Capitalism will always incentivize firms to get as many people as possible, to pay as much as possible, for as little as possible.
That’s why everything enshitifies. That’s why quality is constantly getting worse and features get diminished, all while prices increase.
That’s why there’s less actual competition than ever before, less real consumer choice, and why everything is becoming a subscription or payment plan.
Since regulated capitalism inexorably devolves into unregulated capitalism, you can just drop the adjective and say “capitalism would kill the planet”. And since we’re already in a capitalist system, and have been for a while, and we’re currently experiencing it killing the planet, you can change the tense too and say “capitalism is killing the planet”. Much clearer, and equally true.
It already is AI data centres are going to undo 20 years of climate action.
undo 20 years of climate action
so we’ll get back 20 years biodiversity, wild population, and habitat losses? glaciers will get 20 years thicker? our absolute emissions will fall?
what climate action ? emissions have only gone up in the last 20 years, a few solar panels and wind turbines don’t cut it.
The ONLY time emissions have gone down slightly is during an economic crisis eg COVID and 2008/2009 for example. There will be zero progress until we curb the emissions of the richest 10%, if they lived like the average European, we’d cut emissions by 34%. we could start with the richest 1% :) but that would involve voters changing their outlook in democracies and alas they aren’t so here we are, broiled.
It already was for basically the entire industrial revolution, when our place on the earth turned parasitic and unsustainable; in the 20th Century it shifted to “the richest 10% consume 90% of the resources, and can only do so for a few hundred years”. In the 21st Century consumption went exponential to “every finite resource will be depleted by the end of the century”.
The investment into data centers is what was needed to fight climate change decades ago. They didn’t want to do that because it wasn’t as profitable as destroying our future.
Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but trillionaires should be forced to transition into billionaires, and billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.
“Unregulated Capitalism is Killing the Planet”. ftfy.
I’ve heard Monarchists use this line.
At some point, no system is going to be better than it’s leadership. And competent, benevolent leadership has come from somewhere. You can’t build a functionally society out of negation.
Demagoguery isn’t unique to Capitalism and it isn’t resolved merely through nationalization.
Are these monarchists aware of the history of monarchs?
Also, if a system can’t be better than its leadership why not just eliminate the leadership?
Ah, now you’re thinking with guillotines.
Capitalism rewards selfish individualism, greed, and encourages competition. Proponents claim this works because it naturally aligns with human nature. How about a system that rewards selflessness, and encourages cooperation? Which are also a natural part of human nature. We stand by democracy in government, but don’t want it in our workplaces? No issues with poor leadership would be outright eliminated, but we can do better.
Capitalism hates competition.
You just pulled that out of your ass.
You’re projecting.
Your#
My number? Sorry, you’re not my type.
Your not my typo either
Trying to say the problem is literally capitalism, and what it rewards and encourages. Power consolidates within capitalism, and the problem is not necessarily leadership. Part of it is that our government is democtratized but our workplaces are not. The solution I propose is not merely idealistic. It is systemic and practical in what the reward structures are. See my other comment for a high level overview of what that looks like.
Capitalism rewards selfish individualism, greed, and encourages competition.
Capitalism rewards private accumulation of capital operating at a profit.
Selfish, individualistic, and greedy people often jerk themselves off about the merits of capitalism. But far far more of them fail than succeed under it. Meanwhile, tightly knit families, close friend groups, and religious collective routinely mop the floor with anti-social self-obsessed rise-and-grind types.
And capitalism does not encourage competition. Just the opposite. Cartels and monopolies regularly outperform competitive enterprises.
How about a system that rewards selflessness, and encourages cooperation? Which are also a natural part of human nature.
Human nature rewards socializing up to the Dunbar number, eating, fucking, working as little as possible, and doing unspeakable violence to your distant neighbors and vulnerable peers.
Idk why we hold it up as some kind of metric for a functional society when it’s a real mixed bag on a good day.
Also, annoyingly essentialist, as though humans - like any other species - aren’t constantly diversifying and evolving.
No issues with poor leadership would be outright eliminated, but we can do better.
We can define a target and work towards it for 40 years. And then the next generation can reevaluate progress and adjust course.
“Better” is in the eye of the beholder, in the end.
But you do need something to move towards. Utopianism gives people an idea of where they’re going. You can’t just Doomer yourself out of a bad historically moment.
Human nature rewards socializing up to the Dunbar number, eating, fucking, working as little as possible, and doing unspeakable violence to your distant neighbors and vulnerable peers.
Exactly. Human nature isn’t that much different from cat nature. It takes us tremendous effort to NOT follow human nature.
You can’t just Doomer yourself out of a bad historically moment.
I agree. I advocate for democratizing the workplace. We already have a successful model for this that literally outperforms traditional capitalist firms. If only we had a system, laws, regulations, etc, that rewarded it.
And capitalism does not encourage competition. Just the opposite. Cartels and monopolies regularly outperform competitive enterprises.
Kind of my point actually. The foundations of capitalism are on shaky grounds. Currently though, internal cooperation inside traditional capitalist firms, only rewards those at the top; those with the capital.
Human nature rewards socializing up to the Dunbar number
I dont see how this is anything other than a bad faith argument. Socialism, broadly, is when workers own the means of production. Not the individual capitalists that exploit their workers for profit. How is this a goal we wouldn’t all want to strive towards? I advocate for worker cooperatives. This is a form of, decentralized, stateless market socialism. Paired with an alternative measure of GDP, like the economy for the common good, for the purpose of tax breaks, subsidies, etc. Nationalize a few key industries, and we have ourselves an economy that benefits more than just a few. Nothing about some “Dunbar number” limits any of this.
The only reason Coops aren’t more prevalent is capitalist propoganda and goverment subsidising of monopolies
That’s part of it, but it’s also been limited by access to capital. Banks have historically denied loans for cooperatives, and investors tend not to want to get involved. We’re also lacking a comprehensive legal framework. In some States, depending on the intended industry, it may not even be possible to register as a cooperative with existing statutes.
So the very legal system is rigged to favor capitalist corporatations.
It already is, it would just kill it even faster.
is killing
Has killed.
Like radiation, we’re in the lull stage before the horrific decay sets in.
