FEATURES OF CAPITALISM AND CLIMATE CHANGE

TWENTY FEATURES, MECHANISMS, LIABILITIES of US CAPITALISM versus ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE, AND CORRECTIVES, REMEDIES.  A Topical Guide to Breaking the Chains of Capitalism That Are Destroying the Climate.  By Dick Bennett

Klein, No Is Not Enough.   “…the culture of maximum extraction, of endless grabbing and disposing, has reached some kind of breaking point.  Clearly, it is the culture itself that must be confronted now, and not policy by policy, but at the root” (262).

Klein, This Changes Everything.  “The “real reason we are failing to rise to the climate moment is because the actions required directly challenge our reigning economic paradigm.  Only when we identify these chains do we have a chance of breaking free” (63). 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

     What are the features of capitalism?  Here are twenty:

Human Domination, Alienation from Nature, Depreciation of Nature, 
        Resulting in Exploitation by Market System

Capital accumulation, Drive for personal profit, need for continuous growth        

Commodification, turning everything into a product for sale

Growth essential to profit, exceeding natural boundaries, exhausting
      resources

Over-Consumption in developed countries

Monopoly, Consolidation, Purchase of or Merger with Competitors

Massive Criminal Corporations: Wells Fargo, Johnson & Johnson….

Instability of Market System

Advertising, Inducing Consumption, Creating Needs 

Hostility to the Commons, reduction of social safety net

Hostility to Organized Workers, Unions

Work Precariousness, Danger

Hostility to Government Oversight

Hostility to Taxes

Inequality in 2016 of 1%/99%

GDP as Measurement of Economic Success

WARS and imperialism for resources, space

WASTE  (see Advertising)

Globalism

Absence of Left

TWENTY FEATURES EXPANDED IN CONTEXT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Human Domination, Estrangement, Alienation from Nature, Depreciation of Nature,       Exploitation by Market System liabilities: Human Ecocide against commons of water, air, flora, fauna, leading to self-destruction

Climate: Drive for profit led to extraction from commons until CO2, warming, weather extremes, extinctions

Alternative: Attitude of equality of human, other species, air, soil; rejection of commodification as source of value, 

Capital Accumulation, Drive for personal profit, need for continuous growth        

    Liabilities: inequality, poverty, accentuation of class gaps; as illust. by the 6^th Extinction, capital accumulation destroys itself

    Relevance to climate catastrophe: unequal economic adaptation to cc, particular vulnerability of the poor to cc consequences

    Alternative: labor theory of value, altruism, equality, cooperation, welfare of all

Commodification

     Liabilities: turning all the earth’s resources into capital even though they are finite; selfishness, gluttony, competitiveness, shortsightedness, using up
         resources as fast as possible for growth and profit

Climate catastrophe: disastrous pillage of the planet

     Alternative:  generosity, cooperation, long-range planning, affirmative government

Growth

     Liabilities: exceeding the planetary boundaries, exhaustion of resources, 6^th Great Extinction  

     Climate catastrophe: all other causes are exacerbated by endless growth

     Alternative: Quality of Life not GDP as measure of success, Why the GDP Is Not A Good Measure of A Nation's Well Being ...

Consumption

   Liabilities: consumption as end itself, acquire even what you don’t need, individual obesity, diabetes; 

    Climate catastrophe: exhaustion of resources, carnivorism major cause of methane

Alternative:   Radically reduce-reuse-recycle.  Film, Downsizing by Alexander Payne.   Vegetarianism, Veganism.

Monopoly, Consolidation, Purchase of or Merger with Competitors

    Liabilities:  Ceaseless efforts to eliminate competition, monopoly goal to
     ensure  profit.   NADG (9-13-16).  “Merger to Create Largest Fertilizer Firm.” 
          “Horizon Will buy Drugmaker for $80M.”

         Climate Catastrophe:  minimizing, marginalizing public influence in economic system, prices, quality

         Alternative or corrective:  strict anti-trust laws and enforcement; cooperation, co-ops, worker ownership

Massive Criminal Corporations

Liabilities: Too big to fail or prosecute and the public to pay;  e.g., Exxon denial of climate change

Climate Catastrophe:  destruction of the planet

Alternative, Corrective:  Seize their assets to fund reduction of carbon emissions

Instability of Market System

Liabilities: Boom leading by overproduction to Bust, businesses destroyed, enormous economic and human waste, periodic crises encouraged by advertisement of over-accumulation compelling investors to seek foreign markets (excellent one-paragraph summary of Boom and Bust in Creating an Ecological Society p. 339 footnote #9).

Climate Catastrophe:  Periodic implosion of people’s savings and investments
     when money needed for mitigation and adaptation

 Alternative: cooperatives, close government watch of Wall Street

Advertising, Inducing Consumption, Creating Needs,  
     Liabilities:  culture of deception, society of deceit, persistent subversion
         of truth and trust: (Valera promoting its “clean”  gasoline)

        Climate catastrophe:   chief mechanism of exhaustion of resources by consumption

        Alternative:  strict government oversight of lying about products, critical 
         thinking education K-12.

Hostility to the Commons

Liabilities:  If there is to be profit, the commons should be unregulated: government protections of the public’s land should be minimal, and therefore

growth, commodification, consumption, capital accumulation, monopoly should be free of hindrances.

Climate Catastrophe: The Commons is a bulwark against commercial exploitation and therefore of warming; for example the national forests.  The Resilient Federal forests Act of 2017 backed by the timber industry would eliminate thorough assessments of deforestation, reduce management requirements, would fast-track more cuttings, limit judicial restraining orders, and more. 

Alternative:  Preservation and expansion all public ownership (parks, monuments, etc.).

Hostility to Organized Workers, Unions

Liabilities:  Workers’ solidarity interferes with owner profit, capital accumulation, monopoly.

Climate Catastrophe:  Unions are another bulwark against unregulated owners who would trash workers and nature and the planet.

Alternative:

Work Precariousness,  Danger:
Liabilities: The casualisation of work is no aberration of capitalism. It is the logical outcome of a system based on profit.

Climate Change;  Injury at work will increase as money decreases for regulation and oversight decrease on account of wars and warming.

Alternatives:  Fully active OSHA

Hostility to Government Oversight

     Liabilities: abandonment of affirmative government,  the only power strong enough to control corporate abuses

          Climate Catastrophe:  dismantling of government regulatory agencies intended to assist and protect the people (Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed)

         Alternative: return to concept of affirmative government of, by, and for the p eople

Hostility to Taxes

     Liabilities:  enfeebling even elimination of the institutions of civilization in health, education, and so on, that require financial support

          Climate Catastrophe:  all estimates of what will be needed for mitigation and adaptation reach trillions of dollars

          Alternative:  a just tax system that minimizes gaps between the rich and the poor (definition of just is fair)

INEQUALITY inevitably large gaps between rich an poor

GDP as Measurement of Economic Success

   Liabilities: gives false assessment of real needs of society

      Climate catastrophe:  GDP measurement encourages growth

  Alternative: Quality of Life as measure of national success

WARS and IMPERIALISM for RESOURCES, SPACE

     Liabilities:  ecocide/ecological warfare, extractionism rampant, enormous waste of nations’ resources and treasuries; incalculable suffering by death and relocation of all species,    

      Climate Catastrophe: resource wars destroy entire nations; e.g. Syria 2016, incalculable cost of restoration

      Alternative: conversion of military to civilian needs, abolition of nuclear weapons, prosecution of all war criminals or at the least public confession.

WASTE  (see Advertising)

     Liabilities: “…today’s monopoly-finance capitalism is a system built on waste.  The larger part of production is squandered on negative (or specifically capitalist) use values, in such forms as military spending; marketing expenditures; and the inefficiencies, including planned obsolescence, built into every product.”

     Climate Catastrophe:  production and consumption of useless commodities increase CO2.

     Alternative:  Because marketing induces people to buy things they would not otherwise purchase, here’s where we can cut without decreasing the quality of life. 

GLOBALISM

Liabilities: Today, global sales account for half the revenue of the S&P 500.  Consequently, the consuming public is not the highest priority it was following WWII.

Climate Catastrophe:

Alternative:

ABSENCE OF THE LEFT

Liabilities: Early in the last century a genuine socialist movement awakened the populace to democratic, equalitarian reforms.  Today, the plutocrats have little to fear from an organized opponent.

Climate Catastrophe:

Alternative:

Sources:

Fran Alexander, “This Land Is Whose Land?”  NADG (June 20, 2017). 

Ian Angus, Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the
     Earth System

Katherine Chiglinsky, et al.  “Boeing Uses Shares to Cut Pension Deficit.” 
     (Bloomberg News).   NADG (9-16-17). 

Ashley  Dawson, Extinction: A Radical History.  2017.

Foster, John Bellamy.  “The Long Ecological Revolution.”  Monthly Review (Nov. 2017).  Pp. 12-13 on waste.

Isbister, John.  Capitalism and Justice: Envisioning Social and Economic Fairness.  Kumarian, 2001.

Konczal, Mike.  “Monopolized.”  The Nation (June 6/13, 2017).

Lockwood, Frank.  “Westerman Pushes Bill to Grease Wheels on Cutting in
     Forests.”  NADG (June 22, 2017).  The Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2017
      proposed by Arkansas’ Rep. Bruce Westerman.

Marx, Karl.  Capital.

Marxist Student Federation by Marxist Student (April 29, 2019).   https://mronline.org/2019/05/04/precarious-work-a-marxist-explanation/?utm_source=MR+Email+List&utm_campaign=86a5460383-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_MRONLINE_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4f879628ac-86a5460383-295821469&mc_cid=86a5460383&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e   

Michael Lowy, Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe.   

Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams, Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a
      Revolutionary Transformation.  Monthly  Review P, 2017.

Richman, Shaun.  “How Union-Busting Bosses Propel the Right Wing to Power .” 
     Working in These Times (6-23-17).

Smith, Richard.  Green Capitalism: The God That Failed.  World Economics Assoc., 2016

Stiglitz, Joseph.  The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers our Future.  2012.

James Surowiecki.  “Moaning Moguls.”  The New Yorker (July 7 & 14, 2014).  Globalism and absence of the Left.

Wallerstein, Immanuel.  The Human Costs of Economic Growth.

Del Weston, The Political Economy of Global Warming: The Terminal Crisis.
      Routledge, 2014.