I wanna say part of the problem is inherent in human beings... it's evolutions fault that we will destroy us.

Like all life on earth we want to survive and reproduce, and we need energy for that. Normally a species only fills certain evolutionary niches, and is kept in check by the niche getting saturated or other species adapting to it.

But evolution has given us a combination of traits that enable us to transmit complex information almost instantly, making us very adaptable and overpowered. In the game of genetic evolution, cultural evolution is broken. If it takes a species millennia to evolve a new trait like a claw or a tooth, we can develop a gun in a couple of generations...

Our fatal flaw is that we are to successful, ultimately leaving us in the predicament that we have to devise a culture that goes against some of our nature.

The problem is capitalists setting societies goals, yes, but democracy let that happen or made that possible even. The idea of democracy rests on the assumption that the people are knowledgeable, responsible and independent enough to recognize what is in their and societies best interest.... a kind of free will if you will. But Google, Youtube and Facebook know people can be manipulated, and so did the church and rulers in the past.

Isn't it telling that after all these years people still can't be moved to vote for parties that want to solve the problem, given that this one of the most important challenges we face in the 21th century, and perhaps ever?

There will always be factions like business vying for control of the institutions that make the decisions. If a system can't deal with that, that would be a (fatal?) flaw in said system it seems to me.

If you weaken the church, the void gets filled up by corporations
— ChatteringMonkey

An important point. The void gets filled with varying sects of the church of nihilism: capitalism, scientism, etc. Nietzsche is good on this.

Put another way: what do the corporations fill the void with? What is their underlying belief system? — Xtrix

Money, or maybe you could say power/status ultimately, but profit is their way of getting that. They fill the void with whatever stories that make people want to buy their stuff.

Dogma comes from somewhere, that used to be predominately the church, and to some extend the state. Now in secularized societies it's corporations, via advertising, pop-culture etc... Contra 180proof I would say the masses don't need grooming for compliance with ideologies, that tendency is already there. If you weaken the church, the void gets filled up by corporations, unless you try to fill it up first with something ala Sovjet or CCP propaganda (or US nationalism)... or maybe your can curb that tendency with enough education (Scandinavian countries).

Given the above, I'd say corporations.

Capitalism is the cause, agreed, I'm just trying to figure where to go from here. One way or another we will need to change, the question is how, to what extent and when? If we believe climate scientists, which I do, there's not much time, which kind of restrains our options at this point.

As their population has boomed it's hard to see how one would return to small scale sustainability.
— ChatteringMonkey

And yet the more people, the less of a share of the Earth's resources they should have. But yeah I understand your point about poorer countries levelling up, and this only reinforces the need for richer countries to recede. The growing emissions of the third world are principally a problem while the first world is already unsustainably over-emitting. If we drop back, there's wiggle room to approach equilibrium. — Kenosha Kid

Yes, we certainly bear a historic and moral responsibility, though there isn't much wiggle room even if we'd cut emissions entirely, if we want to reach emission targets that is. The best hope for getting there is that we develop green alternatives and that developing countries can 'leapfrog' to those technology by learning from us and directly implementing them. But this brings me back to the point of why we may need at least some of the production capacity capitalism has provided us, to be able to build these green alternatives on a large enough, and therefor cheap enough, scale.

part of the point that we still would need a system that could provide "prosperity/flourishing" stands I think.
— ChatteringMonkey

I dunno. Maybe because now we're anchored to the myth of sustainable growth, it might be difficult to sell real sustainability. But again I feel that this is something that's been indoctrinated rather than meeting some demand. There is a very powerful (I can't say "good") capitalist reason to compel earners to exchange their salaries for luxuries, so if you live in a capitalist democracy, no one's going to allow the electorate to labour under the belief that keeping more of their earnings for the future is a good idea. But we used to do just that. Saving and thrift were virtues once. — Kenosha Kid

I'm not talking about luxuries, but about needs. Part of it is indoctrination yes, or just plain advertising I guess. And so I agree with you as far as western countries go, in principle we have more than enough to fulfill our needs. This is not the case in developing countries I don't think... real sustainability would probably require some increase in "general wealth". As their population has boomed it's hard to see how one would return to small scale sustainability. Those countries also happen to be the real problem for reducing carbon emissions going forward.

Another point worth mentioning on the pro-capitalism side is that the promise capitalism makes of luxury is a just another way of framing a basic human desire for prosperity, flourishing, and not really something unique to capitalism.
— ChatteringMonkey

If you have to manipulate your customers to want the luxury in the first place, and the means by which organisations do this are varied, sly and grim, then this doesn't really hold up. — Kenosha Kid

Yes I agree for the most part. Human flourishing, or even simply prosperity, is something else than what we have been sold in capitalism. But so while this is true, part of the point that we still would need a system that could provide "prosperity/flourishing" stands I think.

Here's a podcast on the difficulties in communicating the science of climate change to the public:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdjLK4Qm86I

Basically to much and to little has been made of the 2030 'deadline' in the IPCC report on climate change.

To much in the sense that it is not supposed to be a hard "dead"-line... the world is not going to end in 2030. It was meant more as a deadline for societal change, i.e. if we want to get to carbon-neutrality in 2050, we should be well on our way in 2030 otherwise it's only going to get progressively difficult. Transition takes time...

And to little in the sense that despite the promises no a whole lot has happened in the meanwhile. Essentially the problem is that politicians aren't willing to move unless there is enough public support, so the question ends up being how do you get public support? There's some interesting discussion and different viewpoints on how to get that public support and best ways to communicate about the issue.

Also some info on the uncertain science behind tipping-points...

There are further episodes in this series which is on the whole excellent I think.

Here's a podcast that deals with some of the issues we have touched on in this thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk1pIKI72jg

It's basically a debate around the question "Is the end of capitalism the answer to climate change?" One of the speakers argues for and the another against... Both present arguments worth looking into IMO.

The speaker on the side of 'capitalism is the problem' sets the stage by claiming there are inherent tendencies in capitalism that make a solution to the problem difficult and yes that capitalism has in part been the cause of the problem :

- Growth is inherent in capitalism. And so more of everything is needed, not in the least energy, so to reduce carbon emissions we have to swim upstream if our economy relies on growth.
- Money can buy anything in the natural world.
- The promise that everybody will have more luxuries. A world wherein everybody lives in luxury is not feasible and incompatible with avoiding climate change.

On the side of 'climate change can be solved within capitalism' the speaker makes a reasonable argument I think that we have dealt with some environmental and pollution issues in the past in capitalist countries, and so solving a similar problem is in principle feasible in a capitalist system... by passing legislation that takes into account environmental costs or legislation that just forbids certain things. The counter being given to this argument is that we have known about climate change for a long time now and still haven't really made any progress... part of the problem in capitalism is that money translates into political power (lobbying) and that this has prevented adequate legislation that might address the issue.

Another point worth mentioning on the pro-capitalism side is that the promise capitalism makes of luxury is a just another way of framing a basic human desire for prosperity, flourishing, and not really something unique to capitalism. And so doing away with capitalism won't actually do away with this desire, and would in any case be hard to sell to the public. Interesting points are being made that GDP is not the same as human flourishing etc..

Asked for an alternative to capitalism, the speaker on the side of 'capitalism is the problem' points to a system of commons which he think can fulfill the desire for prosperity by better and more shared commons, in stead of it being fulfilled by private property. Counter to this is that we don't have any idea how and if this would work on the larger scales that we would need it to work on given current world population.

My own assessment of the debate is that while there is more than grain of truth in the statement that capitalism has caused climate change and makes it more difficult to solve it because of perpetual growth, I don't really see a clear alternative. Maybe it's possible to eventually radically change our system, I just don't see it happening fast enough. It's not like we have a another couple of decades to sort this out first. The political will doesn't seem to be there for this kind of change, at this moment anyway, and even if the will would be there these kind of changes typically don't come without massive societal upheaval. How are we going to find the persistent agency to rapidly change our energy system into renewals in this kind of turmoil?

In principle growth doesn't seems necessarily tied to increase in emissions. You need energy yes, but that need not be based on carbon emissions. Long term growth and therefor capitalism is not sustainable I think because of other reasons, but that's another discussion. Also the argument that capitalism skews political decision-making and makes a solution more difficult is not lost on me either, but I think it's more likely that we find ways to deal with that, than it is to change the whole system and hope that we can do that fast enough and end up with a system that can deal with the issue adequately (which is not a given either).

Limiting liability was indeed necessary to incentivize investment in undertakings that wouldn't yield profit. Adding the possibility to corporations to make profit could've been incentive enough (partnerships don't have limited liability either) but politics resulted in profit and limited liability. I think that was a mistake. Limited liability externalises the costs of damages caused by the corporation to wider society, which is a reasonable exchange if the corporate activity is performed for a goal benefiting wider society but not if it's only for private gain. In that case, if you have all the profits, you should also bear all the responsibility.

In my ideal world, we would see non-profit pharmaceutical companies developing the "riskiest" treatments with limited liability and for-profit pharmaceutical companies but with normal liability that would automatically go for simpler products. — Benkei

I don't think profit alone would be enough, as the upside of profit for someone who already has enough money (which are typically the ones to invest), isn't worth the risk of being in debt for the rest of your life. Maybe it works for smaller business where the stakes are not that high, but otherwise it seems that removing limited liability would lead to less investment and less incentive to grow into larger corporations. And you know, there may be something to that, one of the problems is that we have these mega multi-national corporations that float somewhere over and between countries in a globalised world... they do have to much power.

Maybe one should pay a tax or something like that, for limiting liability, to pay for the externalised costs of potential damages caused by the corporation... like an insurance-fee where the fee is calculated based on the risks and the amount that is insured. Come to think about it, that's what it is now essentially, a free insurance against the averse consequences of failing that is paid by society, or by the creditors more specifically.

So maybe that's how it would go if you'd remove the limited liability granted by law, they would look for an insurance-type deal in the market to mitigate the risk. Then they have to pay a fee that covers the costs. And where the risks and fee-costs would be to high, government could always intervene for essential goods and services...

That's how it was defined. It could also have been structured as a piece of a loan and related interest, pretty much like a variable interest rate bond, possibly collateralised but not necessarily involving ownership in property of the corporation directly. I do think that now that it is considered "property" there's a lot more resistance to making changes to how corporations are set up. — Benkei

Sure you could set up shares in another way for the purpose of attracting investment, but then you still have the issue of the owner raking in all the profit indefinitely no? Someone has to set-up the corporation initially and owns it, or how would that work otherwise?

I think an important way for societies to minimise the consequences is to move from shareholding to stakeholding. In my view that starts at reacquainting ourselves with the role of corporations and stock as it was understood originally. Original corporations received a charter and were gifted limited liability for activities that required a large upfront capital investment. This was considered fair in order to protect investors from liability since they did not receive a direct benefit from this investment (no interest could be calculated, no profit could be made). The goal of the corporation was limited in scope and upon reaching it the corporation would be dissolved. Why would people invest? Because the indirect benefits outweighed the capital investment. Roads, bridges, important buildings etc. were typically the subject of a corporation's charter. — Benkei

Ok maybe that's how it was originally intended, I don't know the history of it, but that doesn't mean that it has to stay that way. Things morph and get used in other ways/get other functions over time, and in principle that perfectly fine.

Limiting liability seems necessary to incentivise any type of investment in larger companies. Typically the amount of money any one person has is insignificant in relation to the amounts of money circulating in the books of any decent sized company. If you wouldn't limit liability, a company of any decent size failing, would typically mean the investors would be in debt for the rest of their lives. So even if there were only a small chance of failing, nobody would want to take that chance because very few things are worth the risk of being financially crippled for the rest of your life.

The system of stock market has been about bringing borrowers and lenders together and easing the transfer of rights related to such loans.

Where the combination went off kilter is mostly the possibility for a corporation to exist in perpetuity.

A typical bond has a maturity (there are exceptions, perpetual bonds but these were still intended to be paid off put the moment of repayment wasn't enforceable). A loan has a maturity. A mortgage has a maturity. But stock doesn't. But it doesn't fulfill an essential different role than other loan instruments but it does give a right to profit in perpetuity. And this is weird, why should a shareholder who invested 100 guilders in 1910 in Shell stock still receive dividends for Shell's activities today? — Benkei

Isn't the issue just ownership, property here? A share is a piece of ownership right? Suppose there were no shares, everything would stay with the founder/owner of the company and you'd have essentially the same problem of a person getting a return on his initial investment in perpetuity.

The other point is that goodwill and market value increases due to the added value of labour and nothing else (ignoring financial industry for a moment which can passively generate profit). If I put 1 million into a company it's not going to magically increase in worth, if I buy capital goods (buildings, machinery, tools) it's not going to increase in worth. If I hire people to utilise capital goods for a specific purpose, there's a likelihood something will happen with the market value of the company. — Benkei

This seems a bit oversimplified, and may in the future even not be the case anymore as labour could presumably be a thing for automation... but ok I'll follow along.

And it's clear that companies like Shell, Google, Amazon etc. are worth a multitude of the paid up capital but we insist only those that originally provided capital and any persons subsequently buying the rights related to that initial capital investment (e.g. stock) are owners of the total worth of the company and the only ones with a right to profit. Whereas if I had funded this with a loan, after say, 5 years the loan was paid off, the interest received, everything else would be owned by other people.

My point is, that at some point capital investment is not responsible for the value of a company and the relationship between profit and initial capital investment is negligible. If this is the case, I don't see an ethical reason why a shareholder should continue to receive benefits from that initial investment.

My proposed solution would involve a dynamic equity system where the initial capital investor starts out with a 100% right to the profit but as the company grows in value and this added value is the result of labour activity, additional shares are issued diluting the share value of the company. These shares will go to employees and as long as they continue to work there, they receive more shares. If they move to another company, they too will see their shares dilute over time but will build up capital in another company.

What would have to be worked out is at what rate initial capital investments should dilute. We do have a lot of bond pricing that we can use as a benchmark.

I'd also get rid of all intellectual property rights except the obligation of attribution. But different story. — Benkei

You want to distribute added value to everybody that has contributed to it, and not only to the owners. I can get behind that goal certainly. And the idea of giving out shares which dilute over time seems like a clever way to do that. No sure how it would work out in practice, but at least it's a concrete idea to try to solve the issue, got to give you props for that!

There seems to be a myriad of reasons why the Japanese economy isn't doing so well:

https://www.thebalance.com/japan-s-economy-recession-effect-on-u-s-and-world-3306007

But ok, you do make a good case for why decline in population, wouldn't only effect absolute growth, but also growth in terms of per capita, which I'd think is the more important number.

Then we are in a bid of a bind if we think population decline is necessary to solve a lot of our long term problems, climate change chief among them.

If we don't solve them, this will eventually have an negative impact on economy as well.

If we do want to try to solve them by lowering population among other things, we - if we assume it necessarily leads to less economic growth - will have to do with less. The total pie that can be distributed will be smaller... Best case scenario then is that we manage to spend those funds smarter and allocate them to the things that are more important. Worst case scenario, and probably more likely given how things usually go, is that the bill will have to be paid by the less affluent in the fist place... and that inequality only gets bigger.

Yeah I'm not sure I get it either.
— ChatteringMonkey
That's the alarming issue here. There are enough smart people on the PF that at least someone ought to have understood it and be a firm believer in it...if it was an economic school of thought with genuinely valid ideas. Once there is nobody defending a position, then that position might not be so strong in the first place. — ssu

Well maybe there aren't that many that have a firm grip on economy, I know I don't... it's no surprise I don't understand it.

And I take it that monetary theory is a different beast altogether, so maybe only the real specialists get it?

I don't think that the MMT disagrees with the thought that printing too much money will create inflation and finally a total loss of trust in the currency (which basically is what hyperinflation is). There argument is basically that the US is different.

And I can understand this...partly: The global monetary system is based on the US dollar so much that other countries and market agents have let the US to take as much as debt it wants (which has basically been the reason why it has had the ability to be the sole Superpower in the world). Besides, their first worry would be if the dollar collapsed (would devaluate to other currencies) what will happen to their exports. — ssu

Yes the US dollar is the reserve currency, the standard.

We haven't seen much inflation for a long time though, save for some South-American countries that did their very best to hyperinflate... so maybe it's not that big of a problem?

From what I've gathered it's not only that other countries have to let the US take debt, it's also that the world economy needs some countries to take debt, and import, to let other countries like Germany and China run an export-economy. It functions as a whole, not in isolation...

That's the name of the game now.

But somehow it doesn't feel like a sustainable answer. So when would you be worried about the value of the currency? When the debt-to-GDP ratio is 10 000%? When the central bank has to double it's balance sheet in six months? Or every month? Or in a week? Inflation rates in the US are creeping up now...

All this comes to mind as yesterday the richest man in the World mimicked Alan Shepard's first space flight (but not Yuri's). When the internet billionaires can do things like that, some clever things towards replacing fossil fuels can be and are done also. But what happens when those financial cornucopias suddenly dry out? Suddenly the belief in tech saving us gets a whack by an anvil in the back. — ssu

Maybe, don't know enough to comment with much insight here unfortunately.

Basically the thing is that the so-called "smart money" uses the low interest rates in Japan and then uses the debt to invest in some other country (usually in China and in Asian countries). — ssu

Yeah but isn't this more a function of high living standards and costs in Japan, rather than a decline in population. You see this race to the bottom everywhere.... That's another way globalization needs to be corrected I think, by taking into account social costs or lack thereof in cross-country trade-prices.

Think about the debt based monetary system of ours. Basically there has to be economic growth for the interest to be paid. Then think about the "pay-as-you-go" system of pensions (and basically health care system, as old people use it far more than the young).

Both are designed for a World were there are more younger generations than older. As I said, Japan is the case example of what is going to happen. It may not be a dramatic collapse, but Japan has serious problems. It is already in a situation where it cannot raise interest rates (as then too much of the government income would go to pay the interest). If you in this situation take more debt (as Japan has done year after year), what will you think the outcome will be? — ssu

You print money? ;-)

But, sure I get that a top-heavy demographic pyramid would cause problems for systems that were not designed with that in mind, but then you change the way you finance them?

The only "fundamental" problem it seems to me, is keeping your productivity up. You can try to increase economically active population by say increasing the pension age... or you can increase productivity by innovating production-processes. It think it would need to be a mix of both, but the latter seems promising with AI and robotization.

Imagine a World the machines are as old as B-52s are now, which the youngest bombers are 58 years old. One hundred or two hundred year old power plants. A World where your fathers computer from two or three decades ago are as fast and capable of running the current programs as a new computer you can buy from the store. — ssu

I can imagine it, but I don't see why the has to follow from population decline. Has innovation slowed down in Japan? I wouldn't know exactly, but they seem relatively up to par with the rest of the world technologically.

EDIT: You think this has to follow because less growth means less money you have to invest in innovation, right?

I've been hoping that someone would explain and basically defend modern monetary theory, because it goes over my head even with having had university-level studies in economics and economic history. — ssu

Yeah I'm not sure I get it either. But the basic idea seems to be that countries don't seem to get financed by tax-money, as economists thought, but rather countries can just print money which only is a problem if it would create to much inflation (and we seemed to have had very little of that from the seventies onwards). The mistake was in thinking that they are regular economic entities that need to balance their books, as they can't default and print money as needed... they aren't subject to standard economic theories, but rather subject to monetary theory which comes with it's own particular set of regularities.

If true, it essentially flips things on it's head. Deficit spending is not the problem, it in fact stimulates the economy. Even moderate amounts of inflation is good because it reduces debt over time. One just has to avoid snowball inflation.

The natural reason for more (energy) production is population growth. Yet population growth is decreasing globally and likely will in the future make the global population hit a peak and from there on the population will get smaller. With advances in technology that would sound at first an environment where we can tackle our present problems.

Yet the problem is that our society is built on growth. Our system to finance those technological innovations and advances are built on a growth model. The debt-based monetary system needs economic growth. The social welfare models we use need growth to pay for them. With decreasing populations you might have a perpetual economic bust where not much improvements and advances will happen. The technology might be there, but it wouldn't be implemented. Fossil fuels might be used, because there's no money to build new alternatives because of the economic slump. Decreasing populations might sound like a good thing, but it might wreck havoc with our great plans to change the society from a carbon based to renewable energy based society.

Has any thought been given how to tackle this issue? What do people think here? — ssu

I don't understand why decrease in economic growth would be a problem if it is caused by population decrease. Doesn't population decrease also imply that we need less goods and services because there are less people?

In fact, in looking for a definition it seems that economic growth is often defined in terms of per capita:

A definition that can be found in so many publications that I don’t know which one to quote is that economic growth is “an increase in the amount of goods and services produced per head of the population over a period of time.”

This would make sense because it seems to me that per capita goods and services is ultimately what we would be interested in. Increase only in GDP doesn't mean much if the population would grow quicker then GDP for instance...

I could see decline in population being a problem for goods and services per capita because you typically get an aging population in the short term, which means less economically active and so less production relatively. Or maybe you get less benefit from economies of scale, as your population is smaller... But other then that, i don't see the necessary connection?

I have no obligation to provide you with sources on demand — counterpunch

No that's right, and I have no obligation to take your word on it.

We need sources that back up these claims Counterpunch... just stating it won't do.

↪ChatteringMonkey

:up: And where one technology (especially an unknown and unproven one) is given the grace of time to develop and improve, I would think the same courtesy should be extended to others; and those which are extant would be favored, I would think. It's my understanding windmills just keep getting better. Compare what they started with to where they are today. Solar panels, likewise. I've even heard you could make roads out of and drive on them. — James Riley

Yeah, energy-efficiency is getting better and better. And there are enough ways to get around the irregular supply of energy, if you have enough of it. Most of it could also be recycled eventually...

The idea seems to be that, solar and wind, and sure if present other renewables, could get us there. No idea why he's so hung up on geothermal energy specifically.

Oh, sorry! You mean like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project — counterpunch

"The first three months of 2019 (January, February and March) showed good progression, topping all previous monthly data, but in April the plant was shut down because the project's sole buyer, NV Energy, terminated the Power Purchase Agreement for failure to produce the contracted power production. The power generated also cost NV Energy about $135 per megawatt-hour, compared with less than $30 per MWh available from a new Nevada photovoltaic solar farm."

They shut it down because other solar technology was cheaper? Anyway, it's not representative for all solar energy, it's a specific technology being tested because it is more effective at storing energy.

Gwent Levels: 'Wales' Amazon in danger from energy developments'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57174252 — counterpunch

This is not about the viability of solar, but about specific placement of it.

None of this supports your claim that solar wouldn't be viable

I was talking about solar energy.

Wind and solar cannot possibly solve climate change. These technologies will never ever even meet current energy demand, less yet provide surplus energy to capture carbon, desalinate, irrigate and recycle. — counterpunch

If you have a sources for these claims, I'm willing to look at it... if not, I disagree.

You're barking up the wrong tree, I'm no left ideologue. I'm just saying the system is broken right now, however you want to look at it.
— ChatteringMonkey

You weigh in by telling me I misunderstand Pikkety - then forgive me for considering you an advocate of his position, and tailoring my remarks accordingly. I cannot comprehend how inequality of wealth is relevant to my proposal - even if I thought it were a problem, which I don't. I'm happy to see someone doing well for themselves - good on 'em! The question is about approaches to climate change, and frankly, the left wing limits to resources approach is factually wrong and requires great suffering to an intangible ideal - and the reply is, "Ah yes, but - if we sustain capitalism, some people will get very rich!" How awful! — counterpunch

I weighed in because you misunderstood Pikkety, which... you know, seems fair game on a philosophy forum.

And it's not only about inequality of wealth, even if you are not left politically, the system isn't working properly, by it's own standards.

Personally I don't think limiting energy is needed to solve this problem long term because renewables, solar in the first place, will be cheap enough to provide the energy... short term it could certainly help to be more energy-conserving though.

But climate change and energy-supply is not the only issue, there will eventually, sooner for some, be problems with other resources that are not renewable.

Either way, a model that relies on perpetual growth isn't sustainable I think, because at some point we will hit a wall of diminishing returns on possible innovations, which is what ultimately drives growth.

And that's only tackling the question of the feasibility, i.e. can or could we do it? The real question - and beyond the scope of this thread - is do we really want this?

You're barking up the wrong tree, I'm no left ideologue. I'm just saying the system is broken right now, however you want to look at it.

Let's take Pikkety's critique, and respond, so what?

"The book argues that the rate of capital return in developed countries is persistently greater than the rate of economic growth, and that this will cause wealth inequality to increase in the future."

Wealth inequality is good. Inequality means that people have been able to develop their talents, and use those talents to create social good, for a profit. Talent is unequally distributed by nature. Equality of opportunity, sure - I'm with Rawl's on equality of opportunity, but denying people the right to profit from their talents, for sake of equality of outcome with the talentless, is profoundly unjust and dysfunctional. — counterpunch

You missed Pikkety's point. The point is that those with capital will only get richer, while others who do produce get poorer in relation. Investors don't develop their talents to create something, they only invest to get more money back. This incentivizes rent-seeking behaviour which makes the economy actually worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

The problem is not with the free-market mechanism as such, markets are good at producing, distributing and pricing goods etc... The problem is that they have 'forgotten' their role and have over the years essentially taken over the state by lobbying and by playing states against eachother after globalization. They have turned a means into the goal.

Seems like BS to me, but I often fall right in with the crowd. :yikes: :blush: — James Riley

A sure sign that you are a philosopher!

yeah it does surprise me that this even needs saying.

I don't understand pride. I'm not saying anything about it, good or bad. I'm looking for insight from others. What good is it? What purpose does it serve? Where did it come from? I have the same concerns about the word "deserve." But that's another thread I reckon. — James Riley

People feel like certain groups, be it nations, sportsteams, parties are part of their identity... that's to say there's no stark difference between them feeling pride in accomplishing something themselves or the group they identify with accomplishing something.

Ok maybe you'd follow this up by asking why one would identify with something other then themselves... at some point the answer will just be because we are that kind of beings, social beings. Individualism is a later ideological invention.

We probably do use a different definition.
— ChatteringMonkey

I'm not going to open the whole systemic racism debate again, but that seems to be our difference. — Isaac

Fair enough, there's no need to go there in this thread. But yes, a lot of what is included under the term systemic racism is I think caused by poverty and its effects. Which I do think is an issue that needs to be resolved to be clear, but I wouldn't call it racism per se. Some of it is.

This is correct for most politicians, at any given time.

But the real question is why there isn't wide spread awareness and powerful movements, or then why the movements that do exist have so far failed. The denialist industry was and still is well funded, but it's not really a given they would win, and they've only really "won" in the US; here in Europe there's not really much climate denialism, but the policies are weak sauce; the "concerned" politicians of Europe never get together and do anything of significance.

I'm honestly not sure; it's not like the information is in secret books that an institution will systematically burn both the books and anyone possessing them. "Truth" seems to have gotten out far worse obstacles. — boethius

People tend to be myopic, it's hard motivate them with something that is gradual and in the longterm. If some accident happens they typically do want to jump into action.

There's the denialists definitely, but not so much in Europe indeed. I also do think green parties, and the left in general, have been bad strategically in selling their ideas to the public... to much finger pointing blame game, and to little constructive motivating vision put forward.

The real problem I think, at least in Europe, is just a general lack of agency in politics which goes a lot further than just the climate change-issue. They seem to have simply forgotten the art of coming together, making a deal and organizing their party and society to execute it... you know what politician are supposed to do. Its all just skin-deep, marketing games to attract voters for the next election it seems.

Although I hope so, and I've been working in the field for 20 years, I am more pessimistic as you may have gotten. — boethius

I'm kind of oscillating back and forth the more I get into it, but I do see reasons to be somewhat optimistic.

It has been dragging for a long time, and for someone invested in the topic as long as you have been I get that this doesn't exactly fill you with optimism, but I think once things start moving, they might move a lot faster than one thinks. I don't think the conversion to renewables is a linear process. A lot of resistance need to be overwon at all fronts initially. But once the technology is sufficiently improved, the prices start dropping, the science is more clear, there are some nasty events clearly linked to global warming (floods in Europe now, heat wave in Canada) etc etc... people start seeing the urgency of it and politicians and business see the writing on the wall. It all kind of reinforces eachother and gets accelerated.

The EU have announced climate measures this week I think, which one would call, for any other issue, 'unprecedented and draconian'.

China's climate commitments seem less ambitious at first glance, they are still building coal plants and didn't commit to start actually reducing emissions until 2030. But, so I've gathered, they would rather undercommit to a target and seem to usually overshoot their targets when it comes to renewables. They seem to be ramping up production of solarpanels on a scale hard to imagine.

And in the US at least Trump is gone, so there's certainly that.

The surest sign that things are moving though, is that even some of the fossil fuel companies seem to be convinced that they need to exit fossil fuels ASAP or perish.

What I'm more pessimistic about is that reduction of emissions does get harder to more you get to zero. We may have the political will to reduce to relatively low emissions, but what do those bottom percentages entail in terms of measures?

And yes, more importantly, it is/may already be to late to avoid some of the consequence of climate change. If those consequences are bad enough, the real danger is that it will disrupt societies to the extend that they can't do it anymore or that it causes all sorts of knee-jerk our-own-people-first kind of reactions.

Thank you for the detailed response, and the examples. This does make a lot of sense, the models are only a rough approximation of an underlying reality afterall. We kindof know the rough ballpark of where, how and when things will go wrong, but there's still a lot of uncertainty about the specifics, and about what the interaction are between the moving parts. Nevertheless better save than sorry, I agree.

These kind of long term, high impact/uncertain probability risks are difficult to sell politically I suppose, because you do know the impact of the policy measures on your constituency typically. Things do seem to be picking up traction now, technologically, economically and politically.

If say a big group conquers a previously relatvily unknown separate small group that happens to be another etnicity and stays to dominate them
— ChatteringMonkey

It's the second part I'm having trouble reconciling. How is 'staying to dominate them' not racism? We still seem to have this picture of a large powerful ethnic group dominating a less powerful ethnic group, but we're wanting to not call that racism for some reason. It seems to tick all the boxes. — Isaac

But if that small group being dominated were ethnically the same as the big group you wouldn't call it racism would you, even though it is essentially the same thing?

That's why I wouldn't call it racism in this particular example, because the domination of a group, be it ethnically the same or different, needn't have anything to do with race or ethnicity... . It's only becomes racism, I would say, if an ideology is created based on ethnicity or race to consolidate or strengthen that domination.

People seem to tend to stick to their cultural and ethnic roots and band together with other people with the same background. Racism can play a reinforcing role therein, but surely it's not the only cause of separation?
— ChatteringMonkey

Maybe, but you introduced 'domination', not just separation. — Isaac

Yes I did, I think a lot follows from separation, from groups.

Politics typically organise around groups, and once politically active those groups tend to strive for the best political deal for their particular group... and then you can get one group getting the upper hand politically (especially if they are a majority) and maybe they end up dominating the other.

All of this, this whole process, needn't have anything to do with racism. Groups of the same ethnicity fight for political power all the time. That's why I wouldn't equate the two, I think it blends two distinct phenomena together.

We probably do use a different definition.

Well, it's never a guarantee, less fast you're going the more likely to survive.

However, in this analogy, the height is not yet guaranteed to be fatal. Right now it's comparable to just likely breaking a bone, nothing too "serious" (if we did everything we could do engineering wise to stop green house emissions, stop burning the Aamazon etc.).

However, although catastrophe is already "baked in", as I've mentioned by any standard of "catastrophe", there's really big variations. There's also natural variations that can work in our favour or not. — boethius

But purely based on those models we're going from on stable state to another right? That's what crossing those tipping points does, even if we stop emmissions, temperature keeps rising. So then where do the variations come in is what I don't understand. Is it just a matter of slightly delaying the increase of temperature then, to buy more time until you get to the next stable state?

If you're going to jump out of a building, it's still better to jump from a lower floor — boethius

Not if the lower floor is insignificant relative the height you are jumping from... dead is dead.

But thank you for the info, I'm trying to get a handle on the science of climate change, the risks and possible consequences etc... without the political biases weaven through, which is not allways easy.

And Isaac, even within one country or political unit all separation between groups need not be caused only by racism. People seem to tend to stick to their cultural and ethnic roots and band together with other people with the same background. Racism can play a reinforcing role therein, but surely it's not the only cause of separation?

I don't think so. If say a big group conquers a previously relatvily unknown separate small group that happens to be another etnicity and stays to dominate them, the ideology would follow the conquest and domination, and not be the cause of it. The reason for conquering or dominating need not be difference in etnicity, but could simply be that they were separate political units.

I could agree with it's an ideology created in support of organised ethnic groups dominating ethnic minorities.

If you literally mean 'is the same' then I don't agree.

Racism is a bit similar I suppose. You tend to see it where larger organised ethnic groups dominate other ethnic minorities. It's not only whites, that's a bit silly, they are not that special... I already pointed out the Bantu dominating Pygmies, but in China with the Han much of the same dynamic is going on... there's plenty of other examples.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_nationalism

The claim that war is not in our nature by pointing to hunter gatherer groups showing little of it, is either a bit of a truism or an argument that doesn't really cut it... I can't decide.

War, almost by definition, presupposes complex organisation, specialisation and societal structure etc... It shouldn't come as a surprise, I think, that we see little of it in small tribal groups because they just didn't and don't have any of the things that would even enable warfare as a possibility.

You can interpretate it either way it seems to me i.e. they only started with warfare under certain conditions, or as soon as the condition were right they started warfare.... and so I don't see how it showes anything regarding human nature.