Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Jorge1o1 638 days ago
Relying on an economic system to make moral decisions is like driving in screws with a hammer.

Capitalism is not perfect, but at least to me this is more of a moral issue than an economic one.

I think your CO2 point is a great example, why would a Communist or Socialist economic system be inherently more eco-friendly than a Capitalist system? You now have a system where there is a government willing to "plan" or "intervene" in certain aspects of the economy, but unless the government actually cares about pollution nothing will happen. You could even theoretically have a centrally-planned economy that WANTS to increase emissions.

The largest polluter in the world is a Communist country, and in the last 30 years their CO2 emissions have sextupled, while the US's emissions per year have remained flat.

Morality != Economics

2 comments

> The largest polluter in the world is a Communist country, and in the last 30 years their CO2 emissions have sextupled

I guess you're talking about China here, who has a supposed "socialist market economy" (with strong private sector, stock markets and foreign investments), high wealth inequality, authoritarian governance, private property ownership and very low social welfare.

The only way China could be considered communist would be because it's a one-party state with a self-proclaimed party with "Communist" in the name, but in reality and on the ground, China isn't communist at all so not a great example.

Also, they largely pollute to produce the shit we then can buy. Meaning it is also our pollution what they are doing an we support it by buying it.
Not talking about communism or socialism here. Just that the "version" of capitalism we're running now produces inequalities that allow people to pull up that kind of stunts.

Of course it's a moral issue, but give enough money to immoral people, and see what happens.

> Just that the "version" of capitalism we're running now produces inequalities that allow people to pull up that kind of stunts.

This "stunt" was a major achievement for humankind, maybe this "version" of capitalism isn't that bad after all

Wow. If you think capitalism produces inequalities, you should check out some of the other systems that have been tried!