Can Capitalism and Eco-recovery co-exist?

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Pattern-chaser
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Can Capitalism and Eco-recovery co-exist?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

My answer to this question is "no". But I should expand on that:

Capitalism promotes the pursuit and acquisition of personal wealth. Wealth is obtained via profit, and profit requires customer consumption.

Climate change – and all the other damage that humans have done, and continue to do, to our ecosystem – is basically caused by our consumption. Consumption of raw materials of all kinds, consumption of energy, and consumption of land (i.e. taking the land from the living creatures living in/on it, and using it for our own purposes).

In both paragraphs immediately above, I have over-simplified for brevity, but I think my points stand. Capitalism encourages consumption, which is to say that (humans driven by) Capitalism are destroying our ecosystem. So no, I don't think Capitalism and Eco-recovery can coexist. Similarly, I don't think Eco-recovery can even begin until we have somehow de-fanged Capitalism. I don't doubt there are many here who disagree. OK, it's your turn; let's hear what you have to say (please?).
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Re: Can Capitalism and Eco-recovery co-exist?

Post by JackDaydream »

Pattern-chaser wrote: April 9th, 2022, 10:52 am My answer to this question is "no". But I should expand on that:

Capitalism promotes the pursuit and acquisition of personal wealth. Wealth is obtained via profit, and profit requires customer consumption.

Climate change – and all the other damage that humans have done, and continue to do, to our ecosystem – is basically caused by our consumption. Consumption of raw materials of all kinds, consumption of energy, and consumption of land (i.e. taking the land from the living creatures living in/on it, and using it for our own purposes).

In both paragraphs immediately above, I have over-simplified for brevity, but I think my points stand. Capitalism encourages consumption, which is to say that (humans driven by) Capitalism are destroying our ecosystem. So no, I don't think Capitalism and Eco-recovery can coexist. Similarly, I don't think Eco-recovery can even begin until we have somehow de-fanged Capitalism. I don't doubt there are many here who disagree. OK, it's your turn; let's hear what you have to say (please?).
I think that the emphasis on consumption may be becoming less as some people are becoming more minimalist. That is partly because there is more consciousness of wastage. But, whether the extent of this is widespread is enough to make a significant difference is questionable. The closure of many shops may mean less emphasis on consumption and the popularity of charity shops means an emphasis on recycling. However, the closure of shops may be partly related to a shift to online shopping.

Another problem is that there is an emphasis on throw away consumption, with items not being designed to last. The move to digital technology is meant to reduce consumption, especially paper. However, if things have a short life this is not true. For example, I had a laptop and in a short space of time had 2 printers which went wrong. So, capitalist consumption is perpetuated through this and upgrading of models and, even an emphasis on people upgrading on the basis of having the latest designer model phone.
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Re: Can Capitalism and Eco-recovery co-exist?

Post by stevie »

Pattern-chaser wrote: April 9th, 2022, 10:52 am My answer to this question is "no". But I should expand on that:

Capitalism promotes the pursuit and acquisition of personal wealth. Wealth is obtained via profit, and profit requires customer consumption.

Climate change – and all the other damage that humans have done, and continue to do, to our ecosystem – is basically caused by our consumption. Consumption of raw materials of all kinds, consumption of energy, and consumption of land (i.e. taking the land from the living creatures living in/on it, and using it for our own purposes).

In both paragraphs immediately above, I have over-simplified for brevity, but I think my points stand. Capitalism encourages consumption, which is to say that (humans driven by) Capitalism are destroying our ecosystem. So no, I don't think Capitalism and Eco-recovery can coexist. Similarly, I don't think Eco-recovery can even begin until we have somehow de-fanged Capitalism. I don't doubt there are many here who disagree. OK, it's your turn; let's hear what you have to say (please?).
I think that only Capitalism can achieve Eco-recovery. But of course that will require some deviation from Anarcho-Capitalism which is considered to be pure/true Capitalism by some Capitalism fundamentalists
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Re: Can Capitalism and Eco-recovery co-exist?

Post by Gregory A »

Pattern-chaser wrote: April 9th, 2022, 10:52 am My answer to this question is "no". But I should expand on that:

Capitalism promotes the pursuit and acquisition of personal wealth. Wealth is obtained via profit, and profit requires customer consumption.

Climate change – and all the other damage that humans have done, and continue to do, to our ecosystem – is basically caused by our consumption. Consumption of raw materials of all kinds, consumption of energy, and consumption of land (i.e. taking the land from the living creatures living in/on it, and using it for our own purposes).

In both paragraphs immediately above, I have over-simplified for brevity, but I think my points stand. Capitalism encourages consumption, which is to say that (humans driven by) Capitalism are destroying our ecosystem. So no, I don't think Capitalism and Eco-recovery can coexist. Similarly, I don't think Eco-recovery can even begin until we have somehow de-fanged Capitalism. I don't doubt there are many here who disagree. OK, it's your turn; let's hear what you have to say (please?).
Capitalism produces, employs, generates wealth, these things leading to the misconception that it should be given priority over all other activities, that's when there is so much more involved in running a country than these primary things. So called conservatives have a 'hands off' policy allowing free enterprise near complete say, when by its nature capitalism has no interest in society and how it is governed. Businesses are obliged to compete, not to cooperate on anything including building better societies. It would be in the business interest for example to drive wages lower making workers (a commodity out of the nessesity to compete) hungry making for hard workers. The balances, the unions for example, neglected in a free enterprise prioritizes system. Alternating socialist and capitalist governments allowing something of a balance but still far from optimum leadership.
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Re: Can Capitalism and Eco-recovery co-exist?

Post by LuckyR »

If there was a financial incentive to perform a behavior that happened to be good for the environment, Capitalism would promote that behavior. Single actions will not save the planet, but a strong government can bend the curve away from environmental destruction.
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Re: Can Capitalism and Eco-recovery co-exist?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

JackDaydream wrote: April 9th, 2022, 11:50 am I think that the emphasis on consumption may be becoming less as some people are becoming more minimalist. That is partly because there is more consciousness of wastage. But, whether the extent of this is widespread is enough to make a significant difference is questionable. The closure of many shops may mean less emphasis on consumption and the popularity of charity shops means an emphasis on recycling. However, the closure of shops may be partly related to a shift to online shopping.
I can't see that the emphasis-on-consumption - or consumption itself - is decreasing. On the contrary, I think the rate at which we are damaging the ecosystem is still increasing. I.e. we are still accelerating toward the cliff-edge, we haven't even managed to 'take our feet off the gas' enough that we are heading toward that cliff at a steady speed; actually applying the brakes is a fantasy for the future. A quick search of the web lead me to a UNEP report from 2016, which seems to confirm my impressions. Here is a Guardian article from 2016.

Although high street shops are closing, this is only because our still-increasing shopping is done online nowadays. Our new-found minimalism, waste-minimisation and recycling are only things we talk about. We have started to do these things too, but the level of our achievements is maybe 1% (0.001%???) of what it would need to be to make a worthwhile beginning of eco-recovery, I think. E.g., even adjusted for inflation, UK consumer spending is steadily increasing:

Image
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Re: Can Capitalism and Eco-recovery co-exist?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

stevie wrote: April 9th, 2022, 1:57 pm I think that only Capitalism can achieve Eco-recovery.
Interesting. I didn't start this topic to discuss with people who agree with me; the learning opportunities are limited. But this is quite surprising, nonetheless. It would be good if you would offer a few details, describing how Capitalism could achieve eco-recovery. For reasons I have already briefly outlined in the OP, I can't see it myself. Please explain? 👍
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Re: Can Capitalism and Eco-recovery co-exist?

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LuckyR wrote: April 10th, 2022, 3:35 am If there was a financial incentive to perform a behavior that happened to be good for the environment, Capitalism would promote that behavior.
...but since there is no such financial incentive?
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Re: Can Capitalism and Eco-recovery co-exist?

Post by LuckyR »

Pattern-chaser wrote: April 10th, 2022, 8:09 am
LuckyR wrote: April 10th, 2022, 3:35 am If there was a financial incentive to perform a behavior that happened to be good for the environment, Capitalism would promote that behavior.
...but since there is no such financial incentive?
There are financial incentives, in the form of tax breaks that encourage consumers to purchase electric cars, so they do more so than can be justified based on other objective measures in the marketplace. Recycling is so successful on the end user side that the infrastructure to process materials has been exceeded.
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Re: Can Capitalism and Eco-recovery co-exist?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

LuckyR wrote: April 10th, 2022, 3:35 am If there was a financial incentive to perform a behavior that happened to be good for the environment, Capitalism would promote that behavior.
Pattern-chaser wrote: April 10th, 2022, 8:09 am ...but since there is no such financial incentive?
LuckyR wrote: April 11th, 2022, 2:54 am There are financial incentives, in the form of tax breaks that encourage consumers to purchase electric cars, so they do more so than can be justified based on other objective measures in the marketplace. Recycling is so successful on the end user side that the infrastructure to process materials has been exceeded.
The purchase of electric cars is not good for the environment; they're only less-bad than cars driven by fossil fuels. My understanding of recycling, in my own country (UK) at least, is not as successful as you describe. Much 'recycled' material ends up on land-fill because it is not 'clean' enough, or contains other materials that local contractors 'cannot' recycle.
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Re: Can Capitalism and Eco-recovery co-exist?

Post by JackDaydream »

Pattern-chaser wrote: April 10th, 2022, 8:03 am
JackDaydream wrote: April 9th, 2022, 11:50 am I think that the emphasis on consumption may be becoming less as some people are becoming more minimalist. That is partly because there is more consciousness of wastage. But, whether the extent of this is widespread is enough to make a significant difference is questionable. The closure of many shops may mean less emphasis on consumption and the popularity of charity shops means an emphasis on recycling. However, the closure of shops may be partly related to a shift to online shopping.
I can't see that the emphasis-on-consumption - or consumption itself - is decreasing. On the contrary, I think the rate at which we are damaging the ecosystem is still increasing. I.e. we are still accelerating toward the cliff-edge, we haven't even managed to 'take our feet off the gas' enough that we are heading toward that cliff at a steady speed; actually applying the brakes is a fantasy for the future. A quick search of the web lead me to a UNEP report from 2016, which seems to confirm my impressions. Here is a Guardian article from 2016.

Although high street shops are closing, this is only because our still-increasing shopping is done online nowadays. Our new-found minimalism, waste-minimisation and recycling are only things we talk about. We have started to do these things too, but the level of our achievements is maybe 1% (0.001%???) of what it would need to be to make a worthwhile beginning of eco-recovery, I think. E.g., even adjusted for inflation, UK consumer spending is steadily increasing:

Image
Yes, I think that consumption is increasing. The idea has been to go digital but this in itself may involve so much more consumption and wastage of plastic as well as metal. Also, people may buy more with the addition of online shopping, in the comforts of the home environment.

If anything the root cause of consumption may be related to aquisitiveness as a value underlying capitalism. In some ways, poverty may challenge this but it may not be that simple.

Perhaps, it is the philosophy of capitalism which needs to be addressed. Some writers, especially E F Schumacher in 'Small is Beautiful', have sought to deconstruct the values of capitalism. He does this on the basis of Buddhism and it may be that it will be spiritual philosophy perspective which lead people to think beyond consumer materialism.
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