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by bowsamic 1384 days ago
We aren't exactly overflowing with "solutions to climate change", and capitalism seems to be incentivising for further and further exploitation of the planet, rather than a reduction. Can capitalism support a degrowth economy?

Also I literally said

> where for "capitalism" if you don't agree with a totally Marxist analysis you can really substitute any structural issue that is causing us to not take anywhere near enough action on the climate.

If you don't agree that it's capitalism, choose your own systematic issue...

1 comments

Capitalism and market economy is all about degrowth. It's a system that tries to make same amount of stuff using less and less resources. Because of it, we get constantly more efficient, and can support a higher standard of living using less resources. It's a system where the most efficient survive.

Resource over-use is caused by government intervention. It's the governments who try to pump up their GDPs with various policies, which causes ever-growing consumption and resource use. They literally control the interest rates to get everyone to consume as much as possible.

Only in a restricted economy. If you allow people to have children, then you get runaway consumption
Increase in efficiency allows population to grow without using more resources.

However, whether it grows is another question. Today, we are seeing a massive collapse in populations around the world, which is a huge problem and no one really knows the root cause.

I think that would be a good thing, if there were far less people
I think it's better to have more people, or at least keep the current level.