> We could easily cut our use of fossil fuels if we weren't trying to balance that with an arbitrary GDP growth target. We could stop incentivizing people and companies to consume disposable products. We could stop subsidizing massive industrial farms and instead focus on eating locally and growing some of your own food.
Then it's the small task of changing the economic model of the entire developed (and less developed, and exploited) world. The model that all of the richest and most powerful people depend on.
The economic model is going to change one way or another. A model designed around perpetual growth will always fail, and there are already plenty of cracks showing.
A major economic change sounds impossible, but we've done it in the US at least three times in the last century.
Creating the Federal Reserve was a fundamental change. Confiscating gold then pegging the US dollar to a gold-backed value was a fundamental change. Getting rid of the gold standard and going full fiat sad a fundamental change.
The economic model, monetary policy, and incentives of each system were completely different. We may not have renamed the currency or the country, but that doesn't change the fact that those were major economic shifts.
And just on cue there it is: “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of Capitalism”, variously attributed to Frederic Jameson and Mark Fisher (amongst others).
There are issues with the quote, and Communist countries do pollute, but if the argument is (as avgcorrection stated):
> Then it's the small task of changing the economic model of the entire developed (and less developed, and exploited) world. The model that all of the richest and most powerful people depend on.
Then yes, you're talking specifically about Capitalism at this point; avgcorrection is saying that we can't make this change because it conflicts with Capitalism.
;) Unless you're trying to imply that Communism is the driving economic force behind the entire developed world, which I'm going to guess is not something you believe.
I do think it's reasonable to ask whether the problem of human exploitation and the tendency for entrenched powers to cement their own power at the expense of the world is perhaps broader than one economic system and whether that harmful instinct might show up in multiple places and systems beyond only Capitalism. One could very reasonably argue (and I would argue) that Capitalism showcases just one manifestation of a human instinct that corrupts multiple economic systems including Communism.
But avgcorrection's criticism (as far as I can tell) was that we can't shift off of fossil fuels because that shift is incompatible with the driving economic model of our time: Capitalism. So I don't think the quote is inappropriate. It's easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the system avgcorrection is referencing (Capitalism) even temporarily bending in order to prevent that end. Whatever solution is proposed is only likely to be adopted if it doesn't conflict with Capitalist ends because Capitalism is fully willing to look directly at an incoming catastrophe, shrug its shoulders, and do nothing if the solution would decrease immediate profits.
It's got nothing to do with imagination or ideology and everything to do with the material reality that the the most powerful forces that the world has ever seen will crush you if you try to change the existing system.
Sure, but that just sounds like you're agreeing with qubex?
Not sure if there's something I'm missing here, but I don't see a contradiction between "the most powerful forces the world has ever seen will crush you if you change the current system" and "it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of Capitalism." It sounds like you're both saying the same thing.
Again, I think it's reasonable to ask whether other economic systems if they were dominant would act the same way -- but... I mean, we are talking about Capitalism, that is the most dominant and most powerful economic system in the entire world and the status quo that the most powerful forces in the world see as the default system to preserve. And both you and qubex are saying that changing that system appears to be impossible even when faced with a global human catastrophe.
It’s not an observation about communism-vs-capitalism (or at least that’s not how I understand it): it’s about how we’re collectively as a society so fixated upon the inevitability of property rights and capitalism and return on investment and the primacy of profit that we cannot contemplate that we may need to abandon all these precepts in order to avert climatic disaster (or some other existential threat).
And how exactly would introducing communism avert climate disaster? How did the environment fare in Soviet. Which country is the largest CO2 emitter in the world? Do you even consider what you're writing before you post it?
If someone says "end of capitalism" and this is assumed to be "about communist countries", because it's binary, what else is there? Then this is precisely the dangerous failure of imagination being pointed to.
Then it's the small task of changing the economic model of the entire developed (and less developed, and exploited) world. The model that all of the richest and most powerful people depend on.