Capitalism as we know it today is inherently harmful to the environment?

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Recent studies by Jared Diamond (Collapse, Guns Germs n Steel) and Peter Barnes (Capitalism 3.0) have shown that capitalism as we know it today depletes the resource base upon which humans survive. We are on an unsustainable course.

There is a near unanimous agreement among ecologists, environmentalists and other scientists that climate change and the destruction of the environment will create huge political instability in the future (Read the recent AP report about how the Pentagon is already planning for environmentally induced political instability in the third world).

In Jared Diamond's "Collapse" he studies many ancient societies like the Maya, Easter Island deplete their resource base, destroy their environment and eventually collapse. This is now happening on a global scale today.

A solution offered by Peter Barnes in Capitalism 3.0 is the creation of the commons, as in ownership of the all the basic resources by society: water, forests, ores etc. This way companies that want to profit will first have to pay for the depletion of these resources, and also pay for the amount of pollution they create. Thus the free market is kept intact, but upgraded to save the environment.

What do you guys think?
JUST FOR CLARIFICATION:

This is NOT communism. Communist societies simply owned the means of production (corporations), but they still destroyed the environment. This is a new version of capitalism, because both you and I and everyone else loves a free market.
Sugar Rush: Jared Diamond is one the most revered anthropologists ever. Read the books I mentioned and you will see that these are clear facts.
 
Yeah, unbridled "capitalism" is inherently harmful to a lot more things than the environment.

_Guns, Germs, and Steel_: great book, BTW. Bet you couldn't get an anti-intellectual conservative to read it for a hundred bucks.
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Um, hey, d-bags, China isn't "communist" anymore, no matter how much you like to throw around words you can't define. They're authoritarian. Since the mid-'80s, they've enthusiastically adopted pretty much all the trappings of free-market society - a system which, incidentally, lives in perfect harmony with dictatorships.

God, people are brilliant.
 
It is capitalism that creates new sources or every resource we need to survive. Every raw material necessary for human existence is more plentiful today than 40 years ago, including oil, wood, steel, food, and other basic materials. Almost nothing is in short supply, and isn't for the foreseeable future.

Predictions of vast shortages and rationing occur all the time, but it's capitalism that keeps debunking these fear-mongering alarmists.

And since we now know that climate change is being vastly over-stated and hyped, the only political instability is being ginned-up by socialists and communists now that their system of governance has collapsed.

Similar alarmist books were written in the 60s and 70s by others, all on the ash-heap of capitalism's greatness.


And what does anthropology have to do with capitalism, anyway? The collapse of ancient societies, depleting their resources, is more an indictment on socialism. These societies were very tribal by nature, and tribes are socialistic in nature. The depletion of resources is easy when you don't don't how to re-supply what you need. Capitalism has brought about the ultimate answers to human existence: if not supplied by God, create what you need.
 
Any way you guys slice it, it's still baloney.

The other major competitor for human technological progress, socialism/communism/whatever you label it, has been a catastrophe compared to capitalism. Take Lake Baikal, it is (or was) a giant inland sea. The Soviets destroyed it. This would be like the US draining Lake Erie. The environmental ruin in former communist countries is astonishing.

As for the commons, that overlooks one of the most basic of economic notions, which is labeled "the tragedy of the commons" The point being that in common ownership, everybody has an incentive to maximize their use of resource but little incentive to see it replenished. Nobody is a better steward of resources than their owners, they have to live with their own messes.

Jared Diamond focused on small pre-modern societies that did not practice capitalism. They were hardly a good example for the modern world.

There are serious environmental problems in the third world, precisely the places that haven't adopted capitalism. It is those nations who have most adopted capitalism where the environment is given far better treatment. We have wealth and innovation, we figure out how not to dump raw sewage in rivers. We can replenish farmland. We recycle metals. We work on solar cells and windmills.

Your authors don't prescribe a better world, instead they advocate for a the very collapse they pretend to want to avoid.
 
I think you rely upon junk science way too much. Who are these ecologists, environmentalists, and other scientists who supposedly agree with this assumption? Junk science mumbo jumbo is often vague and states things such as: research shows, such and such says, and studies have found... without being clear as to who, what, where, when, why, and how.

I don't believe anything without solid proof.

EDIT: I don't care who or what he is, he is promoting junk science. He is vague on his sources, which raises a red flag to those who are adept critical thinkers. He is also just regurgitating a theory instead of fully exploring both sides of it. When someone gives you biased information (and this is biased information since it doesn't hit upon the views of people who oppose this theory) it can't be trusted.
 
This isn't news. Communism merged with enviornmentalism a long time ago.


How do you explain China then? Or Russia? You cannot seriously claim these are models for free market economies?
 
Well I don`t think we should get rid of capitalism but I am all for "Government Regulations" or to help the Republicans understand, "Government Protections" like this plan. Companies don`t have the same morals as humans.
 
Sounds like socialism to me.

And capitalism is GOOD!

God Bless America and one of the many ideals, though not perfect today, which it was built upon.
 
Yes, I agree, please take all your liberal moron friends and commit group suicide. That will be a fine start to healing the land.
 
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