Monday, January 14, 2013

It is getting hotter

A wee bit of arithmetic. Revenues minus Costs = Profits. Profits rise if costs borne by producers fall. The typical capitalist enterprise's response is to seek more profits, increase the size of the company, or gain a bigger share of the market, greater profits enable an enterprise to make the investments and tap into a new market; faster growth attracts capital; and a larger market share can secure lower prices for raw materials. The profit motive in capitalist production guarantees costs of production will be forced onto others. And unless one wishes to argue the world’s creatures need no place to live, no food to eat and no clean water to drink, the destruction of these in capitalist production is a cost to either be borne by the producer or to be borne by others. Even the most radical ‘free-market’ capitalist economists agree that this set of relations is a prerequisite for capitalism.  And production that threatens to end the world, as global warming does, means ‘profits’ from said production would not exist if capitalists were forced to bear their true costs. Capitalists have almost never been forced to bear the costs of capitalist production. After depleting resources and causing environmental destruction capitalists have simply moved on to pastures new.

Global warming is not an accident of history for which none bear responsibility. Capitalists have benefited and continue to benefit from the destruction of the planet where they act in their own narrow economic interests to-wards a collective suicide. A number of economists and politicians that the role of government was to correct ‘market failures’ such as environmental destruction and reduce the problem of "externalities" or the tendency of capitalists to force their costs of production onto people who see no benefit from it. It is a forlorn hope.  It assumes the very same capitalists who have spent centuries profiting from unhindered growth and forcing their costs onto others will comply with regulation they, themselves have largely written to ensure a credible enforcement system does not exist. The purpose is provide the appearance of action toward a solution without effective action taking place. It does not question the nature of the problem—that the political economy of capitalism is responsible for global warming.

Adapted from here

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