The
protesters engaged in the current series of demonstrations are right
to be concerned about what is happening to the environment. There
really is a very serious environmental crisis. The climate change
crisis is capitalism's most foul attack upon us. The issue is what to
do about it. Capitalism has been reformed so many times and in so
many different ways yet it still continues to progressively worsen
the environment. As long as production is carried on for making
profits and not for needs the problems of pollution, resource
depletion and species extinction will persist. More and more people
are becoming concerned about the way the environment is abused is
encouraging. But campaigning for new laws and more conservation areas
is not the answer. We need to get rid of a society where a small
minority can manipulate nature for their own ends and replace it with
one where we all have a real say in how nature is used. Capitalists
always hate spending more than they absolutely have to, even if it is
for the purpose of saving the planet. For the Socialist Party the
problem is not the planet versus people, but the planet and people
versus capitalism. By sharing the world democratically, without
buying and selling property, our world can certainly be rescued, and
indeed be made to thrive.
The
magic of the market is a myth. The madness of the market is nearer
the truth. The Market has failed, long live the Market!", is the
illogical conclusion of many “green capitalists”. Capitalism is
simply unable to run on green lines, as its motive force is expansion
and domination, with no thought for the consequences for the people
or the environment. The
Socialist Party has for decades railed at capitalist market
production for being on a relentless collision course with the
environment, and have been more than once guilty of tired clichés
like 'profits of doom' and 'merchants of menace'. Now, we see the
world's largest corporations enthusiastically demanding carbon
emission cuts. We have witnesses most of the world's countries climb
aboard the bandwagon in a global effort to cap carbon emissions and
mitigate disastrous global warming. What is behind this sudden
laudable concern for the environment, and how are they going to
achieve their aims? Simple, the only way capitalism can think of
doing anything. By making lots of money out of it. How do businesses
make money out of a carbon tax? By developing 'green' technologies
that produce less emissions. How else is there a financial incentive?
Carbon trading is the buying and selling of such "permits to
pollute". It is supposed to help the environment by giving
polluting firms a monetary incentive to reduce their emission even
lower than the allowed level; the more they reduce their emissions
below this level the more money they can make from selling their
surplus permits. The buyers of these permits would be firms having
difficulty reducing their emissions below the level allowed them; if
they failed to reduce to this level they would still have to pay
something, but the idea is that buying a permit would be cheaper than
paying the fine.A market for "permits to emit carbon dioxide"
would thus develop. Where there's a market there will also be
middlemen, who in this case will specialise in the buying and selling
of these permits. There would also be the possibility of speculating
on future changes in their price. These schemes are bureaucratic
attempts to manipulate the market and so are open to political
interference, mismanagement and corruption. Instead of governments
vying with each other to reduce carbon emissions, they have sought to
win advantages for their own industries. To rely on profit-seeking
"carbon traders" to solve the problem. If that's all
capitalism can offer, then, in the words of Private Fraser, we are
all doomed. Corporations have no interest in nil returns, only in
repeat business. It is a case that the damned system that allows them
to operate as they do, that allows them to put profits before human
and environmental interests, which needs to be abolished.
The
Socialist Party does not have a menu of palliatives to place before
the government. We say that no government can protect the
environment. Governments exist to run the political side of the
profit system. And the profit system can only work by giving priority
to making profits over all other considerations. So to protect the
environment we must end production for profit. Production today is in
the hands of business enterprises, all competing to sell their
products at a profit. All of them — and it doesn’t matter whether
they are privately-owned or state-owned — aim to maximise their
profits. This is an economic necessity imposed by the forces of the
market. If a business does not make a profit it goes out of business.
“Dog eat dog” is the economics that prevails today. Under the
competitive pressures of the market, businesses only take into
account their own narrow financial interest, ignoring ecological
considerations. All they look to is their own balance sheet and in
particular the bottom line which shows whether or not they are making
a profit. The whole process of production, the entire supply chain to
the shelf, from the materials used to the methods employed to
transform them, is distorted by this drive to make and accumulate
profits. The result is an economic system governed by uncontrollable
market forces which compel decision makers, however selected and
whatever their personal views or sentiments, to plunder, pollute and
pillage. Governments do not have a free hand to do what is sensible
or desirable. They can only act within the narrow limits imposed by
the profit-driven market system.
Many
in the protests taking place are not against the market and not
against profit-making. They imagine that, by strong government
action, these can be tamed and prevented from harming the
environment. This is an illusion. You can’t impose other priorities
on the profit system than making profits. That’s why any government
would fail regardless of any well-intentioned promises. While many on
the streets realise that they are up against is a well-entrenched
system of privilege less understood is that private property and
profits are the overriding economic law and it is this system which
must go, replaced by a new and different one which will allow us to
meet our needs in an environmentally-friendly way. We must control
production and we must collectively own the means of production.
That’s the only basis where we can harmoniously interact with the
rest of nature, respecting its laws, so we can begin to successfully
reverse the degradation of the environment already caused by the
profit system.
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