Essay by Eric Worrall
“… One of the main barriers is the rise of anti-intellectualism and populist politics. Often aligned with unregulated capitalism …”
Environmental pressures need not always spark conflict – lessons from history show how crisis can be avoided
Published: September 10, 2025 8.04pm AEST
Jay Silverstein
Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Forensics, Nottingham Trent University…
Bronze age aridification in Mesopotamia from roughly 2200BC to 2100BC, for example, is correlated with an escalation of violence there and the collapse of the Akkadian empire. Some researchers also attribute drought as a major factor in recent wars in east Africa.
…
In the 19th century, when Europe’s population surged and natural fertiliser supplies such as guano became strained, the Haber-Bosch process revolutionised agriculture by enabling nitrogen to be extracted from the atmosphere. This allowed Europe to meet its growing demand for food and, incidentally, munitions.
…
In my view, dramatic action must be taken to avoid a spiral of conflict. Ideals, knowledge and data should be translated into political and economic will. This will require coordinated efforts by every nation.
…One of the main barriers is the rise of anti-intellectualism and populist politics. Often aligned with unregulated capitalism, this can undermine the very strategies needed to address the unfolding crisis.
If we are to avoid human tragedy, we will need to transform our worldview. This requires educating those unaware of the causes and consequences of global warming. It also means holding accountable those whose greed and lust for power have made them adversaries of life on Earth.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/environmental-pressures-need-not-always-spark-conflict-lessons-from-history-show-how-crisis-can-be-avoided-262300
Author Jay Silverstein doesn’t appear to realise he contradicted his own argument.
The Haber-Bosch process, which Jay Silverstein correctly claims revolutionised agriculture, wasn’t the product of an international government committee, it was the product of those unregulated capitalists author Jay Silverstein seems to despise.
My point is, there is no evidence societies which don’t encourage “unregulated capitalism” exhibit the kind of innovation required to overcome obstacles. Quite the opposite. Even communist China is struggling to keep up, although they did a fantastic job of industrialising their society, far better than the Soviets, especially after Deng Xiapong allowed the reintroduction of capitalism, China is now hitting the limits of communist struggles to innovate, with their struggle to keep up with the USA in high tech fields like artificial intelligence.
Capitalism is innovation – self organising groups of people solving problems and making money from those solutions, without having to answer at every stage of the process to the direction of government bureaucrats.
Obviously I don’t agree with Jay Silverstein’s views that we face a climate emergency. But it is inevitable something bad will happen one day. And when that day happens, we better have a few capitalists on hand, who can work on solving that problem by thinking outside the box, without having to answer to risk averse bureaucrats over ever paperclip used in their effort to overcome the challenges of the future.
It’s capitalism that creates wealth for everyone, so much that the government can confiscate a large percentage of it to give to those who don’t produce, and also to fix other problems in society. Wait, “fix” is the wrong word, if the politicians ever fix something there’s no longer any justification for throwing taxpayer money at it, a large portion of which finds its way into their and their cronies’ pockets…
My goodness, these activists, pretend scientists and economists, produce some strange arguments.
Maybe a study of the classic text books would be better than reading and writing post-normal modernist nonsense little related to past observation, measurement and history.
What’s that expression…some things are so stupid only intellectuals believe them? Something like that…George Orwell.
Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, The Phoenicians, even ol’ King Solomon and the king of Tyre and not last the Roman Empire were the ones that done it. Chopped down all the cedar trees that streached from the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia. Lost the water storage and ground cover / shade and changed it all to desert. It was the killing of the timber guard Humbaba and not CO2.
http://www.eh-resources.org/wood.html
From that link:
If Humbaba had been a professional forester- his objective would have been to manage the timber resource so it would be sustainable- rather than attempting to lock people out. We have people today who want to lock up all the forests, apparently inspired by pagan gods.
Also from that link:
Preserve the forests means no timber harvesting. Understanding the past is fine, but whichever entities or individuals who own forests should retain professional foresters so the forest will be productive and sustainable.
When individuals are free from government interference, they can adapt to challenges more quickly.
The state of Wokeachusetts loves to brag that forestry in the state is hyper regulated- the most in the world, they claim. And it is. And, the result is that on the state’s million acres of forest, about 1% of growth each year is cut. It’s somewhat better on private land.
I’ve long lived in the self-proclaimed “Town of Trees” in that benighted one-party state.Our trees are flourishing. Until the past year or so my street has never been covered by the leafy canopy we enjoy today. (This despite efforts to disfigure them by indiscriminately—without a thought to the trees’ growth patterns—hacking off branches to “protect” power lines…in “The Town of Trees”)
I can attest that our area’s existing trees have become amazingly healthy and lush. As you travel on the highways out from Boston the forests lining the roads appear thick and leafy. Yet you’ll never hear a Green Weenie acknowledge the positive effects CO2 has on plants, large and small.
This is a bunch of intellectual gibberish. If intellectuals or governments or councils or boards were the answer then the command and control economies would have buried the free economies decades ago. But they aren’t and the reason they aren’t is because they aren’t allowed to fail. In free societies we face failure everyday. That is not a bad thing rather it teaches us what works and what doesn’t. It puts us on the fast track to success. We don’t piss away our time, money and resources on stuff that doesn’t work. It is a win win.
The capitalist method of dealing with failure is to try something different. The socialist/Marxist method is to pour more resource into the failed approach. See e.g. Lysenkoism.
Or Putinism.
Governments don’t have to be socialist/Marxist to pour more and more funds into their pet projects in an attempt to achieve success….in fact, it’s usually their first thru third recovery effort.
The command and control method of operating an economy has failed horribly every time it’s been attempted. Worse, the most extreme of the command/control economies have indulged in orgies of mass murder every time they were implemented: National Socialism, Marxist Socialism, Maoist socialism and Pol Pot’s version of Maoism. Two of these catastrophies simply collapsed; the other two had to be exterminated by military invasion.
But it is truly remarkable how many academics persist in imagining that command/control can be successful if, “this time we will get it right.”
While Cuba and Venezuela haven’t been as murderous, that’s due more to the over all incompetence of their respective leaders.
Here in Wokeachusetts, there is a lot of talk about rent control.
Socialists are big on demanding that other people give them stuff.
Don’t be ridiculous…we have gone to command and control in WW1 and 2. The difference is whether governing bodies plan and act on reinstating personal freedoms someday soon or not.
You do understand that there’s a difference between wartime against two vast evil empires and normal peacetime economies? Everyone in the western Allied nations understood that the wartime measures of government-controlled rationing were completely unsustainable. Rationing was discontinued the instant that European nations were capable of feeding themselves again.
We were no where close to the type of command and control that the Marxists want.
A wartime economy is not command and control.
Rationing is not command and control.
The government putting out contracts to buy war material is not command and control.
Rationing is not C&C ?!!! ‘fraid so…you very wishful…Being instructed to report to the recruitment office is C&C. Being told your ag tractor facility is now assembling tanks under a new contract and major so-and-so is your new general manager is C&C….Just sayin’….you not being realistic…
Being legally required to report to a recruitment office is not economic.
Accepting a contract to produce tanks is not command and control.
Rationing is not command and control. In effect it reduces the chances of having to implement command and control economics.
You are off the target.
Rationing isn’t even close to command and control.
The tractor facility is creating tanks because the government is buying tanks. At least in the US, there was no order requiring those facilities to change over.
It contributed to the downfall of the Roman empire.
Why do we fall? So we can learn how to get back up on our feet.
Dealing with failure is the greatest source of self-esteem.
I thought we tried that under Obama already.
There is no indication of a developing climate apocalypse thus his entire babble fest was dead on arrival.
“This will require coordinated efforts by every nation. “
Won’t happen. Suck it up, Buttercup.
Where is this “unregulated capitalism”, that the socialists are always whining about?
To those on the left, anything that doesn’t involve 100% government control of everything, is completely unregulated.
That’s simply the propaganda. Marxism was always about, “murder all the bourgeoise and steal everything they own.” Socialists are simply seeking a moral justification for their imagined crimes to perfect society as they imagine it.
This goes back a long, long way. Plato’s vision of an ideal society is utterly vile.
That’s the real irony. They call anyone who obstructs their regulatory behemoth “fascists”, when in fact it is they who emulate one of the fathers of fascism, Benito Mussolini, who famously defined his governmental system thus:
“All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state…”
The fact is that no one alive has ever seen a truly free market, and the unregulated capitalism they decry was always conducted in concert with government.
The only real difference between Marxism and fascism is the illusion. The former is the illusion that the people control capital, the latter that there is any private control of it.
“The fact is that no one alive has ever seen a truly free market”
Of course not. With no regulation whatsoever, no system of trade or barter can exist. Any society can only function with government regulation of things like weights, measures and currency. Without it, this is not called freedom; it’s called anarchy in which all life is “nasty, brutish and short.”
That has been called the most dangerous superstition. Under governments, life has been the nastiest, most brutish, and shortest for the vast majority of all who have ever lived.
Governments debase currency, link trade to war, and cause deprivation at a whim. If, as you insist, people cannot be trusted to govern themselves, how can a subset of those people be trusted to govern the rest? The very concept of authority is flawed and self-contradictory.
The kindest thing I can think of calling that statement, is extremely silly.
First off, weights and measures existed for hundreds of years before governments decided to get in on the act.
Secondly, even today, there are hundreds of standards out there in which government has no role whatsoever.
Government does not maintain the international for either metric or english measuring.
While it is true that government currently regulates money, but that hasn’t always been the case and there is no evidence that government mismanagement of currency is any better than what we had previously.
In your opinion, not having government decide how long a foot should be would make life “nasty, brutish and short”, is quite ignorant and short sighted.
I am alive.
Every time I go to a flea market or a yard sale I see a truly free market.
You may argue scale, but not the existence.
I stand corrected, to a point. However, you are still dealing in Federal Reserve Notes (or their foreign equivalent), a fiat currency, and not real money, with value dictated and inflated by the larger market.
Have you ever bartered? My neighbor has a landscaping business. If I cannot mow my lawn, from being out of town or whatever, I ask him to mow it for me. I pay him with a bottle of bourbon. No regulation whatsoever, just 2 people in a free exchange that benefits us both.
Not to mention people use Bitcoin or such these days too. Totally unregulated by governments. Though they want to.
Small-scale or complicated, limited examples do exist. They are exceptions that prove the rule, and they must be kept relatively hidden, as you indicate. The bourbon is state-regulated and taxed, as is the gas for the lawnmower. With the advent of AI, who knows what the future of digital currency will be?
If the value of the fiat currency is dictated and inflated (or deflated) by the larger market, is that only possible in a truly free market?
Inflation and deflation can only be accomplished by the issuer of the currency.
It is an artificial construct controlled by a bureaucracy dictating the structure based on statistics compiled by other bureaucracies working for the interests of a political elite. Hard to see any free market in that.
A regulated supply-demand market economy is not truly free, but likewise it is a far cry from a command economy.
If I work an hour and get a dollar, then spend that dollar on a loaf of bread, the bread is worth 1 hour of my labor.
If I work an hour and get ten dollars, and that loaf of bread costs ten dollars, the bread is worth 1 hour of my labor.
Money is the medium of exchange for goods and services. Money in and of itself is not an economy.
No the main barrier is pseudo-intellectuals who know just enough to be dangerous but not enough to notice the truth.
There is no unfolding crisis other than the increased nonsense from people like you. Capitalism is already regulated. Without it there is no incentive to invest and no incentive to work. Result – Banana republic and poverty.
You are the one who desperately needs educating my good man.
“No the main barrier is pseudo-intellectuals who know just enough to be dangerous but not enough to notice the truth.”
The Old Bolsheviks of Russia discovered just how unpleasant reality really was when Stalin and Zhdanov purged them all. The idiot Silverstein should have to live in the world he imagines as ideal. He would be bleating for release within minutes or hours.
“Capitalism is innovation – self organising groups of people solving problems and making money from those solutions, without having to answer at every stage of the process to the direction of government bureaucrats.”
If only it were so. The West is increasingly resembling California, where indeed the government does intervene at every stage. Add to that, even where capitalism is allowed to “sort of” function, it too often devolves into cronyism and groupthink.
Where are these places where capitalism is allowed to “sort of” function.
All we’ve seen in the last 100 years or so have been temporary, mild relaxation of the regulations and control from the socialists.
When capitalism is allowed to “sort of” function has a name.
It’s called fascism. And California with it’s one party government leads the pack.
Sure, let’s blame capitalism. Ignore the fact that many countries have become the wealthiest and healthiest in human history by embracing capitalism and somewhat free markets.
There’s an almost linear relationship between small government and personal wealth.
It’s universal, the bigger government gets, the poorer the average citizen gets.
Beyond that, socialists like to proclaim that more government results in better income equality. The reality is, the bigger government gets, the richer those who run government get, and the poorer everyone else gets.
Not equality. Equity. Equality is on the input side. Equity is on the output side.
You will have nothing and you will be happy.
This is just delusion. China in the past 40 years has taken lead in industry after industry. They have a well organized, state led, extensive research effort in every field and chips are one of the last fields where they behind but they are closing these gaps extremely quickly. BTW this was the reason why eg. Google was kinda nervous when Trump put limits to the export of Android. They knew very well that the result would be China’s focused effort in a replacement. Just as it has happened. Just to appreciate the scales here: China vastly outnumbers the US (and the West in general) in STEM graduates, and not just in absolute numbers but in relative numbers, too.
Mostly nonsense. China’s efforts in the last four decades have mostly been based on theft. Much of its seeming financial success has been based on currency manipulation and absolute state control of banking. Much of its technology development has been based on outright IP theft. China’s barriers to outside financial investment are enormous. Worse, large parts of its economy are rooted in slave labour.
So, for all practical purposes, China is a giant prison camp.
A prime example how it looks like when someone believes his own bs. Just as a side note, this is now almost like a meme when some Westener visits China, his jaw drops and realizes what he was told about China was grade A bs.
Chuckle. You mean what the visitor is allowed to see. Grandiose theatrics and intellectual theft are not the same as inspired innovation. Daring to think outside the box is generally met with a fist, or a bullet.
They even build grand cities that no one lives in. The illusion in that country is even more fragile than our own unstable, overregulated construct.
Haha, this sentence is a great example of “grandiose theatrics”.
Again, it won’t change reality if you repeat the tired tropes (including the “a fist, or a bullet” 🙂 you US Americans are so funny in your ignorance ). Please go check the number of publications and patents in STEM fields, you will be shocked. The Chinese dominate like 19 out of 25 fields in a certain categorization (or something similar when I saw it).
That says nothing about the origin or provenance of the idea. It is well known that Edison stole ideas and claimed them for his own. It is also well known that many absurd things have been patented.
You must be a student Tampon Tim Waltz. I suspect your copy of Mao’s Little Red Book is well-worn.
Ah, you fall under the well known banner of ‘ anyone who dares to criticize Capitalism is a commie. Spoonfed american slop..
Can you define capitalism and specify the criticism? In point of fact, all systems are capitalist. Who controls the capital is what sets them apart.
Most people who parrot the cry are not actually communists, but what Lenin described as “useful idiots”. People who really do not understand political and economic systems are easy targets. In the 60s, Mao’s little book was popular among the pseudo-intellectuals.
In this case, I was yanking (pun intended) nyoci’s chain since he seems to be somewhat of a China Cheerleader.
You need to read nyolci. He’s quite the fan of Marxism and has been for years.
Again, it won’t change reality if you repeat the tired tropes
Exactly as you are doing.
Their military manufacturing stocks took a significant hit right after their big parade when a good amount of the weapons they were rolling around were pretty obvious molded facsimiles.
Their youth unemployment rate could be as high as 50%. The CCP stopped publishing youth unemployment figures (and even when they did you couldn’t trust them), which is pretty much an admission that they don’t want you to see the actual numbers.
Those who still have jobs often go months without receiving wages, leading to office sit-ins, rooftop standoffs, and even factory sabotage. You have to be quick to get video proof of these before the CCP censors take them down. Naturally folks like nyolci won’t even try to look.
Indeed. The very nature of Marxism demands that pretense and image be maintained even when there is no substance to support it. It obviously works on some, nyolci as case in point.
Yeah, probably. And what? Do you think there are relatively more absurd ones among Chinese patents? Do you have data? 😉 I’m sure you don’t, and this is just copium out of thin air.
I love US Americans. Someone must be a Maoist if he is a bit left to Hitler. No, Tim Waltz and far the most of the spectrum of US politics (including Bernie Sanders) are actually righwingers if we follow the old left-right categorization. Whether you like it or not.
Perhaps you should first know what you are talking about. BTW the classical economy with Ricardo and Adam Smith etc. was what Marx developed into its most advanced form. No wonder it was quickly dropped in the capitalist word in favor of Marginalism. Remember this when you talk about the Invisible Hand (and other invisible body parts), that comes from Adam Smith, an actual forerunner of Marx.
I could not resist, due to your apparent affinity for authority. That is the one thing that stands out in classical Chinese philosophy and remains in apparent practice today. It is the Holy Grail of the progressive movement as well.
The proper political spectrum has all authoritarian forms, be it communism, fascism, monarchy, theocracy, etc., on the left, by convention, and limited to no government on the right.
Democracy is not a real form of government at all. As Marx and Engels pointed out, it is a transitional state, generally a chaotic one, to some other form, almost universally resulting in oligarchy.
Marxism demands a facade, as I stated, since it has never been capable of delivering on its fantasy, and never can. It is far too easily coopted by the corrupt and the vicious.
As for patents, you threw that one out without any citation, so the thickness of the air is the standard you set.
There must be an authority somewhere, otherwise who would stop you from crossing a red light? Let this be the lesson for today, why you don’t usually cross red lights. But sometimes you do, like at 3 am in the morning. There must be something, a thing called law or rule or whatever that we have agreed upon, right? Now you’d better know science is similar, but without the arbitrary component.
Find it for yourself. The thing is that if you don’t believe me, I don’t care, furthermore, facts remain facts. I’ve seen that study months ago, I won’t do the footwork instead of you.
Why? If we have all agreed on it, why must we be forced at the point of a gun to obey? Who can be trusted with authority if no one can be trusted to govern themselves without it?
Crossing a red light when there is no one else about causes no harm and hardly demands the application of force. Using such an argument to insist on absolute authority is a fallacy. Arbitrary laws only serve those who seek to control others; authority is simply the act of submission to that control. As we have seen, the rule of law seldom applies to the rulers, and those rulers apply it at a whim, favoring some over others as it serves their agenda. It is the tool of slavery, not of free people.
Science only exists if it is questioned and held to scrutiny. When science is abused to legitimize force, it is no more than a tool of oppression.
Well, the rules are called “rules” for a reason. And if you remember my example with the red lights, I explicitly said that at certain times you can violate these. Meaning that some rules are not that strict.
Yeah, this is what I said, too.
Laws by and large are not arbitrary. There are arbitrary components (like the color of the red light, or the “right” in the right hand rule) but they are arbitrary for the reason sometimes we have to have a rule at a certain point. In science, the arbitrary part is much-much more restricted (like choosing the unit of measurements, or the “right” in the right hand rule in vector multiplication). You can’t just violate scientific rules.
If one rule is good, more rules are better. How typical of those on the left.
Exactly. What an extremely sharp observation. 😉
The typical marxist line of thinking. Since government set the rules for the road, therefor a perfect society is one in which government runs everything.
You throw out a claim, and then declare that it’s up to others to disprove it. How lazy of you.
He did not say that…idiot.
He defended one rule, by citing another rule that most people would agree with.
He did indeed say just that.
“It was him…” 😉
Chuckle. Again, you have nothing to back up your claim.
If Marxism is the most advanced form of economic theory, how come Marxism has always failed. The only thing any marxist economy has ever produced is death and despair on massive scales.
You more and more resemble to the Gormans with their comprehension problems. I thought the British are a bit less stoopid, but I was wrong.
Like in China 😉
Typical socialist. No answer for a question, so you insult the questioner.
China is only wealthy because they abandoned Marxism. Not completely, but those areas with the least government control are the areas that have grown economically.
You want to eat your cake and spare it at the same time (paraphrasing, pardon) 😉
BTW this is factually false, and the relationship is kinda complicated. The state provides the backbone of the economy and most of the stuff that are not directly profitable like research. The story is interesting, furthermore research was, up to quite recent times, state driven in the US (among other Western nations), too.
Citing reality is an invalid arguement.
It is true, all you have to do is look at the data.
Good comeback. People here have not read anything other than slop ( US) propaganda..
Thx. TBH I’m kinda surprised that there’s someone who is not dismissive right away to my position.
Lies are a good comeback.
As to your reflexive hatred of all things American, it goes well with your leftward political positions.
Once Sun Tzu said: When you lie to yourself, you are cooked and you will be condemned to read conservative blogs. Or something to this effect.
BTW, for stocks, the Chinese don’t give a damn (and no, the weapons were not facsimiles, I’m sure you have seen some bs “analysis”). Because this is not what counts. This is the same as in the US in a sense, the stock market is soaring while most people are one paycheck away from sleeping in the streets. In China, the opposite is true.
You mean they’re sleeping in the streets even with a paycheck? I suppose they can’t all be lucky enough to sleep on the factory floor, or on-site dormitories.
Hahaha!
One constant with nyolci, is his eagerness to believe whatever his handlers tell time to believe.
Typical socialist. When losing an argument, just invent shit.
It’s hard to get someone to see something they don’t want to see.
Also, when they refuse to open their eyes. Oh. Wait. Same thing.
“A prime example how it looks like when someone believes his own bs.”
That thar is funny, I don’t care who you are.
On the small to intermediate business level China is more capitalist (and non-interfering…other than owners claiming to be party members) than most of the socialist and welfare governments that make up a good portion of the “western world”. It is the main reason for their population’s huge increase in personal wealth and business success…post-Mao…
I read manga from many countries. One thing I have noticed regarding Chinese manga and short novels is the assumption that those who run government are both rich and above the law. Those related to those who run government are also above the law.
The attitude among the masses is that it’s best to stay poor and keep your head down. Getting noticed by those who have power is never a good thing.
I call it western propaganda and arrogance. People in the west cannot imagine any other system being as or more succesful than their own. It is spoonfed from a young ago.
Americans have been fossilized. Their brains atrophied..
Would you believe me if I said this was a shocker to me when I first observed it 35 years ago? I had thought up to that time that Westeners were enlightened, knowledgeable people who were above propaganda. It turned out that they had their bubble where they lived, and they had zero doubt. (I’m from the Eastern Bloc, we were used to questioning the situation and we actually experienced a collapse.)
We can imagine other systems, we have plenty of examples.
And all of them have failed spectacularly
That’s funny, a socialist talking about others having their opinions spoonfed..
The 90s had an extremely sobering effect on me. All that we had thought about the West and capitalism turned out to be illusion. I lived through the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. That process was like less than a decade, and they just gave it up. I can see the same collapse prolonged way-way too long now in the West. Very likely the dotcom bubble burst was the real start, not even the 2008 recession. Unfortunately this “postpone as long as we can” means it will suddenly implode very quickly.
I wonder why many people living in anti-capitalist societies are so keen to move to a capitalist one, if given the chance. Perhaps Jay Silverstein can explain it to me.
Yes, and why do their students come here to study. It certainly is not to learn the rules of “equity”.
“If we are to avoid human tragedy, we will need to transform our worldview.” Yes indeed. You and your fellow Climate Caterwaulers do need to transform your worldview. Glad we agree.
“This requires educating those unaware of the causes and consequences of global warming alarmism. It also means holding accountable those whose greed and lust for power have made them adversaries of life on Earth.” Also true, with the addition of one word.
The proper term for capitalism is “Free Enterprise”.
Free Enterprise explains the activity very well. Capitalism confuses the activity.
Capitalism is an “ism”’ like socialism or communism and is used by Marxists to inaccurately equate Free Enterprise to socialism and communism.
Indeed, all economic forms are capitalist. The difference is who controls the capital. In a free system, it is a bit harder for oligarchs to do so.
The morons of Marxism will always stand with the sociopaths of socialism against reality, history, and human nature! When the inevitable ascension of psychopaths occurs in a command and control economy, the results will be devastation and death!
There appears to have been only one republic specifically designed to limit the power available to corrupt and crazed individuals; and even that may be overthrown by subverting the education system, and placing the media under control of the bureaucracy.
” Some researchers also attribute drought.. ”
Translation
Some researchers = more than one researcher with unspecified provenance.
attribute = blame without proof.
What a beautiful headline. It tells me all. I won’t even bother to read details.
We Can Survive the Climate Apocalypse if Capitalists Don’t Get in the WayI’ll propose a minor edit:
We Wii Get the Climate Apocalypse if Capitalists Don’t Get in the Way
It’s always about drama with these communists, isn’t it?
Only there is no Climate Apocalypse, it’s all fine.
Unregulated capitalism? I can’t speak for other countries, but in the US these cabinet departments regulate business, big and small, and directly report to the President: Commerce, Labor, Transportation, Justice (anti-trust), Agriculture, Energy, Health and Human Services (FDA, healthcare), Homeland Security (cybersecurity standards), and Treasury. Then there’s the agencies inside the Executive branch, such as the Federal Trade Commission, the EPA, the Small Business Administration, the National Labor Relations Board, and Securities and Exchange Commission.
Unregulated? SNORT!
I’ve been told by a number of communists, that there is pure communism, and everything else is some form of capitalism.
It is because unbridled competition will result in ever increasing profit AND control by the most powerful who will set the rules, corrupt and pay off the institutions. In a way the West is already there. This serpent is eating its tail.
You need hard regulation to keep the market free enough to function. That is the irony.
If their is one thing no socialist knows anything about, it is economics.
Really, competion causes profits to increase? Are you really this stupid?
And having a socialist whine about the powerful setting the rules, has to be one of the stupidest things I have read this year.
Under the free market, monopolies are impossible. If you examine every monopoly in history, you will find a government behind it. The government came first.
The claim that only government can make you free is often cited by those who want government to be in charge of everything.
Unfortunately it has always failed, and always resulted in massive death and poverty when tried in the real world.
paperclip
That sums it up.
People here seem to think that Capitalism is some magic word that spreads magic everywhere. May i remind people that the word originates from Marx and that the word has been used in hindsight to loosely describe the idea of profit accumulation and private ownership. But this is a meaningless exercise because this has existed since ancient times. Most criticasters, mostly marxists use it describe the growing gap between the capitalist class and the workers in the system. It seems to me that the view of Capitalism as some magic potion is used as a replacement for simple private enterprice and competition. And of course very american. The use of the word always raises a red flag to me. I am never disappointed but always get my prejudices confirmed.
Now go on and accuse me of being a lefty socialist idiot ( and confirm them again!)
If you would actually open your eyes, you will find that the growing wealth of the oligarchy always follows growing concentration of government power.
In other words, it is government that results in greater disparity in wealth, not the free market.
BTW, when you see only what you want to see, it’s hardly surprising to find out that your prejudices are always confirmed.