Capitalism causes climate change

[zsn]

Curious. Who/what are the powerful, entrenched interests in this case? Who is guiltiest of corporatist behavior?

Do you think that the dying coal mining industry (financially unviable over at least the last couple of decades) would have stayed afloat without significant and continuing subsidies? I’m all for government subsidies to encourage growth but there has to be a sunset of the subsidies, such as for rooftop solar tax credits. A boost until industries become self sustaining is certainly an important role for governments. However, senators from coal-producing areas have kept the slop trough of a dying industry well stocked.

Coal industry is a dying industry by any objective capitalist measure. Not sure if these senators are the guiltiest but they are certainly up there on the list. It’s their job to watch out for their constituents but they wield outsized influence (the McConnells and Manchins). Again, this is just one example.

[ousdahl]

LOL

ETA: If you want to equate a work of (crackpotastical) economics with a work of moral philosophy, I can't stop you.

But I suspect that explains the larger part of your confusion.

oh come on bro, Adam Smith isn’t that crackpotastical.

He at least has a good take on landlords!

[DCHawk1]

He also wasn't an economist.

[ousdahl]

Well for that matter, neither was Karl

[DCHawk1]

Curious. Who/what are the powerful, entrenched interests in this case? Who is guiltiest of corporatist behavior?

Do you think that the dying coal mining industry (financially unviable over at least the last couple of decades) would have stayed afloat without significant and continuing subsidies? I’m all for government subsidies to encourage growth but there has to be a sunset of the subsidies, such as for rooftop solar tax credits. A boost until industries become self sustaining is certainly an important role for governments. However, senators from coal-producing areas have kept the slop trough of a dying industry well stocked.

Coal industry is a dying industry by any objective capitalist measure. Not sure if these senators are the guiltiest but they are certainly up there on the list. It’s their job to watch out for their constituents but they wield outsized influence (the McConnells and Manchins). Again, this is just one example.

I think you can't help yourself. You asked a fair question in the first paragraph and then wandered into the realms of rationalization and fantasy.

"All government energy subsidies are bad. But some subsidies are less bad than others." Talk about yer Animal Farm.

Coal is dying in large part BECAUSE of government subsidies and mandates, not in spite of them.

[DCHawk1]

Well for that matter, neither was Karl

Do you know the translation of the title you posted?

[ousdahl]

No bro, that’s why i assigned the reading to you.

Maybe we should just both ask to borrow Sparko’s study guide?

[DCHawk1]

Marx was wrong about history, economics, science, human behavior, and the mechanisms that animate all of them. If you're still confused about that, then that's a you problem.

Capitalism, in a vacuum, is a perfect system. Unfortunately, as zsn noted, we don't live in a vacuum, and the perfect conditions necessary to enable the perfect system, therefore, do not exist and never will.

Smith's contribution -- particularly in The Theory of Moral Sentiments -- was to describe the moral/ethical conditions, habits, and practices that best enable a commercial economy to thrive (in the absence of the vacuum/perfect world) and to produce economic activity that benefits both individuals and society at large.

Marx was a religious fanatic. Nothing more.

[ousdahl]

Damn dude, you read the entirety of Das Kapital that quick?

[DCHawk1]

I been around awhile.

[Deleted User 863]

DC on

[Sparko]

No bro, that’s why i assigned the reading to you.

Maybe we should just both ask to borrow Sparko’s study guide?

Dude. The TA's on to us.

[japhy]

I been around awhile.

You'll make a capitalist of this draggle tailed guttersnipe.

[ousdahl]

sooo

What’s a “windfall profits tax?”

[japhy]

sooo

What’s a “windfall profits tax?”

A pipe dream.

You should put down the pipe. It will stunt your growth.

[ousdahl]

Blame NPR!

They just suggested as much for oil companies. They said many other countries have such a tax, but in Merica either this is no such tax, or if there is, there’s a lot of loopholes around it.

Turns out, BP and Exxon Mobil recently raked in another combined 70 bajillion dollars in profits.

[japhy]

The State of Missouri took in half a million in weed taxe$ over the weekend.

That is a windfall blowing in from the west and north.

I hope KS, NE and IA keep voting in staunch conservatives. Send those tax payers down here to Missouri to dump their cash.

[ousdahl]

Not sure that fits here tho.

Unless the weed industry too knows their products are directly contributing to climate change, and they’re using their wealth and influence to downplay the threats they otherwise know exist.

Generally, I’m still not sure anyone has offered anything in this thread to suggest the best way to curb climate change is to keep sitting around waiting for the free market to make it profitable enough.

I think we need to at least collectively make ourselves open to the possibility that the better course forward is systemic change.

[japhy]

Not sure that fits here tho.

Me either, but it was a you who moved the goalpost to windfall taxes.

Who was it who said, "agitprop is the indica of the woke"?

Anyway; if you want to change the system, you can do it best when owning part of the system. Why do you think the right is so afraid of woke capitalism?

[Deleted User 863]

Not sure that fits here tho.

Unless the weed industry too knows their products are directly contributing to climate change, and they’re using their wealth and influence to downplay the threats they otherwise know exist.

Generally, I’m still not sure anyone has offered anything in this thread to suggest the best way to curb climate change is to keep sitting around waiting for the free market to make it profitable enough.

I think we need to at least collectively make ourselves open to the possibility that the better course forward is systemic change.

I think a lot of individuals AND businesses are showing commitment to helping slow climate change.