"In the degrowth literature, a caricature of the typical economist is presented as believing in unlimited economic growth, and that growth should be pursued regardless of its environmental impact. This is a straw man. It would be a naïve economist who did not recognise that constraints exist. And economists usually limit their projections to a few decades to come, rather than to the infinite future, in which they supposedly believe in unlimited exponential economic growth. Certainly, there are theoretical economic growth models which portray the possibility of exponential growth into the infinite future, but economists have had enough common sense not to assume stylised theoretical models are the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to public policy."
Then why, Mr. Tunny, is it so hard to find an economist who can tell us when the economy should stop growing?
A popular response to anticapitalist discourse is that capitalism is intrinsically good but it was corrupted at some point in the recent past and whatever anticapitalists are complaining about is really due to that fall from grace rather than capitalism itself. The election of Ronald Reagan is popular for this.
People who sincerely believe this are so historically illiterate that it's impossible to have a serious discussion with them so I don't (usually) engage, and when I do it's disappointing. But if they could talk sense about it what I'd really want to hear from them is when do they think capitalism got good? A fall from grace implies a prior state of grace and when was that for capitalism?
For hundreds of years, since its beginning, capitalism was fueled by slavery, murder, torture, armed robbery. Marx's famous characterization of its birth as "dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt" is an understatement. When did this end, do they think?
I mean, explicit slavery is mostly illegal, although that only happened generally within my great-grandparents' generation, so not that long ago, but slavery was pretty seamlessly replaced with systems of exploitation that were and are only visibly less violent. This has to be the case because the profits never shrank. When did capitalism get good in order to be able to get bad in the 1980s?
Anyway, yes, this is a subtoot. Since they're incapable of responding sensibly I'm shouting it into the void instead.
Not that I'm particularly against that - quite the opposite, in fact. But I'm wondering if anyone sees, or had seen a path to social and climate recovery/progress that could occur without first eradicating the class of people who most enjoy the present status quo.
Geoffrey Deihl, aka Sane Thinker (@gdeihl), carefully analyzes various economic plans to combat climate change, including the Green New Deal, and contrasts them with his preferred option: Degrowth.
This is a fully researched and superbly reasoned article. I'll post a few excerpts below, but I hope you'll read the whole thing.
Capitalism, particularly neoliberal capitalism and its resulting increased consumption, have pushed the planet to the brink. Nibbling at the edges of the problem is woefully inadequate.
Climate scientists are stunned by the melting Arctic ice sheet, for instance, which is decades ahead of original models. The Antarctic ice sheet is now melting as well. The oceans are currently experiencing an unexpected and shocking temperature rise in a matter of months, not years. Scientists are unsure if this is related to the return of El Niño, or if it could be an entirely new tipping point they were unaware of.
The truth is that without significant, perhaps profound changes to how we live in so-called advanced industrial nations, we’re going to fail to halt global warming at an adequate pace with current efforts, and failure will lead to a crash that none of our sadly popular apocalyptic movies can prepare us for.
We’re in a climate emergency now, the word crisis is no longer appropriate. The strongest possible actions need to be taken as quickly as possible. Delay is death.
We need to dismantle billionaires and accept that we commoners also need to be prepared for changes, as we adjust to living in a gentler way on the planet. We can sacrifice again, as we did during WWII, for an ultimately a better future. We will not save the planet merely by driving electric versions of SUVs that look like the solution in slick advertising spots.
Degrowth recognizes a simple truth. The planet is finite. Infinite growth is an impossibility on a finite world.
Reducing our consumption and ever-growing energy demands is key, if we are to have a future. This is one of the fundamentals the Green New Deal, Build Back Better, and IRA miss. All the batteries in the world will be insufficient if we don’t bring our consumption under control. In addition to building out renewables, we must reduce our energy use. Degrowth recognizes that economic growth without destruction of nature is impossible, and the destruction of nature guarantees our own destruction.
Very amusing to see capitalism apologists on the Fediverse
I mean, it's more understandable on Xitter or Macebook
But here? The place that's sustained by twine, chewing gum, patreon, and the hopes and dreams of two dozen catgirls? The place that's been going strong without a profit motive for half a decade now?
Capitalism creates socioeconomic inequality by concentrating wealth and power among a select few, perpetuates systemic oppression, inherently exploits labor which leads to alienation and a lack of worker autonomy, prioritizes profit over social needs, and exacerbates environmental degradation and resource depletion. We aren't the problem. Capitalism is the problem. #capitalism#inequality#exploitation#anticapitalism
The enforcement of copyright law is really simple.
If you were a kid who used Napster in the early 2000s to download the latest album by The Offspring or Destiny's Child, because you couldn't afford the CD, then you need to go to court! And potentially face criminal sanctions or punitive damages to the RIAA for each song you download, because you're an evil pirate! You wouldn't steal a car! Creators must be paid!
If you created educational videos on YouTube in the 2010s, and featured a video or audio clip, then even if it's fair use, and even if it's used to make a legitimate point, you're getting demonetised. That's assuming your videos don't disappear or get shadow banned or your account isn't shut entirely. Oh, and good luck finding your way through YouTube's convoluted DMCA process! All creators are equal in deserving pay, but some are more equal than others!
And if you're a corporation with a market capitalisation of US$1.5 trillion (Google/Alphabet) or US$2.3 billion (Microsoft), then you can freely use everyone's intellectual property to train your generative AI bots. Suddenly creators don't deserve to be paid a cent.
Apparently, an individual downloading a single file is like stealing a car. But a trillion-dollar corporation stealing every car is just good business.
Still can’t get over the fact that an editor of the Financial Times said that we need to do away with #capitalism in order to deal with the #climate. If that’s not a sign of mainstream economics/finance finally waking up to the reality of the situation we’re in, I don’t now what is.
My real worry with Google's voyage into enshittification (thanks to Cory Doctorow @pluralistic the term) is YouTube.
Through YT, for the past 15 years, the world has basically entrusted Google to be the custodian of pretty much our entire global video archive.
There's countless hours of archived footage — news reports, political speeches, historical events, documentaries, indie films, academic lectures, conference presentations, rare recordings, concert footage, obscure music — where the best or only copy is now held by Google through YouTube.
So what happens if maintaining that archival footage becomes unprofitable?
My biggest problem with #capitalism is that it forces everyone to make earning money their primary objective.
Not to provide valuable services for society.
Not to make sure that people don't suffer.
Not to preserve our environment.
All these things are just optional side effects to the main objective of making money, and will be easily discarded if doing the opposite turns out to be more lucrative.
The annual wildfire season in Canada is coming to an end. Or, anyway, it should be by now.
But 2023 is unlike any other year. As of yesterday, there were more than 900 fires still burning, over half of them out of control.
Look at the area burned in the second graph below. The damage to wildlife is literally incalculable. Greenhouse gas emissions from all of these fires is off the charts.
Sure, some reply guy will tell you that forest fires are normal and natural and necessary. But not like this. What we’re seeing this year is an unnatural catastrophe caused by human industry — by the oil companies, their financiers, and the governments that support and subsidize them.
It’s a crime. It’s ecocide. And you know what? To them, it’s just Business As Usual.
The idea that it's justifiable to let unspeakable suffering within your community continue when you have enough excess (meaning losing it wouldn't affect your overall quality of life) resources to stop it, just because those resources "belong" to you and you shouldn't be expected to give them up unless you get something better in return, is absolutely the most selfish, morally bankrupt and evil foundation for a society that always leads to fascism eventually. #Capitalism
When people find out I’m an anarchist, a question I frequently get is “how would people with chronic illnesses like diabetes access treatment under anarchism?”
There are a lot of unspoken assumptions packed into that question that I thought I’d explore a bit.
The first is, of course, that people with chronic illnesses can access treatment in the context of capitalist modernity. Not everyone can! Many people in the world of states and capital suffer and die from lack of access to treatment.
Not because the treatment is unavailable, but because access is mediated through capitalist gatekeeping. People, today, right now, in allegedly rich countries, die because they cannot afford insulin. For them, the question of “but how would we access insulin under anarchism” is moot. Many others access it only at the cost of medical debt and other forms of indenture.
If you care about the planet, please make sure you sit down before you start reading this post about ExxonMobil.
So.
The CEO of ExxonMobil just said this in an interview: "We’ve waited too long to open the aperture on the solution sets in terms of what we need, as a society, to start reducing emissions."
Who's the most influential voice on climate change? Who's to blame for inaction on climate change?
According to the CEO of ExxonMobil, it's environmental activists.
No, really:
"Frankly, society, and the activist—the dominant voice in this discussion—has tried to exclude the industry that has the most capacity and the highest potential for helping with some of the technologies."
Oh, and the CEO of ExxonMobil also apparently thinks consumers are to blame for climate inaction:
"Today we have opportunities to make fuels with lower carbon, but people aren’t willing to spend the money to do that."
Gets better.
He thinks unnamed 'people who generate emissions' should pay for it. (Rather than, say, major transnational oil companies.)
"People who are generating the emissions need to be aware of [it] and pay the price. That’s ultimately how you solve the problem."
So, remind me again. Who knew about climate change before most of the public?
"Exxon was aware of climate change, as early as 1977, 11 years before it became a public issue... This knowledge did not prevent the company (now ExxonMobil and the world’s largest oil and gas company) from spending decades refusing to publicly acknowledge climate change and even promoting climate misinformation."
And just who, exactly, stood in the way reducing emissions all these years?
"ExxonMobil executives privately sought to undermine climate science even after the oil and gas giant publicly acknowledged the link between fossil fuel emissions and climate change, according to previously unreported documents...
"The new revelations are based on previously unreported documents subpoenaed by New York’s attorney general as part of an investigation into the company announced in 2015. They add to a slew of documents that record a decades-long misinformation campaign waged by Exxon, which are cited in a growing number of state and municipal lawsuits against big oil."
So, every other subthread is someone talking #capitalism this and #socialism that with very poor commonality of definitions. So here's one to try on for size:
Capitalism: a system of economics in which the state determines through threat of violence a special group of people who have exclusive say in how capital goods are used.
That covers for example both the USA, and USSR pretty well. any other capitalist countries we'd like to discuss?
When we suggest that capitalism must be eliminated, someone always wants to know:
"What will you replace it with?"
If you have a cancerous tumor removed, do you think you need to replace it with something?
If you have a parasite sucking your life away, you remove it. You don't replace it with something else.
If you are a slave, you need freedom, not a new master.
Someone always asks:
"What is your solution?"
As if it's up to me. Like they can't imagine a world where people work things out together instead of following some leader's proprietary "solution". As if there has to be one solution for everyone. As if there even has to be "a solution".
🤩 Aren't you just delighted by all those proprietary software apps for the #Fediverse?
😮 Don't be. Each time you choose proprietary you help turn the fedi slowly in the direction of the usual corporate hellscape that the rest of the Web already is.
😨 And then we end up in an online space where for years we can complain to each other how we squandered an opportunity and how #capitalism won once more.
🎯 Use #FOSS apps instead, created by the public for the public.
Scientists are now saying we are “out of time” to keep global heating at under 1.5°C. It’s simply too late. We’ve delayed any action far too long.
All our talk and meetings and phony “Net Zero” pledges don’t mean anything to an overstressed climate system that is rapidly breaking down.
You can’t fool Mother Nature.
The target of keeping long-term global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) is moving out of reach, climate experts say, with nations failing to set more ambitious goals despite months of record-breaking heat on land and sea.
“We’ve run out of time because change takes time,” said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climatologist at Australia’s University of New South Wales.
As climate envoys from the two biggest greenhouse gas emitters prepare to meet next month, temperatures broke June records in the Chinese capital Beijing, and extreme heat waves have hit the United States.
Parts of North America were some 10C (18F) above the seasonal average this month, and smoke from forest fires blanketed Canada and the US East Coast in a hazardous haze, with carbon emissions estimated at a record 160 million tons.
In India, one of the most climate-vulnerable regions, deaths spiked as a result of sustained high temperatures, and extreme heat has been recorded in Spain, Iran, and Vietnam, raising fears that last year’s deadly summer could become routine.
Countries agreed in Paris in 2015 to try to keep long-term average temperature rises within 1.5C, but there is now a 66% likelihood the annual mean will cross the 1.5C threshold for at least one whole year between now and 2027, the World Meteorological Organization predicted in May.
Too many people, even here on Mastodon, seem to be in denial about how bad things are likely to get on our current path. I suppose I can understand how they might wish the situation was different, and perhaps some of them aren't psychologically or emotionally ready to handle an honest look at the dire future we face, so they simply avoid it.
But I worry that almost everyone will be unprepared for the collapse of our fragile modern society when it comes.
I’ll be blunt. We have no hope of averting climate chaos or preventing the catastrophic collapse of our modern society without SYSTEM CHANGE.
Keeping capitalism in charge means a death sentence for billions of humans — most of them poor and in the Global South — along with complete extinction for uncounted plant and animal species.
The fake “democracy” we have in the Global North is nothing but a game show owned and produced by oligarchs. As long as they remain in control of the system, nothing meaningful will change. How you vote doesn’t matter, because every important candidate is approved in advance, vetted and managed by those men behind the curtain.
Either capitalism dies or we die. It’s that simple.
The US government is pouring billions into this concept, not because they think it will ever work — they know it won't — but because it allows them to pretend they're doing something positive about the climate crisis, while in reality they're telling their fossil fuel buddies that Business As Usual is here to stay.
And it's working. Corporate news outlets are on board promoting the plan, and everyone is happy. 😃
Especially the oil industry!
Here's a quote from Vicki Hollub, CEO of Occidental Petroleum:
“We believe that our direct capture technology is going to be the technology that helps to preserve our industry over time. This gives our industry a license to continue to operate for the 60, 70, 80 years that I think it’s going to be very much needed.”
For once, an oil executive is NOT lying. She's telling the truth, and that truth is going to kill us all.
Just because the right-wing are anti-Taylor doesn't mean everyone on the left needs to start stanning a billionaire.
There are no good billionaires. If she was a good person, she wouldn't be one either. It's fine to enjoy her music but she's as harmful as every other billionaire for simply existing.
Do I think some billionaires are more actively harmful than others? Sure. But none of them should be billionaires. There are no good ones.
Are you experiencing job insecurity, burnout, high-stress levels, unaffordable healthcare, housing insecurity, debt burdens, social isolation, mental health issues, or poverty? You may be suffering from #capitalism. An immediate extraction is recommended for your health and safety. If an immediate extraction is impossible at the moment, please contact your nearest #IWW chapter for further instructions.
Is there any more ethical solution to our current circumstances than "murder all billionaires"?
Not that I'm particularly against that - quite the opposite, in fact. But I'm wondering if anyone sees, or had seen a path to social and climate recovery/progress that could occur without first eradicating the class of people who most enjoy the present status quo.