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> Personally I think leaving everything to "the market" is also a very bad idea since all the market cares about is money. Not the environment, not people, not
by x3n0ph3n3 4y ago
> Personally I think leaving everything to "the market" is also a very bad idea since all the market cares about is money. Not the environment, not people, not society. Trying to get the market to take these into account makes for very awkward workarounds like carbon taxes/credits. There needs to be a balance between free markets and protecting our own interests, and those of the world as a whole.
This isn't a problem with "the market", but how finance and stock markets are heavily biased with short-term thinking. Money _in the short term_, is the predominant issue.
- RestlessMind 4y ago> Money _in the short term_, is the predominant issue. That's not just about money. Humans in general are bad at thinking long term and want immediate gratification. cf Marshmallow experiment, or how we are (not) tackling climate change.
- rhaway84773 4y agoThe problem is that risk increases rapidly with time. Any system whose goal is to optimize the usage of money, which is what finance basically is, will almost always value short term thinking over long term thinking because of the much greater risk involved. The way to counteract this is simple. Regulation and/or adding a monetary cost to the behavior you want to discourage.
- janalsncm 4y agoNegative externalities haven’t been properly priced in because the cost of dumping carbon into the atmosphere is zero. Change the cost structure and even the short-term calculations change immediately.
- cutemonster 4y agoOr dumping plastics in the ocean