Hi all,
I’m seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I’m wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I’m pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.
If this isn’t the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I’m happy to take this somewhere else.
Cheers!
Regulated capitalism can direct capital to innovation in low/zero emission technologies and disincentivize investment in polluting technology very effectively,. More effectively than a corrupt command economy could do it. Fossil fuel companies have fought against interventions to push the market towards alternatives but the biggest failure has been on the political class and voters who haven’t done enough to push the market in the correct direction. Photo voltaics, storage technology and wind turbines have received a lot of investment and are growing rapidly despite the work of the big polluters to stall action.
Sure, it directs money towards alternatives, while doing absolutelyfucking nothing about actually reducing the harmful technologies. We may have more solar and wind (neither of which is perfect, nothing is), which is then used as propaganda to show “Oh, look at all the progress we’re making!”, while still mostly keeping oil and coal.
And, of course, everything is the fault of regular people, struggling to get by, companies are blameless.
Capitalism is what got us here my lemon.