this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Capitalism IS to blame for everything and we individuals CANNOT do sh1t.
Firstly, capitalists have convinced everyone they need to buy a lot of stuff.
Secondly, humans are selfish and in a capitalistic system it's difficult to achieve your goals without money. Imagine you're a young person, say late 20s or early 30s, who makes some money, but isn't rich by any means. Are YOU going to pay twice or thrice as much for everything you consume just so it'd be carbon neutral? No, because you're probably saving up for something, whether it's a home (because, y'know, capitalism - you need to pay out the ass for a place to live), retirement (because with the aging population in most western countries, the national pension schemes can't be trusted long term), or that foreign vacation you feel you deserve after 10 years of hard work.
Say you DO cut your carbon footprint by 90% or even 100%. I have bad news for you. 98-99% of the rest of people didn't, because they want to go on with their lives instead of worrying about the future, so your changes are meaningless. What's more, BP execs will smile at you for believing the whole carbon footprint thing they spread. Now you're living like you're in a 3rd world country, but everyone else around you keeps up their expensive polluting lifestyles, making your sacrifice meaningless. You can't have a negative amount of cars, but someone else CAN have 5.
The only thing that can change anything is political change - tax the companies to oblivion for CO2 production. Watch them scramble to reduce their CO2 footprint in any goods and services where it's possible, and stop offering goods and services that can't be optimized. The individual carbon footprint was invented precisely to prevent this - make climate activists blame other civilians (who for the most part won't stop consuming, thus having no negative effect on oil company profits) instead of politicians (who could actually effect some change). Yes, a carbon tax would affect end users and particularly poor people. But that's the only way forward, and government programs can help those who are affected the worst.
Individuals can NOT bear the full responsibility for something that affects all of us. It simply doesn't work, because humans don't work that way. There has to be government level effort. It's also why libertarianism doesn't work. "The free market will regulate itself, you can vote with your wallet". Well, if 99% of people don't care about being poisoned by their food, or their video games being overmonetized, or the planet dying... Guess what, the free market doesn't regulate itself, and no amount of awareness is going to make a dent in it.
So sure, make changes to your lifestyle. Tell your friends and family about the low-hanging fruit in their lives to reduce consumption, educate them. Spend tens of thousands on solar panels if you can afford it. These are all good things to do! But don't blame the individual for the failings of society. We're all playing the hand we're dealt, and unless you're born a millionaire, that hand is "shit is expensive, shit that pollutes less is even more expensive, I'mma do what I have to".
PS: Ya know what is the worst part? Capitalists want worker drones back in offices so that people would consume more and office space values wouldn't drop. 2020 was the ONE time in history we managed to curb our emissions, but that doesn't jive well with capitalism, so working from home is now considered "immoral" by billionaires.
This mindset of defeatism is EXACTLY what is holding us back. "Either we get an instant 100% perfect governmental solution or everything is meaningless anyway". You're letting perfect be the enemy of good. Cutting back your consumerism of oil and meat or atleast being mindful is not useless. It is creating new markets. The meat substitute market saw a growth of 8-10% annually worldwide for the past 6 years. Are you telling me a market that grows at 4-5 times the average typical inflation rate is "just useless"?
If you buy a soymilk pack instead of a pack of milk, you're helping. That's less income for the dairy industry. Sure it's not as efficient as it could be if if soymilk and -use would be perfected but it's still better than subsidizing the dairy industry. And you are not alone. Sure maybe you're not in majority but there are a few millions Americans that that are also doing this. That is atleast a few millions a year that are going to different markets than the dairy industry. Where I currently live in Switzerland among my friend group we have all drastically cut down on our meat consumption. Sure it's not 100% but I consume on average about 100g meat per week and get my "easy" protein from substitute products, which are cheaper and more environmentally friendly. Am I privileged? Sure. But just throwing in the towel and going on eating meat and driving cars because "it is meaningless anyway", will doom us all much more than atleast trying.
It's not defeatism. It's identifying the problem, and identifying that political change should be the priority. When liberals are out there deregulating this shit, subsidizing the industries that contribute to the issue, and then saying it's the fault of the consumers, you can start to see why just telling people to cut down on their carbon footprint and leaving out that we should be advocating for environmental regulation, walkable cities, etc. might be an issue.
TL;DR Saying that corporations are the primary ones at fault isn't "defeatism", it's saying we need to do something about them. If you're such a doomer that you think corporations are invulnerable, that's on you.
Ah, you're doing the bidding of the oil companies I see. Shame the consumers, and nothing will happen. But you will feel good about your changes, at least.
If you want to stop climate change, it needs to be not 2%, not 5% of people, but more like 90% reducing their consumption to near-zero. But without government intervention, you can't get much. Matter of fact, shaming consumers alienates a lot of people. There's a pretty large "Fuck Greta" movement in many countries, because people are idiots.
Don’t forget that the biggest greenhouse gas produce is China which last I checked is not capitalist.
china is capitalist, also they produce less per capita than the US, this is silly
Oh what's that, the party calls themselves communist? Guess north korea is a democracy now cause they call themselves that, this totally makes sense
Around 1/3 of GDP is from state owned businesses. They definitely have a strong market economy there but my point was that capitalism causes greenhouse gas emissions like the guy I replied to stated is not true.
State owned doesn't mean not capitalist. This is silly.
No but state owned is the exact definition of communist. China has a communist government which allows a high degree of market/capitalist activity.
The anarchist communists that have existed for at least 180 years would probably disagree with you.
I have no idea what an anarchist communist is but I think this conversation got way off track. A communist country’s defining feature is that the public has (ostensibly) ownership of property which is typically through the state.
If you live on a literal commune somewhere of course the reality will be different.
The original conversation was regarding who produces pollution, a capitalist or communist nation, with my point being that it doesn’t matter what the form of government is.
The original definition of capitalism used to be an economy where 90% of businesses and property are privately owned. And while I admit that the meaning of words tend to change over time I think that the meaning of capitalism was deliberately changed so that the Soviet Union doesn't sound as insane as it was to future generations. L
Original definition according to who? Best I can tell from reading the literature, the definition in the public sphere was changed to this definition in the 20th century. Papers wrote of state capitalism in the 1880s. By the 1890s in Germany, the idea had already arisen that perhaps state socialism isn't possible as it will always become state capitalism.
It's strange, but I distinctly remember three different school books giving that exact definition. Yet, when I looked up the etymology for the word it said that it started out as a disparaging French word for money lender and was picked up by the British to describe anyone who made money in enterprise.
That's certainly a claim. One I've never heard before. You should probably provide a source for that, because that sound like bullshit.
Besides, I don't think calling the Soviet Union "state capitalist" downplays how bad they were, especially when that's coming from a leftist.
Decided to do some research after your questions. Turns out the word was used/coined by the French as a derogatory word for money lenders was co opted by the British later as a derogatory word for anyone involved in manufacturing and other base enterprises. And then some economists in the 80s and 90s tried to redefine it and even wrote that dedinition into some Social Studies and Economy textbooks that I remember reading throughout my life in school.
No, it's definitely capitalist, even if not by name. And it produces a bunch of goods for a bunch of other capitalist countries, for profit.
nice mental gymnastics. Capitalism simply enabled free will of the people. Who want to consume no matter the consequences. It doesn't bother them either if the goods they're buying were made by starving children. But hey, blame the system.
That's the problem with the system. It comprises of PEOPLE, which is why everything that people arguing for capitalism say about capitalism regulating itself, is bullshit. Not only do masses of people not care about intangible effects of their consumption, capitalism makes it profitable to advertise to people to make them consume more, and a lack of carbon tax makes it more profitable for companies to pollute a lot of the time. The will of the people (aka car company propaganda) is the reason Americans pollute so much. It was advertised to them that driving is the only true freedom, in the 1950s. And now 70 years later there are nearly no walkable cities left, because Americans demanded wider roads.
The system is what makes it profitable to abuse straving children. Also, thanks to the system, it is ridiculously hard to save up for things like, idk, housing, because it's all being bought up as a speculative asset. So if your average person buys a 5$ t-shirt made in Bangladesh instead of a 50$ sustainably sourced one because they can't afford the latter on their budget, can you really blame them, or has the system failed them?
Milk is way cheaper than oat drink and if I go to a gas station, they charge me more for the burger to have a meat substitute, which doesn't feel much like meat.
Most people will never get past the "okay, this might be bad, but everyone else does it too, and if I don't, I'll be at a financial disadvantage" mentality about buying cheaper products, because capitalism is a competition for resources, and we can't afford to give up the advantage of buying cheaper foods, cheaper (ICE) cars (where public transit isn't an option), etc.
Bottom line is, you can get your friends and family to forsake themselves for an intangible goal, maybe you can convince some strangers, but there's no way to get 8+ billion to stop doing what's convenient for them with just propaganda. You need regulations. And that's why any system that depends on the will of the people to achieve intangible goals DOES NOT WORK. It's super easy to get the majority of 8 billion people to start consuming more with just advertising and propaganda. It's impossible to get them all consuming less. I said it before too. Oil companies realize this and that's why they invented the carbon footprint, to keep the people who do care fighting those who don't - that way nobody has energy left to lobby for real, regulationary change.
So sure, maybe capitalism isn't at fault. Maybe the fact that humans exist is. But the goal should be to design a system fit for humans, not to kill all humans or whatever it is that is required to fix capitalism.