So in order to answer whether USA capitalism is environmentally sustainable you’d have to compartmentalize “environmentally sustainable” to not include climate change? That seems to be conceding the point.
That’s fair but the problem isn’t the capitalism it’s the regulation.
We have a carbon tax and other climate change initiatives in Canada. We need more but we are far further down the scale I talked about earlier than the US.
In other words… The problem isn’t the capitalists, it’s regulating the capitalists. You can’t make this shit up.
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What is the problem? Bad regulations
Who’s in charge of the regulation in a capitalist country? The capitalists
Why are the capitalists in charge? Because they built a capitalist system that put them in charge
Why do we have bad regulations? ________________
This is an over simplification but your general point is correct.
The incentives in a capitalist society require regulation to be curbed for the good of society. You are also correct that there is often too much regulatory capture but your conclusion is wrong. There are many examples of systems where the regulation is working and is not too captured.
You are drawing a conclusion for the globe based on the US alone.
We need to stop thinking in buckets of good and bad. It leads to false positives.
I don’t feel qualified to speak on this historically speaking. It has not since Reagan, to be sure. We had some pretty high marginal tax rates for a while and the middle class and working class did way better than now. If not for deregulation and eventually Citizens United we might be in way better shape on the climate.
We’re mostly not even trying to regulate the capitalists right now, we’re letting them regulate themselves by buying off Congress.
I don’t see your two options as realistic. Case in point: every election in our lives.
And this is the entire root problem and it is solvable.
If you are trying to do planning process, once again you are jumping ahead to step #4 when you proclaim re: “realistic”. The idea in step #1 is to just to come up with a buncha options in general.
There are practical reasons adults faced with complicated decisions to take sometimes do things this way. The trick to step #1 is for the group to turn off their “realistic” and “best shot” evaluator for once, and just try to come up with a list of all the options the planning group can imagine. Like…
- Pray to the God of your choice.
It is worth reading this if you are not familiar with the issues around regulatory capture.
jfc
I really should know better by now. Shame on me.
You know you could just explain your position instead of open hostility. I’ve not trolled you ever. Also, I’m not alone in being confused on your point. Cuse doesn’t see it either.
I’m not being purposely obtuse here. I’ve literally read Marx and even took a whole class in grad school on Marxist critiques of social science.
I honestly don’t understand what you are calling capitalist.
A “capitalist system” is the sum total of many individual companies owned by a person or shareholders. It’s also includes the legal and social infrastructure. This is why I am confused. You keep saying you are not talking about the parts just the whole? Is it only the legal/social infrastructure you are interested in discussing?
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AFAICT every policy proposal that you’ve talked about ITT, whether it be climate/environment related or to do with UHC, minimum wage, or Citizen’s United has been something that moves us left on this spectrum that I cribbed from @Sabo :
If every policy you prefer moves us left on that spectrum, and we know from history that the capitalists will always try to move to the right on that spectrum to gain more power, and/or claw back power that they lose(the Reagan era union busting and deregulation is a perfect example). Why would we leave the capitalists(who again have been steering the ship USS Humanity toward ecocide despite being aware of the consequences) with any more power than any other individual?
They’ve certainly done nothing to earn our trust, quite the opposite. They are standing in the way of the very regulations that you claim, and I agree, are necessary for us to attempt to avert the worst possible outcomes of the climate crisis. In addition to blocking every other non-climate related policy that you’ve mentioned–UHC, increased MW, reversing Citizens United.
Semi-grunch, but I think “absentee owner” is a good distinction that Sabo has made. There are other distinctions like having employees, but small biz owners who work are a combo of capitalist and labor. A small biz owner with no employees (like me) is an artisan.
A stock holder is a capitalist though. Most are alienated from power though. Though not from responsibility imo.
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Those are useful.
Zizak said I wasn’t a capitalist when I owned my company which is where I am confused. Clearly I am not the only one confused here by the terminology we are using.
People would probably be a lot less hostile if you would stop constantly inventing arguments that have not been made and imagining positions that have not been taken.
I never said that, or anything like it.
I never said that, or anything like it.
I never said that, or anything like it.
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I agree the absentee owner aspect is important.
Regarding the bolded, I read or heard someone recently make a good point about that. I wish I could find it, but the distinction they made was: when micro does work the money he gets back is earnings. When a capitalist leeches off of people doing work, they are taking profits.
ETA: I know those aren’t the standard accounting 101 definitions of earnings and profits.
Holy man. Actually say what you mean!
I have no idea why you are being so hostile.
You told me my company wasn’t capitalist. Please explain.
The only way they’d have additional power is being able to max out individual campaign donations when the working class couldn’t afford to. I’d be happy to publicly fund campaigns and reduce those limits even lower, though.
You’re using capital to make money, that’s capitalism imo.
I’m talking about the power that absentee owners have outside of campaign finance. History shows that they leveraged that power to bring us to the current status quo. They’ll do it again if they’re given the opportunity.
Political power? Be more specific.