Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; Guardian contributor George Monbiot insists we must ditch Capitalism to save the world from climate change, but he doesn’t like any of the alternative economic systems.
Dare to declare capitalism dead – before it takes us all down with it
George Monbiot
Thu 25 Apr 2019 15.00 AESTThe economic system is incompatible with the survival of life on Earth. It is time to design a new one
For most of my adult life I’ve railed against “corporate capitalism”, “consumer capitalism” and “crony capitalism”. It took me a long time to see that the problem is not the adjective but the noun. While some people have rejected capitalism gladly and swiftly, I’ve done so slowly and reluctantly. Part of the reason was that I could see no clear alternative: unlike some anti-capitalists, I have never been an enthusiast for state communism. I was also inhibited by its religious status. To say “capitalism is failing” in the 21st century is like saying “God is dead” in the 19th: it is secular blasphemy. It requires a degree of self-confidence I did not possess.
But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to recognise two things. First, that it is the system, rather than any variant of the system, that drives us inexorably towards disaster. Second, that you do not have to produce a definitive alternative to say that capitalism is failing. The statement stands in its own right. But it also demands another, and different, effort to develop a new system.
Capitalism’s failures arise from two of its defining elements. The first is perpetual growth. Economic growth is the aggregate effect of the quest to accumulate capital and extract profit. Capitalism collapses without growth, yet perpetual growth on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental calamity.
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This drives us towards cataclysm on such a scale that most people have no means of imagining it. The threatened collapse of our life-support systems is bigger by far than war, famine, pestilence or economic crisis, though it is likely to incorporate all four. Societies can recover from these apocalyptic events, but not from the loss of soil, an abundant biosphere and a habitable climate.
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So what does a better system look like? I don’t have a complete answer, and I don’t believe any one person does. But I think I see a rough framework emerging. Part of it is provided by the ecological civilisation proposed by Jeremy Lent, one of the greatest thinkers of our age. Other elements come from Kate Raworth’s doughnut economics and the environmental thinking of Naomi Klein, Amitav Ghosh, Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq, Raj Patel and Bill McKibben. Part of the answer lies in the notion of “private sufficiency, public luxury”. Another part arises from the creation of a new conception of justice based on this simple principle: every generation, everywhere, shall have an equal right to the enjoyment of natural wealth.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/25/capitalism-economic-system-survival-earth
Monbiot’s reference to top soil for some reason reminded me of my favourite scene out of the movie “Under Siege“, in which the antagonist who has hijacked a nuclear warship is trying to convince the authorities that he is crazy, by making wild claims about topsoil and other fringe eco themes;
Update (EW): The Guardian has published responses from readers to Monbiot’s article.
Sure, he looks stable. We should do what he says.
He is not the first to notice the importance of top soil, but he ignores the initiatives on the way to addressing it.
Activists are directing school children to the streets to protest for more action against CO2 and their fear of global warming/climate change. In their desire to feel good about saving the planet, they ignore what is being done, and they march rather than picking up shovels and hoes and literally caring for the earth under their feet.
Overlooked is our potential to enhance the performance of the biosphere in capturing CO2 and greening the land. The soil itself is second only to the oceans, and the plant biomass is an additional sink for CO2. Below is an overview of the win-win proposition for humans to sequester carbon in the soil and restore its health and productivity at the same time. H/T Mark Krebs for suggesting this topic and providing resources from his own research and teaching. The full story is at https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2019/04/11/to-save-the-earth-get-down-in-the-dirt/
Activists always find that it is easier to protest over a cause, than to actually get off their sofas & do something about it.
First get rid of capitalism, after that we will think of something else, something better. Sure, George, there must be something that hasn’t been tried yet in many thousand years. We can try anarchy again.
That guy is REALLY off his rocker, but provides entertainment by making hilarious claims.
People listen to him and actually believe this stuff.
George Carlin had it right. Take the average person. Remember, half of the people are stupider.
Monbiot announced last year that he had prostate cancer. Twice as many people died from that disease 30 years ago, which is all the more remarkable given that populations have aged quite a bit since then.
Most of the work on this cancer has and is being done in the US, the UK, Australia, and the Scandinavian countries. These are capitalist countries, for the most part. Does Monbiot consider himself a hypocrite for bemoaning capitalist societies while at the same time utilizing the life-extending technologies developed therein?
Oh Noes!!!! We’ve past Peak Soil!!
Agricultural commodities are in such surplus and prices are so low that many farmers can’t afford to produce them. I guess that’s one “disadvantage” of capitalism – perpetual surpluses.
Why isn’t this guy institutionalised yet?
Because ‘psych-wards’ were mostly closed or limited in their use in the late 1980s and 1990s, due to hand-wringing media exposures about how bad they were at making crazy people somewhat sane. So with no better idea, they let all the crazy people out to live with the saner people and legalized drugs and gave them access to the internet, and said it would all sort itself out, with sustained doses of hopium.
As a result the world and internet seems to get crazier every year.
We appear to be seeing a lot of peremptory demands from the Guardian ‘because climate change’. May I suggest that if the Guardian is so concerned about climate change it should with immediate effect stop its print edition and provide only electronic copy.
Think of the saving in transport and processing of wood pulp into paper, then printing and distribution of the printed copies, special aircraft fly at night to distribute newsprint. So go on Guardian – go green and stop all paper editions. Because climate.
This amounts to concentrated ad placements for events week. It goes hand in hand with the street stunts in an orchestrated program.
On a much larger scale we saw the same thing across large, medium, and small news outlets across the U.S. leading up to the Paris Climate Agreement meetings. Paid news placements feed the publishers of all sizes.
Pity the readers and science minded. They are pawns in a money game.
Probably the best distinction I have ever heard that is easy for anyone to understand, even the stupid people like Monbiot.
Capitalism – economic system where you go to a grocery store and the bread is waiting for you.
Socialism – economic system where you stand in line at the grocery store doors waiting for the bread to arrive.
How can it be any clearer?
Isn’t it Central Planning that’s turning topsoil into fuel? That’s not something capitalists would do on their own.
Excellent!!!!
+100
I like the way Steve O thinks!
“Capitalism collapses without growth, yet perpetual growth on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental calamity.”
The Free Market (“Capitalism” is a term invented by Marx, if I remember correctly) is self-limiting. If soil, energy. or any other resource gets scarce the price goes up and people explore or invent alternatives.
Also, is it really necessary to point out that soil is pretty easy to make? A little dredging, a little composting, and Voila.
I keep seeing futuristic predictions that robots will take over the “jobs” and we will all become couch potatoes.
That requires a narrow view of work , restricting it only to that undertaken in a formal, hierarchical relationship between the party paying the “wage” and the party doing the “work”.
A less blinkered view will understand that their skills and effort are a tradeable commodity like any other. People who want to gain benefit by trading one commodity or means of exchange for another, will find ways of doing so.
Those who find such ways will be watched and imitated by others. That is…… if regulators do not try to stop us “for our own good”.
That’s what socialism does best, Peter.
This is where robotics lead us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXhYgprPB9o
A less blinkered view will understand that their skills and effort are a tradeable commodity like any other.
the “problem”/fear is that the robots will be able to do the same skills with less effort. How tradable is your skill to make widgets if a machine can make widgets just as good or better than yours at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time?
This dude is a just tad unhinged.
You have an Olympic class skill at understatement.
I wonder if Guardian contributors include or included Nicolas Maduro, Kim Jong Un, and Pol Pot.
Moonbot rides again, this time tilting at topsoil. Shutting down the Grauniad would save a lot more Greenhouse gas and topsoil.
tsk tsk, you climate deniers make me laugh.
It’s clear that we have only 12 years left to save the top soil. The top few millimetres of the soil is screaming, the Arctic is screaming, the walrus’s are screaming.
In fact, the Antarctic is screaming, the polar bears, emperor penguins, natterjack toads and AOC are screaming.
Only a denier can ignore all this screaming
What’s so difficult to understand?
Capitalism expands not because of capitalism but because of people.
People want more and they use capitalism to achieve a better life for themselves and their children.
Of course socialists like MoonBat can’t stand the thought of other people prospering.
The other thing I love is when those who have no knowledge of how capitalism actually works start spinning fanciful theories regarding it’s alleged failings and how super smart people such as themselves are capable of designing an economic system completely without flaws. If only we would turn over all power and wealth to them.
I just luuurve the privileged white haut bourgeoisie condemning gazillions of PoCs to starvation, death camps and misery. Moonbat, this is YourLife!
As I read Monbiot’s comments I imagined the reaction of some poor third-world citizen, sitting by his dung fire in his hut, upon hearing that some spoiled westerner says we have enough of everything and therefore need no more growth.
Economic growth in the first world is focused on producing luxuries now that basic needs have been met. That’s the difference.
This Moon-bat dude is waaaay off the reservation.
And so was Tommy Lee Jones’ character in Under Siege. But please allow a minor clarification: BB63, “Mighty Mo”, the USS Missouri, was shown in this movie as nuclear-armed, but she was not a nuclear-powered warship.
In the last class of WWII battleships, Mighty Mo was indeed that. But nuclear armaments were aboard for only a short portion of her nearly 50 years of service.
For those not familiar with WWII history, the Missouri’s most famous duty was as the site of the signing of surrender documents by Japanese government representatives in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945.
Where fastened to the bulkhead was the ensign flown by Commodore Perry’s flagship when he first entered Japanese waters in July 1853.
There is something very disconcerting about a person whose eyes are as big as saucers when he/she talks.
Thyroid issues, perhaps?
Yeah makes me think of Runaway Bride, Jennifer Wilbanks
Sawing away at this log so please excuse my insistence. The Green New Deal, Extinction Rebellion, etc. have smoked out the red politics which were always present in the Environmental movement. We’ve long known that but now it’s obvious to everyone. It’s both the economically illiterate “Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution” We are lighting warning fires on the mountain tops. The barbarians are truly at our gates.
The topsoil crises has been around for over a hundred years. And yet food production keeps increasing. Monbiot may have been born yesterday but the rest of us were not.
Naomi Klein , Peak Soil and George Monbiot.
Recipe for madness!
“Dare to declare capitalism dead – before it takes us all down with it.”
Well, if you’re wanting something less able to provide for the general physical needs and welfare of people, then any other system you choose will be better.
Re. both Gary, April 29th and . Robert of Texas, the 26th. both are very thought provoking. I tend to think along similar lines..
One problem which needs to be sorted out is unemployment. Officially here in Australia our unemployment rate is about 5.3 % but this is considered to be a joke, as with just two hours work per week you are no longer considered to be unemployed. The rate is probably closer to 12 %, but that figure is not of course politically acceptable.
Possible solution, make it via taxation that its uneconomical to have both partners working in one household, while in another household neither partner is employed. one breadwinner, and that perron can be of either sex, so the problem is solved, in fact such a drastic change would cause a shortage of labour, hence wages would rise. It would also get over the child minding problem with their very high costs .
Ironically thinking back to the 1950 tees, that was the way the very long lasting Menzies Government governed. They had almost no income tax for the majority, they did have Purchase Tax, today’s GST/VAT taxes. But if you did not replace the item because it still worked OK, then you did not pay that tax. But have two working in the same household and income tax came in.
At present both political parties are bemoaning the fact that we have “Wage stagnation” plus the high cost of living. No mention as to just why is the cost of living is so high. A little bit like Faulty Towers, “Don’t mention the renewables””, plus there is some price gorging by the owners of the power sector, which today is split into many separate parts , each wanting a maximum return.
There is nothing basically wrong with Capitalism , but the recent Royal Commission into the Financial Industry, mainly the Banking Sector clearly shows that it can be, and is misused. But we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Regarding the apparent fear of a ever rising growth rate. I would think that replacement of existing goods would be sufficient to keep most industries happy, especially as the trend today is to throw out perfectly good equipment to have a so called “Better one”.
Reducing the hours worked day, and/’ or changing the working week to 4 days instead of 5 would solve any tendency to overproduce. But for that to work we must also reduce the very high “”Cost of Living”.
As for such things as immigration, well with high unemployment why do we need more peoples ?
MJE VK5ELL
In the US, if you start taking SS, even if you’d rather keep working and would be better off if you kept working. You are no longer counted as unemployed.
If you create an artificial employment shortage, that increase in wages that has you drooling, would result in everything that is made getting more expensive. That increase in price will more than compensate for any increase in wages.
Secondly, you are assuming that the second worker in one house is equally skilled with the unemployed person in the second. Complete and utter bullocks. The reality is, the first person is employed and the second isn’t precisely because the first has better skills. By forcing the better skilled person out of the labor force so that a person with lesser skills can be employed, you are ensuring that the quality of these now more expensive goods will go down as well.
Basically your solution is a recipe for disaster. You are as nutty as Monbiot.