Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity By 2050

Capitalism has generated massive wealth for some, but it’s devastated the planet and has failed to improve human well-being at scale.

Capitalism is unsustainable in its present form.

• Species are going extinct at a rate 1,000 times faster than that of the natural rate over the previous 65 million years (see Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School).

• Since 2000, 6 million hectares of primary forest have been lost each year. That’s 14,826,322 acres, or just less than the entire state of West Virginia (see the 2010 assessment by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN).

• Even in the U.S., 15% of the population lives below the poverty line. For children under the age of 18, that number increases to 20% (see U.S. Census).

• The world’s population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050 (see United Nations' projections).

Read the story from Forbes magazine by Drew Hansen - “Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity By 2050.”

Post capitalism: life within environmental limits

It may seem as though capitalism has always been a part of the Western world, but that’s not true. Although the concept has some roots in the Ancient world, capitalism as a system dates only from the 16th century.

If the whole world consumed like Australians, we’d need
 more than four planets to meet our resource demands.

Now, some 500 years later, there’s increasing discussion arguing for, or simply forecasting, a post-capitalist society.

Capitalism is locked into an economics of growth that is undermining the environmental foundations of life on Earth – that is, capitalism is ecocidal. And this has become the defining contradiction of capitalism in the twenty-first century.

As a result, this “growth imperative” alongside our own planet’s limits is likely to bring capitalism to an end in coming decades.

Read the Pursuit story by Dr Samuel Alexander and Professor Brendan Gleeson from the University of Melbourne  - “Post capitalism: life within environmental limits.”

Post capitalism: life within environmental limits

It may seem as though capitalism has always been a part of the Western world, but that’s not true. Although the concept has some roots in the Ancient world, capitalism as a system dates only from the 16th century.

There’s increasing discussion forecasting a post-capitalist society. 

Now, some 500 years later, there’s increasing discussion arguing for, or simply forecasting, a post-capitalist society.

Capitalism is locked into an economics of growth that is undermining the environmental foundations of life on Earth – that is, capitalism is ecocidal. And this has become the defining contradiction of capitalism in the twenty-first century.

As a result, this “growth imperative” alongside our own planet’s limits is likely to bring capitalism to an end in coming decades.

Read the Pursuit story by Dr Samuel Alexander and Professor Brendan Gleeson, both from the University of Melbourne - “Post capitalism: life within environmental limits".

Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism's Imminent Demise

Capitalism as we know it is over. So suggests a new report commissioned by a group of scientists appointed by the UN Secretary-General. The main reason? We’re transitioning rapidly to a radically different global economy, due to our increasingly unsustainable exploitation of the planet’s environmental resources.

 The worldwide economy will fundamentally need to change.

Climate change and species extinctions are accelerating even as societies are experiencing rising inequality, unemployment, slow economic growth, rising debt levels, and impotent governments. Contrary to the way policymakers usually think about these problems, the new report says that these are not really separate crises at all.

Rather, these crises are part of the same fundamental transition to a new era characterized by inefficient fossil fuel production and the escalating costs of climate change. Conventional capitalist economic thinking can no longer explain, predict, or solve the workings of the global economy in this new age, the paper says

Read the story from Motherboard - “Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism's Imminent Demise.”

The idea of never ending growth is simply wrong and we must resile from it

The maintenance of exisiting lifestyles and the mitigation of climate change are incompatible.

Modern lifestyles depend upon the profligate use of energy, almost exclusively fossil fuel-based energy, and as is well understood by our climate scientists, the resultant carbon dioxide from the combustion of the ingredients of those ancient fuels has disturbed, and significantly changed, Earth’s climate system.

Humanity has lived through an era of relatively unchanged climatic conditions, but that is changing, or has changed, and so what we are witnessing now is the arrival of weather events foreign to what is needed to allow the people of the world to thrive.

Humanity has been herded into a consumptive col-de-sac, driven there by the market paradigm of never-ending growth that was force-fed to the population using Edward Bernays created propaganda that was re-cast as “public relations”.

The idea of never-ending growth, the essence of capitalism that has now morphed into globilization, is fundamentally flawed and is ultimately impossible in a finite world.

It is the concept to endless growth and the need, now pressingly urgent, to live in a more restrained way which are contradictory and so demand, if we are to have any hope of a reconciliation between the two, we need a re-set of humanity’s values, ideals, aims, hopes, and dreams.

Considering this dilemma causes me to consider what the late German pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: 

“Culturally it means a return from the newspaper and the radio to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dispersion to concentration, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation.”

Bonhoeffer, who was killed by the Nazis in 1945 for being involved in an attempt to kill Adolf Hitler, could see even than that our extravagance was detrimental to human wellbeing, although probably for different reasons than those that trouble, and threaten, humanity today.

And so taking Bonhoeffer’s advice, we need to pry apart our extravagance, resile from it and build a new way of living that is about understanding how we can continue to enjoy our lives with less of everything and so live in a more restrained fashion.

Left Renewal: since when has taxing the rich and saving the planet been so controversial?

‘There is no question that we can build the 21st
 century public solar and windfarms we need
 to end our reliance on coal.’

If you believe that unrestrained capitalism is the solution to our planet’s environmental and social challenges, or that democracy is enhanced by two major parties bickering about personality and management style, then you are currently well served by the Liberal, National and Labor parties and might choose not to read on. If you think there might be better ways to make the planet more sustainable, just, peaceful and democratic, then there is certainly a place for you in the Green.

The Greens party was founded on four broad principles of ecological sustainability, social justice, participatory democracy, and peace and nonviolence. Over the past 20 years those principles have guided the party in campaigns as diverse as ending the logging of native forests, defending and participating in local government, tackling climate change, opposing war and promoting more progressive policies on public education, industrial relations, taxation and welfare.

However the principles don’t answer every political issue by themselves. They don’t tell us the best way to reduce carbon emissions, they don’t endorse or condemn capitalism, they don’t say if we should have an inheritance tax and they don’t tell us how to end animal cruelty. These are all issues where there is room for debate within the Greens. From forest defenders to middle-class doctors and student activists, the Greens party is a broad and accepting social movement that has always celebrated its diversity.

Read the opinion piece on The Guardian by David Shoebridge and Lee Rhiannon -“Left Renewal:since when has taxing the rich and saving the planet been so controversial?

We need more climate change warriors like Naomi Klein

Author and social activist, Naomi Klein - we
 need more climate change warriors like her.

In 2015 Pope Francis invited the Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein to the Vatican to enlist her support for his encyclical on capitalism, climate change and morality – an unlikely invitation to a self-described secular Jewish feminist. But as Klein explained "the stakes are so high, time is so short and the task is so large that we cannot afford to allow those differences to divide us". "To change everything" says Klein, "we need everyone".

The climate crisis is real. Human culpability is clear and plausible deniability of this, the refuge of climate change sceptics, is not tenable. The Pope has called for urgent action. Even recalcitrant Australian politicians are getting nervous.

But the climate crisis is more than an environmental and political issue. It is also a social and economic justice issue. And that's why this November, Naomi Klein will be awarded the 2016 Sydney Peace Prize.

Read David Hirsch’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “We need more climate change warriors like Naomi Klein.”

Endless consumption drives captitalism, and catastrophic climate change

A light bulb at a fire station in
Livermore, California, has been
on almost continuously since
1901. In 2015 it was recognized
by Guinness World Records as
the world’s longest-burning bulb.

Capitalism driven by the endgame that is Neoliberalism survives only if people consume endlessly.

Early in the 20^th Century, the leading corporate entities realised that long-lived products spelt doom for the operations and so in what was probably the first cartel with global reach.

It was seemingly inextinguishable light globes that drove the creation of that first cartel when it was realised that new and continuing sales depended entirely upon on that a light globe must regularly fail.

The sophistication of industry and the design of the products it produced meant that the quality of goods improved steadily and the life of goods equally improved.

It seemed that the manufacturing world was doomed, ruined by its own success.

The too good to fail light globe was a symbol of that success and so industry groups arrived at what is now understood as planned obsolescence.

That planned obsolescence may well be good for the world’s manufacturing industries, but it is the antithesis of what is needed if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Read J. B. MacKinnon’s story in The New Yorker - ”The L.E.D. quandary: why there’s no such thing as ‘built to last’.”

Keeping climate change optimism alive is challenging

-       Robert McLean

Canada's wildfires (bushfires) make it difficult
to remain optimistic that
our response to climate change will be adequate.

Keeping one’s optimism alive can be challenging when humanity’s collective response to the dilemma of climate change is inadequate and embedded in the false hope that some as yet unknown and untested technology will rescue us.

The signs of climate change abound and yet despite some pockets of resourceful and innovative thinking, we (that’s humanity) continue burning fossil fuels, remain strong in our allegiance to an economic system (capitalism) whose success erodes the Earth’s capital and are without the bold and resourceful thinking escape from this crisis demands.

Look for example at what is happening in Canada – “Canada’s huge wildfires may release carbon locked in permafrost” – where forest fires driven by conditions unquestionably worsened by climate change have brought chaos to the lives of thousands.

Minor by comparison, but another example of difficulties brought on by climate change is this retail twist happening in Melbourne, and no doubt everywhere else – “Shopping centres wary of unseasonably warm winter weather”.

The latter is actually of little consequence compared to Canadian events, but surely it is sufficient to make at least these retailers realise that the consistency of season they once enjoyed is slipping away.

It is critical we understand and address the optimism/pessimism dichotomy dilemma for whichever has precedence then determines how this predicament will evolve.

There are, however, various realms of optimism and what prevails is that which has brought on the conditions that have led to climate change and the broader degradation of the Earth and what is needed, right now, is an optimism that humanity can find its way out of this difficulty.

The seriousness of climate change is both misunderstood and underestimated and beyond a handful of people, relatively speaking, few have any grasp of how extreme our response needs to be.

Conditioned by centuries of a life of plenty brought on by the bounty of energy resulting from fossil fuels, humanity generally sees every solution through growth and “more”, while the thinking people see it in a planned degrowth, that is a more restrained way of living where the emphasis is on human wellbeing and thriving, rather than profit and growth.

However, until we can fracture and dislodge that hold neoliberalism has on the human dynamic, we have little hope of changing our way of thinking or doing things.

I’m optimistic we will change, but pessimistic about how that change will come about – it seems that humanity will only change its ways when we have no other option, but sadly that will only arrive at a cost in both lives and property.

In all that, we need to avoid pessimism for that mostly simply freezes people into inaction and breeds an “Oh well, it’s all gone to hell, let’s just live for now”.

Climate change is happening, in human life terms, dreadfully slow, but in a geological sense, it’s coming upon us at lightning speed and that is a terminal-like problem for humanity.

All that said, let’s be optimistic for there is no other way.

Listen to Naomi Klein as she takes on capitalism on behalf of our climate

I

n her latest book, “This Changes Everything”, the Canadian writer and activist Naomi Klein tackles the issue of climate change through a familiar prism: capitalism.

She argues that unrestrained capitalism is the root of the problem and that the global response to climate change has, thus far, been shaped by wealth and power.

Christopher Wright spoke to Naomi Klein on the eve of her appearance at the Sydney Festival of Dangerous Ideas about the impact of capitalism on the climate, and how grassroots movements – not market-based approaches – hold the key to tackling the all-pervading problem of climate change.

Listen as Christopher Wright, from The Conversation, talks with Naomi Klein - “Speaking with: Naomi Klein on capitalism and climate change”.

'Unbridled capitalism' equates with global warming

I

t would difficult, if not impossible to argue that capitalism, of the “unbridled” sort, was not responsible for global warming.

And now Pope Francis has joined the chorus, one that is increasing in membership and volume, of those critical of what capitalism has done and is doing to the world.

In an EcoWatch story - “Pope Francis: Unbridled Capitalism Is ‘Dung of the Devil’” – he has described unbridled capitalism as “the dung of the devil”.

Capitalism has brought many benefits, but at a measureable cost

Capitalism deserves much praise and is responsible for many wonderful things, but those benefits have come at a price, among them, a seriously damaged atmosphere.

The quartet of Alexander Jung, Horand Knaup, Samiha Shafy and Bernhard Zand have discussed both the value and disadvantages of capitalism in an article on Spiegel Online International.

In their story headed: “The Warming World: Is Capitalism Destroying Our Planet?” they say humans are full of contradictions, including the urge to destroy things they love. Like our planet.

Arundhati Roy sees the catastrophe of capitlism

-      by Robert McLean

Arundhati Roy sees capitalism as the root cause of a crisis that has only catastrophic results for humanity.

Arundhati Roy and her book,
"Capitalism: A Ghost Story".

The Indian author and political activist, best known for the 1998 Man Booker Prize for fiction-winning novel “The God of Small Things” and for her involvement in human rights and environmental causes, aims directly at this ideology in her book “Capitalism: A Ghost Story”.

In her 2014 book, Roy said: “Capitalism is destroying the planet. The two old tricks out of past crises – war and shopping – simply will not work”.

She lambasts the intricacies of capitalism in India in that how it has favoured so few and disenfranchised so many.

Lamenting India’s fascination with the U.S. economic policy she writes: “As a result of the Free Market Economy, today 100 of India’s richest people own assets worth one-fourth of the country’s GDP while more than 80 per cent of the  people live on less than 50 cents a day.”

Roy’s book is damning in every way about capitalism and apparent disregard it has for people, its willingness to step on anyone who dare retard its ambitions and the indifference is has for human and ecological damage it leaves behind.

Capitalism, unleashed and allowed to slip the usual moral restraints imposed by decency, is the fundamental cause of climate change

“Capitalism: A Ghost Story” is worth a read for anyone interested in climate change and its causes.

The complexity of capitalism equates with global collapse

Ideas to ease catastrophic climate change are simple, but application of them is complex in the extreme.

Writing in “Spiegel Online” Harald Welzer, who teaches social psychology at Flensburg and St. Gallen Universities, took us through some of those complexities in an essay headed: “Climate summit trap: capitalism’s march toward global collapse”.

Although Welzer is critical of the “sleek, but unfortunately destructive principle of capitalism”, he does discuss a way ahead.

“Imagine, for example”, he wrote, “what might happen if a large number of businesses make the improvement of the common good – instead of an increase in their profits – the goal of their commercial efforts”.

Capitalism - the root of climate change

Paul Burchett.

Capitalism with a capital “C”, despite claims to the contrary by its adherents, is the root of climate change.

Until we can understand and employ capitalism on a smaller scale that is localized in the extreme, the ideas that bigger is better, greed is good and complexity is perfection are in fact contrary to what humanity really needs.

The Nation of Change, which claims to be Progressive Journalism for Positive Action has written about what it sees are the “Obscenities of Capitalism”.

In his piece about the failing of capitalism, Paul Burchett, argues that the less free-market thinkers are regulated, the less they seem to care about people.

 

 

Who pays for pollution: socialist undertones in carbon price opposition

(Beneath the Wisteria supporter John Lawry suggests the thoughts of a Lecturer at the School of Engineering and Energy at Murdoch University, Adam McHugh, warrant our consideration.)

By looking at the basic capitalist ideology of personal responsibility, Adam McHugh considers the debate around the pricing of carbon emissions.

Our capitalist system is based upon a notion of personal freedom tempered by personal responsibility. Its wealth-creating power is dished up by a set of laws that deliver the costs and rewards of private enterprise to those who are responsible for them.

In this sense, 'free' enterprise under capitalism was never meant to be unconstrained.

Adam McHugh.

Capitalist enterprise is moderated by the knowledge that individuals and private firms must bear the consequences of their own actions. That is, true capitalism requires businesses to be responsible for all of the costs that they create.

The privatisation of costs in a capitalist system instils great discipline. The continuing survival of a firm requires it to not only find new customers, but to also find new ways of controlling expenditures. Over time, the firms that are good at this process thrive, while those who are not will dissolve.

As inefficient firms are weeded out or taken over by better managers, the resource intensity of goods and services falls - making them more affordable. Under such conditions it seems reasonable to expect the average material standard of living in a society to improve.

Socialism, on the other hand, is characterised by a lack of personal freedom and an absence of both personal and commercial responsibilities.

The costs and benefits of a socialist enterprise do not accrue to those creating them, but rather, are spread thinly across society as a whole.

The socialisation of costs is of particular relevance here. Cost socialisation allows those who make damaging business decisions to escape all responsibility for their actions. As a result, the socialisation of costs affects a lack of business discipline.

With the distinction between the privatisation and the socialisation of costs in mind, let us consider where a carbon pricing policy would fall on the socialism-capitalism spectrum.

Recently, there has been much discussion regarding the link between what appears to be a confused form of pro-capitalist ideology and a denial of the scientific consensus over human induced climate change. This seems to have grown out of a fear that regulation of greenhouse gas emissions puts us on a slippery slope to socialism.

There is evidence that such fears are often accompanied by irrational and conspiratorial thoughts: the bizarre delusion that thousands of climate scientists in every nation on Earth are colluding in an elaborate communist plot to falsify climate data and modelling results.

There is probably little that can be done to change the minds of those who subscribe to such beliefs. Despite exposure to the overwhelming evidence against it, experience suggests that the main proponents of this superstition lack the required plasticity to adjust their world view.

Still, one must also presume there are many people who accept the science, yet fear the regulatory implications of the scientific consensus: in particular the economic impact of carbon pricing.

Of course, unlike the climate denial position, it is not irrational to fear the economic impact of a carbon pricing policy before it is introduced. For example, there is the possibility that a carbon pricing policy could be poorly designed or implemented. However, experience with carbon pricing (and its compensatory mechanisms) in Australia has suggested that this is not the case here. Any negative economic impacts due to emission pricing in this country have been minimal.

This may explain the reason why opinion polls reveal people to be far less opposed to carbon pricing after its implementation than they were before its implementation.

So apart from the conspiracy theorists, what explains the residual opposition to this policy?

It may be that some people oppose carbon pricing on an ideological level rather than on economic grounds. This brings us back to the insinuation that carbon pricing represents a move towards socialism.

But given the relationship between capitalism and personal responsibility, as outlined above, I would suggest that any such concerns are internally inconsistent.

Pollution creates costs. If personal responsibility is seen as one of the pillars of capitalism then under capitalism those who pollute should incur the costs of their pollution.

In the context of anthropogenic climate change, the costs of pollution will continue to grow unless steps are taken to reduce it. If the laws that create a financial link between emissions (cause) and climate change (effect) are repealed, then by definition climate related costs will be fully socialised.

So perhaps it is actually the case that is it those who oppose carbon pricing that are part of a socialist plot, a plot to socialise the cost of their emissions.

The current policy of the Federal Opposition is to repeal carbon pricing and use taxpayer revenue to pay polluters to reduce their emissions. This would be a very big government solution indeed. It would put us dangerously on the slippery slope to socialism.

All genuine defenders of capitalism should unite to fight this proposal.

A belief in personal responsibility is consistent with the view that those who generate pollution should incur a liability for some or all of the costs that it creates. This is not a pro-socialist belief, it is fundamentally pro-capitalist.

-      Adam McHugh is a lecturer at the School of Engineering and Energy at Murdoch University. View his full profile here.