The Rich Stand Accused: Capitalism is the Source of Social and Environmental Crises

[marmar]

From Truthout:


The Rich Stand Accused
By Louis-Gilles Francoeur
Le Devoir

Saturday 06 January and Sunday 07 January 2007

Capitalism is the source of social and environmental crises.

What do global warming, pollution of the atmosphere, streams, rivers and oceans, the exhaustion of natural resources, the accelerated extinctions of species, deforestation, the liberation of GMO into the environment, and - coming soon - the infinitely small and practically undetectable pollution of nano-materials have in common? Capitalism and the oligarchy that profits from it, as first cause, answers Hervé Kempf in a bombshell book published in Paris by éditions du Seuil.

A journalist who specializes in the environment for Le Monde, Hervé Kempf has taken his work to the four corners of the planet and frequented - as is the privilege of an environmental chronicler - the cream of the scientific community, "people who tend to be rather calm and steady." Yet, from these contacts and the issues patiently compiled for the newspaper where he works, he retains two observations, he writes at the outset of Comment les riches détruisent la planète , which will be available in Québec February 6th.

First, he explained in a telephone interview yesterday, the planet's ecological situation is worsening at a rate that neutralizes all the efforts of millions of citizens and ecological militants, to the point that the planet is in danger of crossing a threshold of irreversibility "within the next 10 years," he believes, on the basis of the speed at which negative outcomes are piling up.

The second observation of this attempt to provide a veritably comprehensive explanation of the environmental crisis is that "the social system that presently governs human society - capitalism - blindly, doggedly rejects the changes necessary if we want to preserve the dignity and promise of human existence."

In the same way that the different aspects of the global environmental crisis react with more and more synergy - warming accelerates the rate of species extinction, as use of fossil fuel gives rise to pollution, and consumption to the exhaustion of resources - the planetary ecological and social crises are two mutually bound-up facets of the same problem.

"We cannot understand the simultaneity of the ecological and social crises if we do not analyze them as two facets of the same disaster. This disaster derives from a system piloted by a dominant social stratum that today has no drive but greed, no ideal but conservatism, no dream but technology. This predatory oligarchy is the principal agent of the global crisis," writes Kempf. "The present form of capitalism," he adds in an interview, "has lost its former historic ends, that is to say the creation of wealth and innovation, because it has become a financial capitalism, disparaged even by capitalist economists. This capitalism, which destroys jobs by rationalizations, new technologies and globalizations, overall and everywhere increases the disparities between rich and poor within each country and between different countries," the journalist observes. .....(more)

The rest of the article is at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010807G.shtml

[Captain Hilts]

1. Communist Bloc states polluted FAR more....nt

[aquart]

4. No checks and balances. No free press.

Exactly like America for the last six years.

[BlueStateModerate]

2. That's silly

Modern humanity is the cause of such problems, no matter the economic system that supports it.

[BayCityProgressive]

5. I agree

socialist, social-democratic, and communist countries have all done their fair share as well. Cuba is a good example of a socialist/communist country with good environmental protections and there are many mixed economies and capitalist countries that take good care fo their environment. the U.S. on the capitalist end and the Chinese on the Communist end however, are horrible.

[eallen]

8. Exactly. None of the others have been shown to work.

It is easy to curse capitalism, for those who live the in the modern west, with the benefits of the wealth and technology that capitalism brings. The alternatives are feudalism, the hunter-gatherer economies, and a true socialism, such as the Soviets implemented. Social democracy like Sweden? That's fine, but it depends on a healthy capitalist economy, which the Swedes are eager to keep vibrant. They even have lowered their top marginal tax rates, realizing that it's more beneficial to have capital invested to produce, rather merely to dodge taxes. China decades ago realized socialism wasn't working, and they have adopted capitalism. Even Castro seeks tourist dollars and western investment.

Tax it to create social programs? Of course. Regulate its environmental excesses? Absolutely. But curse it, and write as if it should be eliminated? Only if you're a fool.

:hippie:

[Jcrowley]

3. Good post

It may go even deeper.

Civilization is an expansive process, spreading across the Earth, leaving a trail of domination and destruction behind. Historically, this has been facilitated by conquest, however, over the past 500 years or so the mode of expansion has radically changed. Capitalism and globalization are now the forces of expansion, which have been responsible for most of the world's current "development". It fuels environmental destruction, industrialization, urbanization, and the loss of self-sufficency. It has turned hunters and farmers into workers; forests to asphalt; and animals to shrink-wrapped pieces of meat. It is an exploitative process which transforms everything into a commodity - even our own lives.

Capitalism, globalization, and civilization are intimately linked. Globalization is the current and most efficient mode of the civilizing process - transforming nature and humanity on a global scale to be dependent on a way of living and a paradigm that is destructive and unsustainable. We are against all forms of exploitation and domination, therefore we reject capitalism. We realize, however, that capitalism is a symptom of the more oppressive force of civilization, and we are not content on attacking just symptoms instead of the disease that caused them.

[MADem]

6. Well, they aren't gonna sweat being accused. They can afford great lawyers. NT

[swag]

7. One could say as much for procreation.

[Clevenger]

9. Greed and envy are the real problems.

As someone once put it: "The problem with Socialism is Socialism; the problem with Capitalism is capitalists".

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. I look back and think how they disarmed common sense, by offensively

claiming that any conclusion reached through a logical process, was liberal, therefore, should be ignored.

We need to find these sons of bitches and make them pay.

[Patchuli]

11. One good thing about us,

there's a lot more of us than the rich. The rich are despoiling the earth, which doesn't belong to them any more than us in search of profit. It's time for us to change things. They are fouling the nest...

[HereSince1628]

12. One thing about capitalism is it concentrates wealth

faster than new wealth can be created. And as the old saw goes money (wealth) is power. And with the ability to project the power controlled by capital, whoever gains control significant control of capital will inevitably gain significant control society.

IMO this is ultimately the reason that corporate interests drive US policy.

Thus I say long live progressive tax structures!

[undergroundpanther]

13. Rich people

can be hunted down like prey and taken down just like they sometimes do to us,The greedy kill through their stupid ordered society , the fostering of having us compete against one another, making public spaces disappear with'privatization' and'zoning' and environmental toxins, the manipulating of information,passing self serving'laws' and twisting our emotions and lastly the rich kill by the guns carried by their brainwashed sycophant mercenaries.The top 1 percent are humans and thier money cannot protect them from thier crimes unless we let the money do the talking.

[lostinacause]

14. Blaming the rich for environmental problems is foolish and is likely done for ideological reasons

rather then based on any rational thought. When you look at the decisions that the average American makes regarding "consumption" of greenhouse gasses you almost always see the same blind indifference regardless of income. The problem is not a select few, it is everybody. The best example of this is the pitiful performance of economy cars in American markets.

[Chulanowa]

15. I agree

I'm no lover of capitalism as-is. It engenders a plutocratic monoculture where the only goal in life is to have "more" than anyone around you. However I'm not about to blame rich people for everything.

I will, however, gladly blame the greedy motherfuckers hiding among hte rich. And among the poor. And those in between. THose who's thoughts don't extend past the next buck into their grubby clenched fists.

[Chulanowa]

16. D/P

[tbyg52]

17. Capitalism, I dunno

Now *CORPORATISM*--that I could agree with.

[ShortnFiery]

18. It's Unregulated Capitalism. - no checks on mergers and monopolies, etc. n/t

[Astrad]

19. Inherent to capitalism is unlimited growth

in the creation of profit. The system works in an environment of unlimited resources. We have now reached the point where the limits of the planet are being profoundly felt. Unlimited growth is no longer possible (not that it ever really was). The only solution is for some agent to appear that will curtail growth. If such an agent does appear, capitalism by its nature will fight it tooth and nail. (By the way I'm no fan of socialism either which just turns the 'growth for profit' function over to the state.)

[eallen]

20. That's a terrible misunderstanding. Capitalism is required because of limited resources.

If resources were unlimited, economics would be very different, both in theory and practice. It is a terrible misunderstanding to equate economic growth with increased consumption of physical resources. Consider a world where everything operated in a sustainable fashion, exactly as the most stringent green imagines. Then, someone figures out a better business process, that either provides a perceived improvement in service or goods produced, without changing the physical resources consumed, or proves the same service or goods while lowering production costs, i.e., by consuming fewer resources. That is economic growth. And examples of economic growth that shift to production using less resources abound. The computer you're using to read the internet consumes far less physical resources, in both its production and use, than did computers in the 1960s, while providing far more utility. Laparoscopic surgeries provide better outcomes, with shorter stays in hospitals and less nursing required. Cell phones get ever smaller. Flat screen displays take less space consume less power than CRTs.

Capitalism is very good at exploiting what physical resources are available. But ever increasing consumption of those resources is not a prerequisite to capitalism or to economic growth. If it were, economic growth would be measured in tonnes or joules, rather than in dollars and euros.

:hippie:

[Astrad]

21. I don't know how 'terrible' it is.

I would say that capitalism is a theory and as a theory it takes as a given a inexhaustible supply of resources. It assumes that if one runs short then innovation will lead to replacement by another resource that is not in short supply. What if all resources run short simultaneously? You could argue that's not possible because we have an entire universe to exploit but that's where the theory indeed gets fanciful. You suggest that capitalist driven innovation will always find a way of moderating resource use to accomodate an ever-expanding population. This too seems fanciful. If that were the case it would already be happening, it isn't except in very modest ways. Realistically capitalism, you could argue, would benefit from a mass die due to scarcity which would once again create a surplus of resources as there would be very few people left to use what's around. Then it could begin again! :)

[eallen]

22. You have a poor understanding of the theory. It begins with assumption that resources are limited.

Stating that the theory of capitalism "takes as a given a inexhaustible supply of resources" is completely wrong, in the same way that creationists are completely wrong when they say that evolution is the theory that life appeared by chance, or that if evolution were true, cats could change into dogs. These are the kinds of mistakes that people make who have never studied what those theories actually say. Many economics teachers today will still begin with Lionel Robbins's famous definition, that “economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.” Whether one likes that as a definition or not, it is much closer to how economists actually view their field and to their theories, than the precise opposite assumption you make. If you're going to claim that the theory of capitalism takes that as a given, then at a minimum, you should point to some economist who has said so. You won't be able to do so, because there is no economist so dumb. Mind, pointing to a non-economist who falsely characterizes economic theories in this fashion is much like creationists who point to non-biologists who falsely characterize evolution.

:hippie:

[Astrad]

23. There is no single theory of capitalism as you no doubt well know.

Even wiki states - "The concept of capitalism has limited analytic value, given the great variety of historical cases over which it is applied, varying in time, geography, politics and culture."

The notion that 'scarce resources' is central to all interpretations of capitalism is not axiomatic.

Anyway, you make it unpleasant to debate or share ideas. Your tone suggests you want to establish dominance which I'm quite happy to give you but not when it's done in a patronizing way. I would suggest the next time you respond to someone you feel 'doesn't get it' you think of yourself more as a mentor than a superior.

Ciao.