The capitalist system cannot exist without growth, expansion, accumulation of profits, and and these are the fundamental causes of our environmental destruction. The capitalists carry great economic and political power and it is the reason for the failures of all those previous COP international conferences on climate change. It’s time working people make conscious and collective decisions about our future and our relationship with our environment.
“Expand or die” is the law of survival in the jungle of the cut-throat market of commodity production where profit counts more than people. It is this logic of capitalism which accounts for the failure to reach agreement to reduce carbon emissions and solve global warming. A business, well-meaning or not, cannot escape market forces. Capitalist competition strangles good intentions. Capitalism is driven by the pursuit for profits and the lucrative returns to be made for particular capitalists will always prevail over the welfare of communities and the countryside. Decisions are made by a tiny handful of capitalists, not in the interests of humanity, but purely to make profit. Capitalism is harming the environment to the verge of catastrophe.
If we want to save the world, we must change the economy of the world. There are no market solutions nor any technological answers.
Capitalism devours nature. It will not be sufficient to substitute fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. Production itself must be re-designed to become one where goods are primarily produced not for sale but for peoples actual needs and use in ecologically friendly manufacturing methods.
We’re told green capitalism can save the environment by letting the market work its miracles with its invisible hand which will bring new technology and futuristic inventions yet it has never been able to cure preventable diseases or end global hunger when ample food-stocks are already available. Despite many fine words there has been little substantive difference to the world’s worsening environmental situation. Surely every environmentalist must begin to wonder why that is. The reasons are rooted in the economic system.
The vast majority of people want to live in a secure, safe, sustainable world, and enjoy their surroundings in harmony with nature. What the Socialist Party offers is a vision of an alternative society. World socialism is the precondition for a sustainable world. It is neither population numbers nor a greedy human nature but the capitalist mode of production which runs counter to nature.
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