And it’s not just capitalism, living beyond their means was rather common for many civilizations in the past and some of them paid dearly for it. And look at who ruled the area when the aral sea started to dry up, which fucked the entire area to hell. That wasn’t capitalism, just a short-sighted communist (or “communist”, but that definitely wasn’t capitalism) regime.
It’s definitely possible for humans to not suck in this aspect, but once you get to a certain level of technology and organization it gets pretty hard.
People often conflate capitalism with greed because the core of capitalism depends on people acting selfishly. But other systems can also reward the greedy.
I think it even goes beyond that. e.g. the sowjet union genuinely had issues with food security, but they still fucked up when they dried out the aral sea because they were acting shortsightedly.
It’s true that capitalistic societies don’t do any better for the environment (which was the point of my comment, they’re BOTH bad in this aspect), but at least in capitalist Europe the common people got relative wealth out of it. In the soviet union, people were oppressed by the state, poor, and got their environment destroyed.
We have many decades to go until our common people are as poor as they were in the soviet union (at least in countries that were on the capitalistic side of the iron curtain), though that does seem to be the general trajectory. But soviet poverty went beyond not being wealthy - there was always a very distinct risk that the local store was out of basic necessities, and I really don’t think this is going to be common in most western european countries in this century.
Note how I wrote “most western european countries”. The USA is on a pretty bad trajectory, but there are 27 countries in the EU and only one country in the USA. In fact, the USA are not western european at all.
We had big shortages in toilet paper, disinfectant and cooking oil (at least in Germany) just a few years ago. The capitalism of European countries doesn’t exist in a vacuum either, it influences other countries. People are constantly starving and freezing to death under capitalism.
Point being: capitalism isn’t the way you make it out to be.
I completely agree, other systems have the potential to screw the environment as well. But capitalism is inherently like that and reached environment destroying records. I believe these things are simultaneously true.
And it’s not just capitalism, living beyond their means was rather common for many civilizations in the past and some of them paid dearly for it. And look at who ruled the area when the aral sea started to dry up, which fucked the entire area to hell. That wasn’t capitalism, just a short-sighted communist (or “communist”, but that definitely wasn’t capitalism) regime.
It’s definitely possible for humans to not suck in this aspect, but once you get to a certain level of technology and organization it gets pretty hard.
People often conflate capitalism with greed because the core of capitalism depends on people acting selfishly. But other systems can also reward the greedy.
I think it even goes beyond that. e.g. the sowjet union genuinely had issues with food security, but they still fucked up when they dried out the aral sea because they were acting shortsightedly.
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It’s true that capitalistic societies don’t do any better for the environment (which was the point of my comment, they’re BOTH bad in this aspect), but at least in capitalist Europe the common people got relative wealth out of it. In the soviet union, people were oppressed by the state, poor, and got their environment destroyed.
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We have many decades to go until our common people are as poor as they were in the soviet union (at least in countries that were on the capitalistic side of the iron curtain), though that does seem to be the general trajectory. But soviet poverty went beyond not being wealthy - there was always a very distinct risk that the local store was out of basic necessities, and I really don’t think this is going to be common in most western european countries in this century.
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Note how I wrote “most western european countries”. The USA is on a pretty bad trajectory, but there are 27 countries in the EU and only one country in the USA. In fact, the USA are not western european at all.
We had big shortages in toilet paper, disinfectant and cooking oil (at least in Germany) just a few years ago. The capitalism of European countries doesn’t exist in a vacuum either, it influences other countries. People are constantly starving and freezing to death under capitalism.
Point being: capitalism isn’t the way you make it out to be.
There are a lot of people who do believe that these systems could do no wrong or repeat the narcissist’s prayer to justify any wrong doing.
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I completely agree, other systems have the potential to screw the environment as well. But capitalism is inherently like that and reached environment destroying records. I believe these things are simultaneously true.