for very cheap, mostly abroad in China. They should be taxed for what raw materials and their pollution actually costs instead of the current artifically low levels achieved through outsourcing to lawless shithole countries, and environmental damage from their actions would be greatly reduced.

II2II 5y ago
> I've lived in the socialism on the USSR and seen what it looked like, it's day and night compared to how free countries deal with pollution. It has more to do with free countries than free enterprise. Private businesses used to be notorious for stripping resources from the environment (e.g. strip mining, clear cutting) to keep the cost of resources low and they used to be notorious for dumping pollutants into the environment since they did not have to deal with the costs of pollution. It was public pressure that resulted in environmental regulation, and even then (as you mentioned) they try to circumvent the costs by outsourcing to jurisdictions that are more lenient.
ratsforhorses 5y ago
I agree wholesale with you but would like to point out that in "capitalism" prices for raw materials are often so cheap as to be called free not only in lawless shithole countries (see the films "Tapped" or "Gasland" concerning shale and bottled waterwater industry), even fines for polluting are often a slap on the wrist for hugely rich corporations (who are too big to fail ...) Swiss billionaire Stephen Schmidheiny is a rare example of someone being held accountable... But more to the point "The Corporation" makes the case that it's because a change in the law during the civil war let businesses have the same rights as citizens that such oversight occurs..they have more resources than individuals and often cause speculative havoc (ie buying up properties to make a Airbnb empire) I understand your emotion and living in Romania I see the abandoned conglomerates and am glad that period is over...however if you discount the risk of chernobilian disaster (sea of Azov etc) that the lack of media and public accountability made possible I'd wager that capitalistic societies is powers of magnitude more polluting simply because people live behind paid layers (producer->wholesalers->distributors->retailers->consumer) paying for it by living in cities, working for buisnesses serving other buisness etc) Manufactured boredom (from living in cities) ->Advertising->fashion/fads->brands-> excess packaging is also a thing and part of the problem... Then there is the fact that businesses once created to solve a problem in the most efficient way often self perpetuate and bloat with govt closing their eyes to monopolistic behaviour in the name of customer pricing In the city I live in, you can buy food from people from the countryside, rent/property is still cheap , so if you live simply you hardly have expenses and can avoid wasting your life working away while hardly seeing your kids grow up... I understand you lived in a failed system but you shouldn't throw away the baby with the bathwater, authenticity counts, real food counts, generosity and food that is less processed or sprayed (because cost) counts I feel having grown up in a WIERD (acronym) people there forget that the apparent sophistication is just a sheen and like the 300ml plastic bottles they constantly consume they are choking the rest of us on their garbage (ie the developed world using x times more than the rest) I think you can see where I'm going with this...the problem with capitalism atm or the way government treats it is that it inherently needs growth, whereas the planet needs "decroissance" a french word for "ungrowth" a french politician, (Yves Cochet )I think, said something like our economy has to "ungrow" 10% per year , it's possible even without covid, but it certainly needs a whole new mindset or a drastic realisation that droughts are going to get much much worse...

by mopsi 5y ago

II2II 5y ago

> I've lived in the socialism on the USSR and seen what it looked like, it's day and night compared to how free countries deal with pollution. It has more to do with free countries than free enterprise. Private businesses used to be notorious for stripping resources from the environment (e.g. strip mining, clear cutting) to keep the cost of resources low and they used to be notorious for dumping pollutants into the environment since they did not have to deal with the costs of pollution. It was public pressure that resulted in environmental regulation, and even then (as you mentioned) they try to circumvent the costs by outsourcing to jurisdictions that are more lenient.

ratsforhorses 5y ago

I agree wholesale with you but would like to point out that in "capitalism" prices for raw materials are often so cheap as to be called free not only in lawless shithole countries (see the films "Tapped" or "Gasland" concerning shale and bottled waterwater industry), even fines for polluting are often a slap on the wrist for hugely rich corporations (who are too big to fail ...) Swiss billionaire Stephen Schmidheiny is a rare example of someone being held accountable... But more to the point "The Corporation" makes the case that it's because a change in the law during the civil war let businesses have the same rights as citizens that such oversight occurs..they have more resources than individuals and often cause speculative havoc (ie buying up properties to make a Airbnb empire) I understand your emotion and living in Romania I see the abandoned conglomerates and am glad that period is over...however if you discount the risk of chernobilian disaster (sea of Azov etc) that the lack of media and public accountability made possible I'd wager that capitalistic societies is powers of magnitude more polluting simply because people live behind paid layers (producer->wholesalers->distributors->retailers->consumer) paying for it by living in cities, working for buisnesses serving other buisness etc) Manufactured boredom (from living in cities) ->Advertising->fashion/fads->brands-> excess packaging is also a thing and part of the problem... Then there is the fact that businesses once created to solve a problem in the most efficient way often self perpetuate and bloat with govt closing their eyes to monopolistic behaviour in the name of customer pricing In the city I live in, you can buy food from people from the countryside, rent/property is still cheap , so if you live simply you hardly have expenses and can avoid wasting your life working away while hardly seeing your kids grow up... I understand you lived in a failed system but you shouldn't throw away the baby with the bathwater, authenticity counts, real food counts, generosity and food that is less processed or sprayed (because cost) counts I feel having grown up in a WIERD (acronym) people there forget that the apparent sophistication is just a sheen and like the 300ml plastic bottles they constantly consume they are choking the rest of us on their garbage (ie the developed world using x times more than the rest) I think you can see where I'm going with this...the problem with capitalism atm or the way government treats it is that it inherently needs growth, whereas the planet needs "decroissance" a french word for "ungrowth" a french politician, (Yves Cochet )I think, said something like our economy has to "ungrow" 10% per year , it's possible even without covid, but it certainly needs a whole new mindset or a drastic realisation that droughts are going to get much much worse...