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It's not a difficult problem to reconcile capitalism and sustainability from a technical perspective. Just a question of political will. Carbon taxes. Water

It's not a difficult problem to reconcile capitalism and sustainability from a technical perspective. Just a question of political will. Carbon taxes. Water prices reflecting scarcity. Compensating people living in rain forests to not cut down their trees. Capitalism is still the best tool we have for setting prices and incentivizing efficiency. Just needs to be guided to place appropriate prices on externalities.

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
Water prices reflecting scarcity are not a solution for water scarcity. The problem is not enough water. You can't make water by taxing it. All you're doing is making it less accessible for people lower down the hierarchy - which makes it even scarcer, because people at the top of the hierarchy end up hoarding it and/or profiteering. Which is why price signals are one of the dumbest of all possible ways of managing resources. They're a political non-solution to a physical problem. You may try to argue that "incentizing efficiency" means more water is produced. But that is empirically false. The only real competition is capitalism is for shareholder cash. Customers are thrown overboard if their interests conflict with that goal. None of this solves the physical, tangible problem of providing a stable water supply. If you're having trouble understanding this, ask the people in Flint MI how making imaginary money game tokens more important than providing a usable utility has worked out for them. You might also want to look into why the UK's water companies are currently dumping raw sewage into rivers. Hint: because they can, and because it's more profitable than filtering it first.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > Which is why price signals are one of the dumbest of all possible ways of managing resources. They're a political non-solution to a physical problem. Au contraire; distorting or ignoring price signals is the dumbest of all possible ways of managing resources, precisely because you let people pretend that the underlying realities don't need to be contended with. > Water prices reflecting scarcity are not a solution for water scarcity. I assume the GP is referring to things like how agricultural water is dirt cheap in arid parts of the US. By making those prices better reflect reality (of scarce water in those regions), water-intensive agriculture will need to happen elsewhere, freeing up water for residential consumption, for example. > why the UK's water companies are currently dumping raw sewage into rivers. Hint: because they can, and because it's more profitable than filtering it first. So you agree that price signals would fix this problem?
- Voultapher 3y ago
  You know, the one comforting thought in all this is, politicians can try to argue and bargain with physics as much as they want. Physics doesn't care. You either accept that infinite growth in a universe with limited resources is impossible, or you're stuck loosing the rhetoric battle against physics. I think the only sustainable way forward is to divorce our concept of wealth from growth, and ever increasing exploitation of resources.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
You’re confusing markets with capitalism Capitalism requires a philosophical split between labor, productivity, and capital ownership A market is simply a price clearing mechanism in the context of known exchange rates of commodities, you don’t even need money for it, and says nothing about the ownership composition of the actors making trading decisions
- Jensson 3y ago
  If you have a labor market then you have capitalism, since it lets you hire labor to work for you and that is enough to make you a billionaire. So markets and capitalism are tightly coupled things, you can have some very limited markets without capitalism but in general if you have a pretty free market you have capitalism.
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    Yes of course if you create a slave market - which is a market for purely alienated labor - then you’ll have capitalism by function I’m not sure what this proves though Again the concept of a market is independent of capitalism, they are not mutually excluding
- greenie_beans 3y ago
  put this on a bumper sticker

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago

Water prices reflecting scarcity are not a solution for water scarcity. The problem is not enough water. You can't make water by taxing it. All you're doing is making it less accessible for people lower down the hierarchy - which makes it even scarcer, because people at the top of the hierarchy end up hoarding it and/or profiteering. Which is why price signals are one of the dumbest of all possible ways of managing resources. They're a political non-solution to a physical problem. You may try to argue that "incentizing efficiency" means more water is produced. But that is empirically false. The only real competition is capitalism is for shareholder cash. Customers are thrown overboard if their interests conflict with that goal. None of this solves the physical, tangible problem of providing a stable water supply. If you're having trouble understanding this, ask the people in Flint MI how making imaginary money game tokens more important than providing a usable utility has worked out for them. You might also want to look into why the UK's water companies are currently dumping raw sewage into rivers. Hint: because they can, and because it's more profitable than filtering it first.

gottorf 3y ago
> Which is why price signals are one of the dumbest of all possible ways of managing resources. They're a political non-solution to a physical problem. Au contraire; distorting or ignoring price signals is the dumbest of all possible ways of managing resources, precisely because you let people pretend that the underlying realities don't need to be contended with. > Water prices reflecting scarcity are not a solution for water scarcity. I assume the GP is referring to things like how agricultural water is dirt cheap in arid parts of the US. By making those prices better reflect reality (of scarce water in those regions), water-intensive agriculture will need to happen elsewhere, freeing up water for residential consumption, for example. > why the UK's water companies are currently dumping raw sewage into rivers. Hint: because they can, and because it's more profitable than filtering it first. So you agree that price signals would fix this problem?
Voultapher 3y ago
You know, the one comforting thought in all this is, politicians can try to argue and bargain with physics as much as they want. Physics doesn't care. You either accept that infinite growth in a universe with limited resources is impossible, or you're stuck loosing the rhetoric battle against physics. I think the only sustainable way forward is to divorce our concept of wealth from growth, and ever increasing exploitation of resources.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

You’re confusing markets with capitalism Capitalism requires a philosophical split between labor, productivity, and capital ownership A market is simply a price clearing mechanism in the context of known exchange rates of commodities, you don’t even need money for it, and says nothing about the ownership composition of the actors making trading decisions

Jensson 3y ago
If you have a labor market then you have capitalism, since it lets you hire labor to work for you and that is enough to make you a billionaire. So markets and capitalism are tightly coupled things, you can have some very limited markets without capitalism but in general if you have a pretty free market you have capitalism.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  Yes of course if you create a slave market - which is a market for purely alienated labor - then you’ll have capitalism by function I’m not sure what this proves though Again the concept of a market is independent of capitalism, they are not mutually excluding
greenie_beans 3y ago
put this on a bumper sticker