There's Nothing Green About Socialism - HumanProgress

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨traveler01@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨general@lemmy.world⁩

There’s clearly a lean to the left side of things in Lemmy instances, with many people attacking people at the right.

In some cases regarding the climate crisis, there’s people blaming it on capitalism while hinting that communism/socialism are the solution to the climate crisis, because somehow having the state controlling the entire economy will lead to stop CO2 emissions.

A bit from the article:

The best way to protect the environment is to get rich. That way, there is enough money not only to meet the needs of ordinary people, but also to pay for cleaner power plants and better water-treatment facilities. Since capitalism is the best way to create wealth, humanity should stick with it.

Not the first time I’ve heard about this concept, and the more i look into the world the more I agree with it. Being green is kind of a luxury that not many people can afford, and the poorer people are the less they can afford green technology.

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Comments

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the_kalash@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

“The real culprit of the climate crisis is not any particular form of consumption, production or regulation but rather the very way in which we globally produce, which is for profit rather than for sustainability.

Remind me, which economic system is the one that puts profits about everything else?

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- TheDubz87@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Also just below that-
  
  “It should be stated plainly: It’s capitalism that is at fault…”
  
  I wonder if they read the article at all lol
  
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  - sirdorius@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    That part was from the original Times article that the author is criticizing. It's hard to get, because the author doesn't understand how to use quotes properly. But the fact that a liberal can even write is already an achievement, so let's not ask too much.
    
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StinkyRedMan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

Not the first time I’ve heard about this concept, and the more i look into the world the more I agree with it. Being green is kind of a luxury that not many people can afford, and the poorer people are the less they can afford green technology.

You should look a bit more into the world if you didn’t notice how good capitalism is at making the poors poorer.

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- traveler01@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  There’s tons of data showing that capitalism actually makes the average joe a lot richer.
  
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  - psud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    And how many homeless does the US have?
    
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cakeistheanswer@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
“Who We Are

HumanProgress.org is a project of the Cato Institute”"/

Sounds about right. You’re quoting a right wing rag from a 20 year policy analyst with no practical experience.

You want to know what poor people can’t afford? Extinction.

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- Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Thank you for pointing this out before I bothered reading that long-ass propaganda piece
  
  Ignore this shite and move on, folks
  
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  - cakeistheanswer@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I figured I’d do the diligence since I have to put up with enough Cato for other projects. I didn’t know the authors name, so I had a good laugh at the 3 lines on his linkedin.
    
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- traveler01@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  When you’re so poor that you don’t know what you’re going to eat tomorrow, or if the money of your wage may run out until the end of the month, will you care much about that?
  
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  - cakeistheanswer@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You are conflating socialism’s view of money, with food. A maximalist socialism would contend money is not for food, give away the food use the money for the stuff you don’t NEED.
    
    To some degree I agree with that. Any stance that socialism would do anything other than prioritize the well meaning of people over capital is either a compromise (and some of the Nordic models would be an example) or a deliberate straw man, just like the author is building here.
    
    The idea that you can’t ‘afford’ to feed the world and ideas just like it is the entire reason there’s a socialism in the first place.
    
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what_is_a_name@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
What a croc - never trust anything “left vs right” from the Cato institute. Cato has never seen a problem that capitalist billionaires could not solve and “communism” did not create.

Either way - capitalism does not care to solve climate change because we allowed the capitalists to externalise the costs. If we prices climate damage into the cost of goods - sure capitalism could perhaps be less than evil. But of course capitalism breed oligarchs and oligarchy and thus markets were deformed to benefit the oligarchs (and socialise risks while privatising profits).

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- psud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You know how you improve capitalism? You add a very large dose of socialism
  
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  - what_is_a_name@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    From 2023 perspective that sides seem like a viable path indeed.
    
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- traveler01@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  But of course capitalism breed oligarchs and oligarchy and thus markets were deformed to benefit the oligarchs (and socialise risks while privatising profits).
  
  In my opinion when you start having oligarchs and this amount of wealth inequality, it’s only a symptom that the state is failing to do what was created to do, at-least in theory.
  
  The state should be only a regulator, more like a referee in the market. Currently everywhere in western democracies the state is failing to do it. We have the lower income people getting taxed to hell, either directly or by proxy while the uber-rich are influencing the state regulation directly.
  
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  - what_is_a_name@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Do not take this as a personal attack but your perspective is naive. All around the world capitalists argue for libertarianism or other forms of state stepping back from regulating oligarchy. It’s a feature of capitalism to aim for oligarchy. At least in practice.
    
    Just like 20th century Soviet/Chinese/Cuban communism did not prevent oligarchs. Neither does the current crop of capitalism. They both - in practice- created easy path to oligarchy.
    
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  - psud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Cato institute capitalism by nature tends toward maximum inequality
    
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JackOfAllTraits@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The article is really bad o multiple fronts.

First, it somehow thinks that Marxist-Leninism is somehow the original communism, which is just silly. It is neither original nor official. It was just a strand of authoritarian, central-planning socialism which is largely rejected in the West and by current socialist movements and revolutions such as Rojava Revolution and the EZLN.

Secondly, it misses the point by a mile. You canđt ever earn enough money to make the world grener if you ruin the world while making money. Capitalist system has those who own means of productions, the capitalists, and their main goal is always to make more money and grow. A culture that has a arisen to comoliment this need, consumerism, is what frives infinite growth within the finite world that is killing us.

Yews, some places should go richer and have more industries, but a lot od the world overoroduces by a huge margin, while at the same time running out of housing due to insane amount od landlord ownershup over property.

There is no Green Capitalism. Not because they (the capitalists) don’t want it (they don’t), but because the system itslef relies on infinite growth, which inevitably leads to overexploitation of our common planet.

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- traveler01@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Jeez a communist disliking such an article, what a surprise.
  
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  - pjhenry1216@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    This is hardly a valuable response. "Ugh, someone who disagrees doesn't like it. What a surprise." Add something of value next time. If they were wrong with a statement or conclusion, etc.
    
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whenigrowup356@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The article keeps referring to “socialism” and then referring exclusively to communist societies, and so can safely be disregarded entirely if you are pursuing absolutely any form of democratic socialism.

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- traveler01@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  They refer to Venezuela which is a socialist country, and of course not the greenest country in the world.
  
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  - psud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Venezuela is an autocracy. The social programs are bribes to delay the next revolution
    
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sirdorius@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
"Socialist economies also banned independent trade unions and, often, resorted to slave labour."

The author's inability to understand socialism is baffling. By the very definition of socialism, states that do this are not socialist. He is basically picking at capitalist economies that call themselves socialist for populist acceptance.

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psud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
And yet the United States with its unfettered capitalism has failed to be a world leader in environmentalism

That honour goes to Nordic and European social democracies

Sure you need to be sufficiently wealthy, but you also need to restrict capital so companies can not pollute, and have social policies to pay for the those solutions the market will not supply

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- traveler01@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  The US is a bad example, and still is a greater example than the communist/socialist countries provided.
  
  These nordic countries are pretty good example of how you can have capitalism with a great welfare state, without going socialist/communist. My guess is their main difference is that they don’t allow the richer companies to lobby on politicians, or at-least not as much as the US does.
  
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  - psud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    The US — poster child for capitalism, creator of regulatory capture for ultimate best capitalism — is a poor example of a capitalist country?
    
    Capitalism + regulation + welfare is the definition of socialism
    
    Capitalism with strong regulation is so good that the Soviet Union used it; China uses it
    
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Blaze@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

Since capitalism is the best way to create wealth, humanity should stick with it.

Wealth, but also inequality. Socialism (and I mean Europe socialism, not Soviet Union communism) is also able to create wealth, and also distribute it better among people.

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- traveler01@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Do you have any example of a country with socialism that successfully made it?
  
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  - Sl00k@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Nordic countries are currently blowing the US out of the water on every measurable metric so you might want to rethink that argument.
    
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  - psud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    France?
    
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  - Blaze@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Most of Western Europe have social programs (free education, free healthcare, etc.) and made it. The G7 counts France, Germany and Italy
    
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pjhenry1216@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
This entire article misses the point entirely with what socialism is. Socialism is just about who owns the company. All the principles that apply to capitalism also mostly apply to socialism, except it doesn't pool money to the wealthy who are simply extracting value from people instead of their own skills.

Socialism can have wealthy people. Socialism does not mean state owned (that's communism and they're absolutely 100% not interchangeable like the article implies).

Communism could affect climate change because it's effectively a dictatorship on what companies can do. Socialism can affect climate change because it effectively isn't profit over humanity.

Capitalism is literally driving climate change the wrong direction. It's asinine to be like, "no, no, let's give it a bit more time."

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